
There’s a fascinating new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the Future of Work. It claims that the world changed overnight, technology will continue to evolve and dominate, and the skills society needs from today’s workers need to be addressed. Soon. So, what skills are needed? And can college offer the next generation of workers access to learning them? WEF has collected answers from 1,000 employers across 22 different industry clusters and 55 economies. Here’s what the respondents want:
“Skills like analytical thinking (70%), resilience (66%), and creative thinking (64%) top the list of core abilities for 2025. By 2030, the emphasis will shift even more toward AI and big data proficiency (85%), technological literacy (76%), and curiosity-driven lifelong learning (79%). This shift underscores the critical role of technology and adaptability in future workplaces.” (p6)
Can we teach these skills in the timeframe required? We are not ready, and let me go out on a limb and say it is not all our fault. Instead of innovating for the Digital Age, we’ve been busy struggling with a tsunami of challenges: declining enrollment, rising student debt, political interference, loss of societal support, faculty burnout, shameful adjunct labor practices, and an increasingly unsustainable business model given all the above. OK, some of it is our fault.
But perhaps this is because our students’ challenges seem even more insurmountable: poor preparation, digital ADD, mental health issues, and financial burdens that are causing students (and parents) to question the costs and value of pursuing a degree. This is causing our faculty to despair and our institutional leaders to take cover.
The irony is that using the same technological advancements we’re being asked to respond to, the Academy could, if we were willing to change, look there for solutions. Analytics has been around and used thoughtfully in other industries for strategic decision-making since the 1960s. We could have started there. GenAI took the world by storm more than two years ago (ChatGPT, Nov 2022), and we chose resistance, wringing our hands and guarding our rusty gates. What if we showed good faith and a willingness to deliver on our promise to educate learners by using these tools for education? What if we used GenAI to respond to the increasing call for relevance and lower cost? Places to start:
instructional materials (zero cost via outrageously priced textbooks and fees)
evaluation, assessment, and feedback (rich, personalized experience)
faculty training (leveraging LLMs for rapid and innovative course design, scale, and use of time)
AI chatbots in student support and tutoring (anytime, all-the-time, individualized, specific)
We look more deeply at HE’s leadership challenges in our work at Strategic Initiatives, but for this post, let’s focus on its biggest problem across institution type, size, and mission: the outdated GenEd/lower division experience, where we lose ~23% the first year, and another ~10% in the sophomore year. What if we could meet each student where they are, when they need support? AND we taught them with active, engaged, individualized instruction? What if student services could target support where needed with analytics and AI instead of offering foosball tables, climbing walls, buckshot outreach, and unread emails? What if we could identify struggling students before midterms? We can, but we don’t.
Using Generative AI, here are some ideas on how the skills identified by the WEF could be integrated into the GenEd experience so that lower division requirements become institution-wide learning outcomes and not eclectic hurdles to be jumped before declaring a major.
Dynamic Student Support Services
Make real-time student data available (LMS data, attendance, financial standing, clubs, assignments)
Generate early warning flags before students reach crisis points
Create personalized intervention recommendations based on specific risk factors
Create scaffolded follow-up sequences for advisors
Analyze student needs and automatically suggest relevant support services
Identify patterns of successful interventions for specific populations
First-Year Experience/Intro Courses:
Replace traditional, outdated "how to study" modules with challenge-based that enhance digital skills, persistence, collaboration, and diverse approaches to learning outcomes
Allow students to tackle increasingly complex problems with personalized support and feedback
Build structured, dynamic feedback into key assignments
Provide metacognitive prompts regarding their choices and process
Include a feedback loop that allows for reflection and responses to criticism
Allows students to document their revision strategies and provide in-time feedback
Quantitative Reasoning Requirements:
Present problems with incomplete information, requiring students to be agile in their problem-solving
Allow projects to “fail”, be revised, be scaffolded for building persistence and flexibility
Include regular self-assessment of anxiety, confusion, confidence, achievement
Build reflection practice on chosen problem-solving strategies and when each works best
Social Science Requirements:
Use current events in case studies, requiring students to update their analyses as situations evolve
Have students track their own biases and assumptions over the semester
Include group projects where roles rotate, and skilled feedback is expected
Natural Science Requirements:
Design lab experiments with intentional "failures" that require resilient responses
Include projects where hypotheses must be constructed, tested, and revised
Require lab notebooks that include personal reflection and self-awareness
Each GenEd course should:
Focus on explicit learning outcomes and student reflection on how they were achieved
Name resilience, analytical thinking, and self-awareness in the syllabus as core competencies and enumerate where these were developed
Give students repeated opportunities to demonstrate/fail/revise in developing these skills
Provide regular feedback on students' efforts and growth
Create opportunities for students to track and reflect on their own development
By focusing on across-the-curriculum core competencies like resilience, analytical thinking, creativity, and self-awareness, and by providing students with opportunities for challenge-based learning and personalized feedback, institutions can create a more cost-effective, engaging, and relevant learning experience that prepares students to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
It's time for all of us to embrace the potential of AI and start exploring how we can use these technologies to improve institutional decision-making, affordability, and student outcomes that meet the needs of the workforce of the future.
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