Category Archives: Learning

Blended Learning, Competency Based Education, Educational technology, Learning

PIDP 3240 Podcast – What is the Future of Education?

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Have a listen to the  following podcast, which is based on an article I recently read. The article link is below, as is the text of the podcast.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/27/10835038/amazon-higher-education

I came across an interesting article the first week of our PIDP 3240 course. I subscribe to a number of newsletters on education and technology, including Academica’s daily top ten. Every weekday morning at about 6 am – shortly before I leave for the bus, I get an email that has today’s top ten news stories in the world of Canadian higher education.

Every day, there is at least one article that talks about technology, and this article from January, by Alexander Holt in the online news magazine Vox, really stood out to me as something that I would likely want to draw on at some point. The article is titled “How Amazon could Destroy College as we know it”, and is a fictional account of a speech given by Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, in the year 2030.

However, it touches on certain aspects of technology and education that are already happening and how they might unfold over the next 15 years. In my course journals, I wrote about how I felt the integration of higher education and technology into workplace learning struck a chord with me.

Firstly, I don’t teach in a college setting, or really have any aspirations to do so, but work very closely with teachers, deans, instructional designers, and others involved in that space.

My next big shocking secret is that I have no University Degree, unlike my three brothers who are all PhDs and live very much in the university world.

I chose a path in the trades as a cook, and have leveraged that expertise plus my knack for picking things up quickly and strong core competencies in the English language and all of the other tenets of an academic education like critical thinking skills and the ability to analyze complex information and think outside the box into a decent white collar job over the last 8 years.

For these reasons, I am drawn heavily to the idea of competency based education, and believe it’s what you can do that matters most. Most recently, I have been doing a lot of work on blended learning and open education, particularly in ways it can help apprentices in the trades complete their certifications, but also how I can use similar approaches to help support the tourism industry’s training needs, which is the main function of my job.

Let’s get back to the article. In the story, it talks about how Amazon started to first support their employees’ training in traditional bricks and mortar classrooms, and then started use technology to develop internal certifications, and how that expanded into a discovery that many of their university educated employees didn’t have the skills Amazon needed as their employer.

Now these things have already happened in real life and not just at Amazon. Last year, several major international firms based in the UK, including Ernst and Young, Deloitte and  Penguin Random House all abandoned their requirements of a university degree as a minimum standard for new hires, citing no real evidence that having a degree meant better on the job performance. We’re not talking about new, nimble start-ups here, these are serious major corporations in the business world.

Next the article starts talking about badging – something that I am very interested in and is just starting to take hold in some fields. Badging is the issuing of mini digital credentials, usually linked to a certain competency area, that is recognized by employers as well as in some academic circles. Think of it as a representation of some training or proof of competence that is small, portable, and can easily be validated or accessed, but has a credible source behind it.

Here’s how it works. Take a short course, or get assessed in an area, and you get a digital badge in your portfolio, and move on. Get a few badges that show you are competent in a whole work area, such as supply chain logistics. When you apply for a new job, you show your digital portfolio and badges, etc. Do you get the picture?

Where the article gets into new territory is the next evolution of this. Holt poses that as companies like Amazon build these internal certification systems and see the value, they will realize that other companies might be willing to purchase these same services from them, particularly if they have a digital delivery system. Hence the birth of the fictional Amazon University in the article.

Overall, I found this article a fascinating read, and that it tied into so many of the concepts and ideas that I came across in our text and research for journal entries. In my last journal, I posed the following question, that Brian suggested I share with my classmates:

Will we ever get to a place where the workplace and the classroom are fully integrated?

Is the google degree, or the Amazon University of the future really that far off? Have a read of the article I have talked about today, and let me know your thoughts.

