Re-Thinking how California Community Colleges help build the Workforce

Recently, the California Community College system started an initiative to create a new online college focused on offering competency based education for certificates that meet working adult's needs and dreams.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley is chancellor for the California Community
Colleges. He recently

The workforce is changing dramatically, and there's a
widespread recognition that new skills — and new ways of teaching adults those
skills — are needed and needed fast. In California, the state's 114 community
colleges are facing the challenge of offering the credentials, classes and
training that will help workers choose a career or adapt to a new one. The system right now can't serve all of these workers. But
there's a new idea that could come to the rescue: Create a new, online
community college for people in the workforce who've been shut out of higher
education.

Governor Brown is a huge proponent of this idea and has proposed $100 million in startup funding for a new online college focused on the delivery of competency based education certificates and degrees. Why does the Chancellor feel they need a new institution to do this, to better serve Californians who want to grow and thrive?

These are individuals who cannot drop everything they're doing or come to our colleges and spend two to three years getting a degree or credential. They need short-term job skills in order to survive.... These short-term credentials would take advantage of a worker's prior learning, folks who've been in the workforce for a long time and have lots of experience. We would give them a short burst of job skills that employers would honor. This is not something that our community colleges currently focus on.

We agree this is a key need, we have partners around the U.S. focused on it. They are building competency based programs, self paced learning opportunities (self-paced but fully supported by faculty and staff), re-imagined work-force certificates, and new types of short courses specifically designed for jobs and careers. Why is this needed beyond the traditional way that Online Education is currently offered? 

...in this online model, an individual would be able to enroll and begin classes anytime of the month rather than waiting for the traditional academic semester to begin.....

Can we take advantage of existing resources? The Chancellor believes we can. Our partners already do; through the use of Strut Learning technology that was built for the task, and the Strut Learning demonstrated expertise behind the technology

Thousands of faculty are already doing content development and working with employers to define the skills necessary which would be part of the curriculum.

Chancellor Oakley is describing Competency Based Education. This is what we do at Strut Learning. The Chancellor also addressed both financial aid issues and the interviewer's more "basic concern that online instruction does not work for everyone."

These are critical challenges that must be addressed. You can do this faster with solutions already created to help you answer these precise questions. We created a technology platform, used and tested for over three years that responds to all these concerns. 

•  We provide our partners the tools needed to meet financial aid requirements. 

•  More importantly, we provide our partners with the tools, process, and data required to expertly support ALL their students with  continual and real time support and help.

• And we help our partners manage this total student support. 

This is not easy to do in a model where you offer total flexibility and the most personalized education to every student.

The time is now for all colleges to be this bold. Chancellor Oakey concludes,

This proposal is something new, so there's a
level of fear and trepidation.. But consider the fear of working adults who can't easily access our traditional system. Isn't it incumbent upon us to take on a little risk on their behalf?

‍

About Strut Learning: 

Founded in 2014 Strut offers proven, award-winning services and products that enable clients to innovate, transform and grow enrollments. Flexible, complete, high-quality GE, AA, BBA, MAOL accredited degree programs and a next-generation technology ecosystem radically reduce cost, complexity and time to market. Strut is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) learning company focused on enrollment growth. Our work redefines student support, retention and success required to attract techno-savvy millennial and generation-X students and grow. What’s a Strut? In short, we combine out of the box best in class LMS technology with an internal OPM model that empowers colleges and universities to efficiently deploy popular, high-quality online and hybrid programs in under 100 days; proven to grow enrollments. Strut invested $110M in a world-class technology platform designed to provide institutions with the power to rapidly (under 100 days) deploy a disruptive technology ecosystem and complete quality degree self-paced programs (GE, AA, BBA, BSIT, MAOL). Strut’s award-winning technology ecosystem is already in use at leading public and private institutions. Unlike others, who leverage third-party vendors to assemble a viable ecosystem - Strut delivers a proven and complete platform - able to effectively and efficiently provide instruction at scale. To help our partners modernize and optimize online offerings, we offer expert instructional planning and design services. Learn more about Strut Learning’s award-winning technologies and services by visiting our website. www.strutlearning.com

‍