Employee needs versus business needs

Online learning is among the most explosive growth areas in higher education today, with almost 11 percent of college students in 2008 enrolled online – a number expected to rise to 18 percent by 2013, according to the Eduventures Online Higher Education Learning Collaborative.

“Online education is convenient and flexible for working adults, so it gives our employees an opportunity to rethink going back to school to further their careers or learn new skills.”
-Bobby Kochakkan

But not all online education experiences are created equal, especially when it comes to balancing the changing marketplace demands of today’s employers with the professional needs of today’s career-oriented students, many of whom are juggling work and family.

At Colorado Technical University, we recognized this higher education balancing act in 2004 when we created our online campus. We kept hearing from employers, including HR executives, that they wanted professionals who could immediately come into their organization and write a computer program, develop a marketing plan, conduct a competitive analysis, prepare a financial spreadsheet, or manage other job-specific duties quickly and effectively. 

At the same time, our students demanded to learn concrete skills to help them advance in their careers or change professions. They wanted to know how to apply what they have learnt today to their career tomorrow and they wanted to feel motivated to learn in meaningful ways that fit their busy lives.  

The solution: we developed a proprietary Professional Learning Model that’s all about learning how you work and working how you learn. This model was founded on the belief that students achieve more by working on real-world projects, and thereby gain practical knowledge employers desire.

Here’s how it works. Each of our online classes at CTU starts with a real-world scenario – much like supervisors might come to their employees with an actual assignment. They expect their employees to research the situation, figure out a solution, and/or seek input from others.

For example, our master of science in management degree with a concentration in homeland security includes an online course on terrorism that goes beyond theories and history. Coursework includes virtual simulations such as assessing a bomb threat in a foreign country. Students review a multi-media street scene with parked cars, street vendors, people looking out windows, and mothers pushing baby carriages on sidewalks. The students must identify and prioritize the threats they see to develop a risk mitigation plan. It’s a very real threat assessment – something they would need to do in a homeland security career.

In fact, our advanced homeland security degrees were created in consultation with a national advisory board of experienced military, federal and local homeland security professionals, including a Coast Guard admiral and led by a former advisor to the Israeli cabinet. The coursework is also based on the homeland security curriculum developed by the US Naval Postgraduate School.

This hands-on involvement and endorsement from professionals in the field ensure our courses are relevant to what’s happening in today’s careers. Through the Professional Learning Model, each CTU program has an advisory board comprised of carefully selected professionals in that industry area – whether it’s chief information officers for our IT degrees or business executives for our MBA degrees. Advisory boards meet at least once a year to review curricula and suggest updates based on what they’re seeing or predicting for their industries. In addition, many instructors who teach our courses are working professionals.

The Professional Learning Model can give employers confidence that our online education and traditional campus courses address their ever-changing business environment and their people’s professional development goals. For students, the model gives them practical knowledge in an online virtual campus environment, where course material is supplemented with learning tools from the ‘MUSE’ or ‘My Unique Student Experience’. The MUSE allows students to interact with coursework in the way they learn best, offering a personalized learning approach that provides content in 11 different formats, including components that challenge them to try it, solve it, answer it or create it.

It’s an online learning approach that balances the best of all worlds – addressing what businesses want and what career-focused students need to succeed.

Biography

David Leasure, PhD, is Chief Academic Officer of Colorado Technical University and Chancellor of the CTU Institute for Advanced Studies, an innovative graduate school that provides achievable and effective graduate degrees for career-motivated professionals. He is a recognized expert in applying online learning best practices and emerging media technologies in the world of higher education.