 

Blended Learning, Educational technology, Learning

Journal Entry – PIDP 3240 – Week 4

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Objective

Change is not only coming to higher education; it has arrived. In Teaching Naked, Bowen (2012) discusses the impacts that are coming to university campuses and links them to similar revolutions in the distribution of journalism and music. Two recent articles I read pose differing opinions of how universities are reacting to this change. Some universities seem posed to lose their perceived value of prestige (Kinsley, 2016) by offering more and more open online courses, often for free and some even for credit. Other post-secondary institutions, particularly those that have lost status compared to their higher-priced competitors, are reacting by actually raising tuition (Askner & Bothner, 2016), using the notion that a higher price indicates higher quality, not unlike how Champagne can fetch prices higher than sparkling wines of similar quality from other regions. Similarly, there is a battle for control of access to academic research, to the extent that Russian neuroscientist has created a controversial site that allows free access to over 47 million academic papers that normally would be only available behind expensive paywalls (Resnick, 2016)

Reflective

What does this mean for the post secondary system? Does the fear of the unknown actually create more rapid change within colleges and universities (Wheeler, 2016), which are build on a foundation of innovation and expanding thought? Bowen (2012) suggests that colleges should challenge assumptions like time-based teaching and even look at how space is configured and accessed to react to not only a change in technology, but in learning itself. I am actually quite excited to see what the post-secondary world looks like in another 20 years, and whether or not some of the new innovations like badging, gamification, and adaptive learning (Wheeler, 2016) have taken hold fully.

Interpretive

I see so much potential in the emerging trends of education, particularly in how this translate to life-long learning and professional development. Will we get to a place where the workplace and the classroom are fully integrated? Will we still feel in 20 years’ time that the knowledge students get in their first year classes will be largely irrelevant by the time they graduate (Dougherty, 2016). Perhaps the whole notion of graduation and degrees will have changed, and employers will be looking for more competency based evaluations and endorsements like those that populate our LinkedIn profiles will carry true weight. Is the google degree that far off?

Decisional

I believe that we will get to a place where it is no longer questioned that content is freely accessible and that the value in paying for an education is in the understanding of how to interpret that knowledge. Open content is being delivered by open courseware, and now even syllabuses are being shared in the open realm (Karagnis, 2016). The curators of open content will have a responsibility of not only maintaining the resources, but also for being the new gatekeepers that allow us to find the most relative information out of the cloud.

I started a massive online open course (MOOC) last year (ironically, it was a MOOC on how open education is changing the post-secondary space) through Stanford Online, and quickly realized that although the content was relevant and engaging, participating in discussion threads with thousands of others from around the globe meant being constantly bombarded by attacks on my inbox with the latest response to a thread, many of which even started to include spam and clear advertising links! Sifting through the noise became too much of a distraction, so I abandoned it a few weeks in.

I have a colleague who likens what is happening with higher education to handing someone a library card and telling them everything they need to know can be found in the New York Public Library and to go and help themselves. Without systems in place that will allow us to filter, and people available to discuss the meaning of what we find, even if they are at the end of a phone or on an ooVoo chat, we will be lost.

I, for one, am happy to pay a bit for that filter and a smaller community of learners around me, no matter how far apart physically we may live.

References

Askner, N., Bothner, M. (2016) Status-Aspirational Pricing: The “Chivas Regal” Strategy in U.S. Higher Education, 2006–2012. Administrative Science Quarterly. Retrieved from http://asq.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/01/29/0001839216629671.full#sec-14

Bowen, J.A. (2012) Teaching Naked: How moving technology out of your college classroom will improve student learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Dougherty, I. (February 16, 2016) Money won’t fix what’s wrong with post-secondary education. iPolitics. Retrieved from http://ipolitics.ca/2016/02/16/money-wont-fix-whats-wrong-with-post-secondary-education/

Karagnis, J. (February 18, 2016) How a “Syllabus Commons” Could Change Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/How-a-Syllabus-Commons-/235330

Kinsley, M. (February 5, 2016) How the Internet will disrupt higher education’s most valuable asset: Prestige. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-web-will-disrupt-higher-educations-most-valuable-asset-prestige/2016/02/05/6bddc1ee-c91e-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html

Resnick, B. (February 17, 2016) Why one woman stole 47 million academic papers — and made them all free to read. Vox Science and Health. Retrieved from http://www.vox.com/2016/2/17/11024334/sci-hub-free-academic-papers

Wheeler, D. (January 13, 2016) Technology and the Imminent Disruption of Higher Education: Is Fear the Path to the Dark Side? Academica Forum. Retrieved from http://forum.academica.ca/forum/technology-and-the-imminent-disruption-of-higher-education-is-fear-the-path-to-the-dark-side

