In Pursuit of 'Job Ready' Graduates

While many students pursue post-secondary education as a way to advance their employment prospects, research shows that a post-secondary degree falls short of this goal far too often. "While policymakers typically think of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs as a sure pathway to college-level employment and high wages, the reality is more nuanced" ("Talent Disrupted" Executive Summary, 2024, p. 2). Many employers are reluctant to hire recent graduates, preferring instead to hire applicants with more experience in the workforce. While the rational varies, employers say recent graduates often cannot handle their workload and tend to struggle with professional behavior, including basics like eye contact (Intelligent, 2023).

Part of the problem may be the way that we approach college coursework, typically focusing more on students' knowledge than their behavior and their resilience in the face of uncertainty. Considering the question of "Why Aren't College Grads 'Job-Ready'?," Casey (2024) argued: "If we’re selling ourselves as equipping students to thrive in the marketplace, then we must teach relevant norms" (para. 18).  This starts with classroom activities and assignments.  Individual performance and demonstration of knowledge are not enough; we need to challenge students to fully engage in a more dynamic learning environment and embrace their potential for problem solving.

Among potential solutions, opportunistic collaboration stands out for its ability to prepare students for workplace success.  Opportunistic collaboration involves an emergent process, where groups form, break up, and recombine as needed to complete a complex task (e.g., a large project with a community partner). "Compared with traditional lecture, fixed teams, and interacting teams, opportunistic collaboration is the most effective structure in teaching team learning through fostering communication, support, and learning networks" (Love et al., 2022, p. 396).  While a course instructor still has a role to play in facilitating some of the structure, the approach requires fluidity based on the needs of the task and the opportunities the students identify for improved collaboration.  When students are engaged in "flexible collaboration centering around ideas and free collaboration structures," they are able to overcome conventional hindrances to problem solving (Chen & Zhang, 2024, p. 1).  Even among elementary students, promoting opportunistic collaboration in the classroom results in more collective responsibility and knowledge advancement, aligning closely with the organic and distributed social structures found in workplace environments (Hong, 2011; Zhang et al., 2009). Whether in the classroom or the workplace, the collaborative capacity is determined by the attention to collaborative work, collaborative relationships, and collaborative behaviors (Scott & Manning, 2022).  

woman placing sticky notes on wall while other watch


How might we better encourage students and recognize them for their investment in opportunistic collaboration?  The AWT4CL Employability Skill Badges may be helpful.  Educators who want to explore this resource are encouraged to start with the Welcome Module.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Agriculture Peer Group Formation at the Virginia Community College System

Image
by Adam O'Neal -- Based on input from a cohort of agriculture faculty from around Virginia, an Agriculture and Food Systems Peer Group has been constituted by the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) to serve the needs of agriculture program faculty around the Commonwealth of Virginia. Peer groups have existed for other disciplines for some time, but none for this area of study until now. From the shared experiences of the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL) cohort members and other agriculture faculty, we understand that collaboration at professional levels has proven challenging. This peer group promises potential benefits to agriculture faculty in unraveling professional challenges and related classroom and teaching concerns. Agriculture is the largest private industry in Virginia, with over 43,000 farms contributing to $82.3B a year in economic impact (Virginia Farm Bureau, n.d.). Though a number of Virginia Community College System ( V
Read more

Integrating Employability Skills in a Traditional Ag Classroom through Learning Badges

Image
by Dr. Mallory White -- To weave workforce readiness skills into a traditional agriculture classroom can be a little challenging. My first-year animal science class tackled four of the twelve AWT4CL employability learning/digital badges. This blog discusses how we did it, challenges and possible lessons for the instructor and the student, and overall perception of the digital badges.  How We Did It   First, I set aside one lab period to discuss the project and complete many of the in-class activities. This required me to combine two traditionally separate, short labs into one to free up a week, but I was determined to make room for important employability content . The activities from each digital badge created by the badge authors are short and effective, but I wanted the students to do more in order to earn a badge. As an instructor, it can be difficult to come up with new, creative activities in the limited time we have. As I was rushing to come up with additional activities and
Read more

Gamification or “Jobification” – Applying Game Design Approaches as a Bridge to Workforce Skills

Image
  by Celeste Carmichael -- Gamification is a known program design approach used to provide motivation for students and participants to complete tasks - offering visual, virtual, and sometimes tangible rewards and validation of learning. In recent years, and particularly with the broader adoption of e-learning and hybrid work in higher education, experimentation and documentation of gamification as a part of classroom pedagogy has grown .  Beyond content transfer, can this same strategy be used to connect relevant past experiences for students to current classroom learning? Some faculty from the Virginia Community College System involved in the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL) are applying these approaches to help students to bridge informal and formal learning experiences, connecting the dots on experiences that can translate to valuable workforce attributes. The AWT4CL cohort members have noted that digital badges used in this way can help studen
Read more