Aligning program goals and learning outcomes with in-demand industry skills can be effectively integrated throughout design and development to create authentic learning and assessment experiences for students. Learn how to leverage evidence-based practices to integrate in-demand industry skills for designing authentic and meaningful learning experiences for online learners.
Why should we make the paradigm shift in higher education to effectively prepare our learners for the workplace? As instructional designers, assessment developers, instructional technologists, and faculty, our role is to design instruction to ensure learner success, both personally and professionally. As we prepare our learners for the real-world, it is our role to design relevant and authentic learning experiences that prepare learners to enter the workplace with the ability to demonstrate in-demand personal and professional skills.
High-demand industry skills and academic requirements inform practice. To meet the emerging needs for learning and upskilling of diversified learners, Western Governors University is designing and delivering skill-based courseware, using a modularized approach with distributed assessment strategies, to effectively prepare students for success. This development model provides learners the choice and flexibility to attain the knowledge and skills to flexibly meet their personal and professional goals. By aligning and leveraging high-demand industry skills to learning outcomes and academic standards, learners actively engage in the educational opportunities they desire in an authentic and meaningful learning environment. This model provides learners with skills-based learning experiences facilitate the ability to build, refresh, and update skills on-demand throughout their careers.
This education session will present attendees with a rich representation of knowledge-in-practice as a leading competency based institution is evolving their academic model and skills-based taxonomy to integrate high-demand industry skills with academic offerings. Participants will take away evidence-based practices and theoretically proven strategies to design, develop, and deliver academic skills-based courseware to prepare learners for their personal and professional future.
As an instructional designer, content developer, or faculty in in higher education, there is a need to leverage in-demand industry skills with learning outcomes to meet the demands of learners. At the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Align instructional design theories and models with in-demand industry skills.
- Describe modular design and address the impact on student learning.
- Examine a rigorous design cases use that offers a rich representation of knowledge-in-practice.
- Apply best practices of asynchronous environments grounded in authentic skills.
- Review evidence of effectiveness for asynchronous, online, higher education courseware.
- Outline interdisciplinary approaches to online course design using a skills-based model and modular design approaches.
- Plan for best practices for designing authentic online learning experiences using in-demand industry skills.
The session will positively contribute to the OLC Accelerate conference and the field as it will provide authentic, data-driven examples of the successful design, development, and implementation of skills-driven online course development following the modular design approach, while leveraging data and working with cross-functional academic teams and leadership. Creating meaningful and authentic learning experiences, grounded in theory and instructional design best-practices, is a current focus in online course design. The relevance of this session is demonstrated by the current design and delivery of modularized courweare influenced by in-demand industry skills. Participants will leave the session with practical evidence-based practices and strategies to begin identifying how they can incorporate modular design approaches and leverage high-demand industry skills with course design. This knowledge aids in the contribution of strategic initiatives to make education and program offerings more meaningful and relevant to current and future learners.
Participants will be actively engaged throughout the duration of the presentation by use of answering targeted questions, responding to live polls, and posting responses that will trigger short discussion. The goal is to have an interactive education session in which the presenters can adapt the presentation based on the participants and their needs. Kahoot, an online survey tool, will be used in which participants participate by use of any device with access to the internet. There will also be active discussion with the audience in order to accommodate those who do not participate via the interactive presentation. At the end of the session, participants will be provided with a link/QR code that will provide them access to examples and information sheets based on the key points of the presentation.