10 provocative questions: College and career readiness in the digital age
As we have been discussing college and career readiness during this monumental shift toward digital learning in a series of blog posts, I wanted to take time to address some thought-provoking questions I sometimes receive from people I meet at education industry events. Listen to my recorded responses that I have tried to keep within two minutes in length. If you have further questions, post them below in the comments section, or join us for one of our upcoming webinars, which are also listed below in more detail.
1. How young is too young to be thinking about college and career readiness?
2. What’s so special about digital learning when it comes to college and career readiness?
3. College readiness AND career readiness: Can we have both?
4. “Career-ready” graduates in today’s economy: Can reality meet expectations?
5. How do we reconcile college readiness with the debilitating cost of college?
6. The swipe-right attention span of Generation Z: Liability or strength?
7. Are today’s kids ready to create tomorrow’s “next big thing”?
8. How do we reconcile career readiness with trends in globalization, artificial intelligence, and robots?
9. The radical future of personalized learning: What role will teachers play?
10. What about the OTHER critical role of education in a democracy: The development of engaged and informed citizens?
To examine these and other topics in more depth we have created a series of webinars in April and May. Please join us, they are free.
- Empowering our students to begin envisioning their futures long before high school. By leveraging digital learning and technology in the classroom for K-8, we open up a world of exploration that not only inspires smart self-advocacy but adds urgency and relevance to the core skills we want our kids to master. We discuss this topic further in the webinar, The Future Starts Now: How Digital Learning Can Help Your K-8 School Address College & Career Readiness.
- Remixing “college readiness” and “career readiness” to give every one of our students real options for success after high school. That might mean finding new ways to combine digital leap-frogging (from online dual enrollment to coding certifications) with real-world experiences (like in-person apprenticeships and Makerspaces) for a pragmatically future-focused take on blended learning. View the recorded webinar, Accelerating College & Career Readiness in Your High School: Five Ways to Use Digital Learning to Prime Your Students’ Futures.
- Expanding our vision of “school” to imagine personalized learning pathways that rebundle the best of the community and the classroom, the physically present and the digitally accessed. For some students around the country, that future vision is a reality today. Hear about their experiences in our student voices webinar, My Learning Is “Rebundled” and My Future Is Bright: Students Talk About How They’re Blazing Their Own New Routes to College & Career Readiness.
View our Shift to Digital infographic to see some great questions to consider and indicators of success as you make this transition.
About the Author
Mickey Revenaugh
Mickey Revenaugh is a co-founder of Connections Education, the director of New School Models for Pearson Global Schools, and board chair of iNACOL, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning. Connect with her on Twitter at @mickeyrevenaugh and check out further thoughts on learning pathways for “Generation DIY” at http://gettingsmart.com/categories/blog-series/gendiy/.
