by the Skills Accelerator team
Many employees struggle to continually learn new skills, and many employers struggle to support them. So how can we, as educators, support the people and industries hit hardest by Covid-19 to overcome this struggle, become effective lifelong learners, and continue their recovery?
Employers value human skills
At Pearson, we’ve been researching the skills people need to stay employable in the face of change, and how to support those skills, to inform the development of Pearson Skills Accelerator.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the skills that allow people to weather change are the so-called human skills. These include self-management, communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking, all of which are hard to automate, making employees who can demonstrate them all the more valuable.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities found that these skills were influential in hiring decisions, and Pearson’s Future of skills: employment in 2030 report predicted an increasing demand for them over the next decade. They are also lacking in the current workforce: the UK Employer Skills Survey has found that a substantial proportion of skill-shortage vacancies can be attributed to applicants lacking skills like time management, critical thinking or customer handling.
Skills like these are best learned by doing: that is, through experiential learning. Compared to simply studying theory in class, experiential learning has been shown to promote deeper learning and to help motivate the learner.
It’s also the kind of learning today’s employers want to see. Research by Pearson and others show that employers value real-world experience over qualifications, especially in early career recruitment.
From research to real world
So far, so theoretical. What would learning look like in practice for modern employees, if it was based on this research?
It would need to be structured to promote experiential learning. David Kolb’s influential and research-based experiential learning model (published in his 1984 book Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development) provides inspiration for how to enact this type of learning. Kolb highlights the importance of concrete learning experiences followed by practical application and opportunities for reflection. These practical applications can occur in the classroom with simulated examples or in authentic, real world activities (which is more specifically referred to as “situated learning”).
So, in this model of learning, learners start by reading theory, as in traditional models. They are then given options to engage with the theory in the form of grounded, real-life examples. Next, they work with a mentor – someone a few years more advanced in the same profession – to identify opportunities to apply their learning in a workplace or other real-world situation (situated learning). The mentor then provides specific, actionable feedback; and the learner reflects, not just on what they’ve learned, but on how they could demonstrate their skill development – in an interview, for example, or to a manager responsible for their development. Being paired with a mentor who has experience in the profession means learners are getting a work-like experience. Learners get to apply skills in practice, experience authentic tasks, and get the benefit of a mentor already using these skills in the given profession. This gives the learner a sense of “what it’s like to work in that industry”.
Overall, the result is a course that’s only about 25% traditional learning, and 75% applying that learning.
Throughout this process, the course would need to explicitly communicate to learners why they are learning each new thing and how to apply it. This is because lifelong learning, itself, is a skillset that must be learned and practised, just like the knowledge and core competencies of a profession.
Among other things, lifelong learning requires a growth mindset (believing that you can improve and actively seeking opportunities to do so) and an intentional learning approach (being conscious of what you want to gain from each learning opportunity).
By practising thinking consciously about what they’re learning, why, and how, learners will begin to develop this all-important mindset.
Practising what we preach
We developed Pearson Skills Accelerator to be grounded in experiential learning theory, that directly puts these principles into practice. Engagement with pilot learners was very positive: they were surprised by the courses’ emphasis on applying skills over learning theory, and told us it compared favourably to previous experiences of online learning.
But like the research suggests, it was important to apply what we learned in a real-world setting. So for the pilot stage, we collaborated with a select group of global companies to give some of their staff the opportunity to build the core skills we identify in the article and to build up the experiential aspects of their resume. This experience helped less experienced staff build skills more quickly, improve the quality of work deliverables and identify future career paths.
The mentorship component of this model of learning offers experienced staff the opportunity to help their colleagues while learning to give rich feedback – an important skill for anyone progressing towards management. And the emphasis on developing skills we know employers value could improve outcomes for staff, managers and the wider business.