Information Science Reference Career Ready Education Through Experiential Learning (Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design)

Despite the promise of competency-based education (CBE), learner-centered issues related to support, retention, and program completion rates remain problematic. In addition, the infrastructure for higher education, including issues related to faculty (intellectual property, workload, and curriculum), pose barriers and challenges in the design, development, implementation, and delivery of CBE. In response, administrators, faculty, designers, and developers of competency-based experiences must incorporate innovative strategies that are foreign to the traditional institution. A strong emphasis on retention and graduation rates must surround the student with support, starting with the design and development of the CBE system. There are few resources that can help prepare instructional designers, advisors, academic administrators, and faculty to meet the many challenges of designing, developing, implementing, and managing CBE. Career Ready Education Through Experiential Learning is an essential reference book that includes strategies for design and development of competency-based education (CBE) programs, as well as administrative and delivery strategies as examples of how CBE can be implemented. Through a strong theoretical framework, chapters present the best practices, strategies, and practical tips as examples and scenarios that can be used in higher education settings. While highlighting education courses, programs, and lessons across various institutions and educational domains, this book is ideal for higher education administrators and policy designers/implementors, instructional designers, curriculum developers, faculty, public policy leaders, students in curriculum and instruction and instructional technology programs, along with researchers and practitioners interested in CBE and experiential learning in higher education. About the Author Pam Northrup is President of Bigger Picture Strategy, providing consulting services to higher education institutions and agencies on maintaining operations while planning toward the future. Currently, she works on campus operations, career and workforce planning for higher education, long-term online growth and academic master planning for the future. Dr. Northrup continues to work on digital frameworks supporting scale and strategy for institutions planning to design and launch microcredentials by working with both higher education and key industry partners ensuring alignment with both academic requirements and industry needs. Dr. Northrup has spent the past 25 years focused on advancing learning opportunities for non-traditional learners. She launched online learning in 1994 at the University of West Florida and led its continued growth for over 20 years. She led the Division of Continuing Education and shaped it to support students, employers and the community in reskilling and upskilling the workforce, while building bridges for youth to “inspire and engage” toward future careers through K12 “Explore” summer camps. She led the effort to launch a military and veterans resource center to support both academic and support services for military students. Finally, she led the design and development of a statewide initiative in Florida to support adults that had some college and no degree to complete and connect to future job opportunities. For many years, Dr. Northrup served as CEO of an Innovation Institute, where she participated in design and action-oriented programming to support multiple accelerated learning strategies supporting non-traditional students. She and her team developed competency-based education models, techniques for badging in areas that were meaningful to employers and began an initiative to launch microcredentials in workforce focused areas. She also served as a Vice President leading research, innovation and economic diversification by launching initiatives including aligning industry recognized certifications to academic credit to