At the Feb. 25 “Engaging Industry and Students in Workforce Education Partnerships” webinar (see video below), we began the conversation about how community colleges and industry can collaboratively transform workforce education in the U.S. We hope to continue the conversation here and invite you to contribute to our research by entering your ideas below about workforce education innovation—how to make it happen, what barriers need to be addressed, and examples of those who are making a difference and leading the way. Our research team plans to assemble these ideas into a white paper that will be published here later this spring.
Read about this research
Get Involved in Our Conversation
- How can we foster partnerships between community colleges and industry?
- How can we encourage greater engagement of students in middle-skill STEM fields?
- What are some of the innovative directions that can support workforce training?
Webinar Video
See timestamps below for a guide to content.
Timestamps
- 00:06:15 Study Background Overview
- 00:09:30 Partnership Study Overview
- 00:23:09 Instructional Study Overview
- 00:42:20 Panelist Intro
- 00:47:38 Panelist Intro, resumed
- 00:52:34 Question 1: Many colleges are focused on completion and offering credentials that can stack to a degree. But both students and industry partners want to focus on jobs and reducing the time in school. What can be done to navigate these tensions to lead to a better system for upgrading the U.S. workforce? How can we use the ideas we have discussed today about engaging industry and engaging students?
- 0:59:16 Question 2: We have said that partnership capital is a good thing and that workforce educators should strive to achieve it. But colleges want to assure the broadest level of preparation for an educated workforce. Industry partners have historically been perceived as focused narrowly on their own contract training needs. Based on these tensions, what are the promising directions for innovation and improvement in the workforce education system?
- 1:09:51 Audience Questions
- 1:27:00 Final slide with blog link info