Lessons from Tidepools: Connecting Learning and Work

I’m fascinated by tidepools. Perhaps it comes from growing up in a desert, where the idea of a self-contained aquatic world is both foreign and magical. Each pool is the perfect example of an interconnected system: seaweed, plankton, mussels, starfish, and even otters are all connected through these pools of water left behind by the tide.  

The result is complex, yes. Yet, all of the parts come together to create something greater. In many ways, the interconnected life within these tidepools is a good metaphor for the increasingly complex and interconnected environment of higher education’s workforce development ecosystem.

For many years, we have tended to view the relationship between higher education and the workforce as linear, with students moving from college to the workplace after completing a degree. But those days are long gone; students now prepare for careers in a variety of ways that may include short-term credentials, certificates, degrees, internships, externships, apprenticeships, and more. Higher education is no longer “one and done” as our learners dip in and out of postsecondary learning.

This month, WCET is focusing on that intersection between education and employment. We’ll begin with a special member-only Closer Conversation led by Holly Zanville, the founder and leader of the Learn and Work Ecosystem Library.

Created as a trusted source to curate and create resources for employers, employees, and learners as they navigate the increasingly complex workforce development system, the Library has grown into a collaborative space for stakeholders to tackle complex issues such as tracking and assessing training and credentials.

From career navigation to credentials and providers to quality and value, perhaps one of the Library’s most important contributions to this discussion is the development of its 12 key components of the Learn-Work-Ecosystem. In our tidepool example, the whole is greater than its parts, creating beautiful, small ocean worlds. Taken together, the Library’s components create a complex ecosystem that allows learners and employees to articulate their experiences in a way that employers can understand, allows employers to become discerning consumers of credentials, and allows institutions to better articulate the knowledge, abilities, and skills their learners master. Those components are:

• Alliances and intermediaries,
• Career navigation,
• Communication and technology,
• Credentials and providers,
• Data, database, standards (data ecosystem),
• Employers and workforce,
• International developments,
• Policy,
• Quality and value,
• Research,
• Transparency,
• Verifications/recordkeeping.

We’ll also host a webinar on November 12^th, Innovating with Information: Microcredentials, Badges, and the Learn & Work Ecosystem, that will further explore the Library’s work and that of two leaders in this area, Dallas College and Florida Gulf Coast University. Along the way, we’ll hear from peers in the field making important efforts in this area.

I want to return to that image of the tidepool. Just as each component of those pools is necessary to the health of the entire system, from the most microscopic plankton to the voracious otter, each stakeholder in our learn-and-work ecosystem, learners, employers, employees, and institutions, is critical to its success. Workforce preparation is no longer a linear affair; it’s a living, shifting ecosystem. Learning and work continually interact. Join WCET this month as we learn together to strengthen connections in our very own learning-and-work tidepool.

At WCET, we believe in being transparent in how we use AI.
ChatGPT was used to review this blog post and offer suggestions for improvement.

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