Addressing Skills Gaps

Today's learner requires a higher education system that is adaptive, responsive, individualized, and affordable. As learners consider personal and professional goals, and what skills they need to succeed in the current job market, they have also been forced to navigate tremendous stressors and change due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Higher education institutions must recognize that providing education to the emerging workforce requires flexibility to help meet the needs of today's students. This is especially important as the student and employer educational foci have shifted to an increased emphasis on skills mastery and learning outcome achievement.

To address current educational and workforce challenges, higher education institutions must embrace innovative strategies to deliver education and be purposeful in connecting education content with the relevant competencies required in the job market. Alternative credentials align targeted education with the skill development needed to enhance workforce marketability and employment options. As many prospective students question the value of higher education, have concerns about rising tuition costs and uncertainty about what preparation is required to obtain optimal employment, flexible credentials have emerged as critical components in post-secondary education decision making.

Alternative credentials serve as a responsive and robust method to meet an immediate educational need (Fain, 2020). Alternative credentials allow individuals to receive targeted education to aid in skill cultivation. These short bursts of learning offer greater accessibility in response to the dynamic and evolving needs of the learner (ICDE, 2019). Individuals can actively select and target content that is most desired and help them reach their professional goals. Additionally, when learners can combine credentials with degrees and certification, it increases their marketability and provides greater evidence of content mastery. This leads to an employee who is better prepared and more readily able to meet immediate job demands as they transition into the workforce.

Traditional education and workforce preparation have long attempted to close alignment gaps through internships. Although valuable, internships are often inaccessible or underutilized. Recent data from an Inside Higher Ed Student Voice survey identified that only 22 percent of students participated in a virtual or in-person internship in the last year (Busteed, 2021). The lack of internship experience creates a significant barrier for workplace readiness as individuals go without the opportunity to demonstrate the rich content application that occurs with long-term project work (Busteed, 2021). Higher education institutions must recognize the need for creative strategies to enhance skill-building and better prepare students to meet workforce demand. In combination with the use of alternative credentials, the development of experiential learning opportunities is an innovative method to respond to current workforce needs.

To address this changing environment in the nursing and health professions field, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) developed a non-credit-bearing online asynchronous experiential learning model in partnership with Career Services in 2018. This learning model is called the HEaRT, which stands for Higher Education and Real-World Training. 

An integral part of the model is that global learners work in groups to collaborate with employer partners to solve current workplace problems needing a solution, offering “just in time” learning experiences. Participants learn important skills throughout the process, including critical thinking, professional communication, and the use of evidence to support a position. The HEaRT experience comprises six unique challenges leading up to a stackable credential. Participation in this opportunity is free of cost and optional to learners. Learners demonstrate workforce readiness, and digital badges are awarded after each challenge based on the mastery of identified competencies. These badges can then be shared on social media sites, such as LinkedIn or with potential employers through the use of a digital backpack. Learners can immediately showcase their skills, rather than having to wait until degree obtainment. Students who successfully complete all six HEaRT challenges earn the credential “Graduate Healthcare Administration Professional I” and are awarded a summit badge.  If students are interested in acquiring graduate credit for these experiences, they can obtain prior learning experience (PLA) using stackable badging for a small fee. This results in significant savings for the student. 

"Higher education institutions must embrace innovative strategies to deliver education and be purposeful in connecting education content with the relevant competencies required in the job market."

Within each badge, skills are identified and linked to EMSI skills to "…create a common language between people, education, and employers—groups that have historically struggled to communicate," said Andrew Crapuchettes, Emsi CEO (as cited in Doyle, 2019). "Employers want to know what skills to require in their job postings. Educators want to know what skills to teach in their programs. And job seekers want to know what skills to learn so they can succeed in the workforce" (as cited in Doyle, 2019). This is helpful to the learners as they explore their career options and identify skills that are aligned in positions of most significant interest. Within the digital badge, individual skills provide linkage to the skill definition and job posting data/trends related to that skill. Students are also able to see related skills. The credential model has been well received by students, with 89 percent responding that they would recommend the experience to peers on the post-challenge survey. The model's success has led to adaptation to support additional learners and to offer potential solutions to internship and skills gaps.

In 2021, another HEaRT opportunity was developed for undergraduate students called "HEaRT Solutions Lab (HSL)", a project-based opportunity in which students collaborate to address an employer problem of interest to them. The lab offers a condensed timeframe for project work experience yet still allows students the opportunity to collaborate and work in small project teams to address real-world problems. Successful conclusion of the experience and project delivery results in the award of an Experiential Learning Badge. After earning three badges, students are eligible to obtain undergraduate credit for these experiences by obtaining PLA credit using the stackable badging for a small fee. 

To date, over 1800 students have been served by this innovative model meeting the needs of today's employers. Alternative credentials allow institutions to rapidly address arising workforce needs by providing relevant, timely content.