Competency Based Education, Learning

Journal Entry – PIDP 3240 Week 3

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Objective

There is no doubt that technology is changing the world of education. In chapters 4-8 of Teaching Naked (Bowen, 2012), the author takes us through the various ways that technology will impact course design, delivery of information, student engagement, assessment and ultimately how teachers use the classroom. These changes and more are already taking place, as recent literature continues to unfold and predict how technology is shaping education in increasingly short, iterative cycles. Contact North recently released a two part essay featuring their 2016 outlook on online education and highlight many of the themes predicted in Bowen’s book, but also some that were not even on the horizon yet, such as the emergence of adaptive technology and artificial intelligence into the education space (Contact North, 2016).

Colleges and universities are also moving away from standardized tests and doing more assessment of learning outcomes, with the number of colleges using standardized assessments of knowledge to benchmark student achievement dropping to 38% compared to nearly 50% in 2008 (AACU, 2016). While this is happening, we still rely almost exclusively on high stakes- must pass multiple choice written examinations as a mechanism for certification. The Red Seal program, which issues inter-provincial certification endorsements for 57 trades, relies on a must pass, 100 to 150 question multiple choice exam with a fixed pass score of 70% (Red Seal Program, 2016) as the single most important benchmark for certification. A focus on time spent in the trade, but not necessarily how that time is spent, is the second most used critical factor.

Reflective

As someone who has worked for a number of years within the post secondary system and specifically in the trades context, this would seem to be an insurmountable challenge. All of the information and research around adult education over the last half century would lead us to believe that must pass certification exams combined with time in trade are not necessarily the best indicators of competence.

Other fields, such as the medical community are moving away from cumulative certification exams and time in trade towards more competency based models (Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, 2015). For those faced with the reality of our certification system in the trades, does this limit the ability of instructors to use technology to transform our educational practices, or does is mean that they have to approach the situation differently?

Interpretive

This presents an interesting paradox for those teaching and designing learning in the trades. While there are those who want to embrace the latest thoughts on course design and ways to use technology to deliver information and assess our students, the reality is that we must still prepare students to write a comprehensive, paper based, multiple choice, timed exam that will be recorded and scored on a bubble sheet. No books, no devices, and not even their instructor will be in the room, as the process is overseen by a third party government assigned invigilator.

Whether or not the students pass this test will be used to determine in part the effectiveness of the teaching, and may also be used to determine which programs get funded in the future, as educational budgets tighten. But does that mean that we can’t embrace better ways of imparting information to the student, and that we shouldn’t strive for students to really understand and interpret the content so that they can apply it to practice in the field? Bowen (2012) articulates how we can use instruments like multiple choice examinations to test higher level thought processes, and perhaps that is one way we can attempt to bridge the concept of using modern teaching practices in a world where antiquated assessment processes still exist.

Decisional

The reality is, even in the most progressive universities and colleges there exist these kind of paradoxical challenges. I have no doubt that eventually the mechanisms by which we certify tradespeople will shift. I was fortunate to work on a national pilot with The Canadian Centre of Directors of Apprenticeship which tested out various competency based assessment approaches, and which is informing further work to evaluate and implement additional assessment methods and improved national occupational standards through the Strengthening the Red Seal Initiative (CCDA, 2012). It will likely be several more years yet before we see any real change how our summative Red Seal assessments work, but that doesn’t mean that embracing new ideas for teaching and using technology in and out of the classroom is for naught.

I can see that by building skills and scaffolding learning, along with using technology and elements of game play to deliver content and assess progress, we will make the students better prepared for the workplace, but also help them to pass the dreaded “final exam” at the same time. I liked how Bowen (2012) referred to students knowing all of the answers in the test bank as being perceived as cheating or teaching to the test, but his view was of them actually really having a full grasp on the content. We need to look at certification exams as a necessary evil, and do everything in our power to ensure our students are best prepared to succeed. Introducing game play and having them “level up” each time they master a section of the content is a great way to make that happen, as is finding new and engaging ways of delivering the content to them in ways that they will best be able to understand it.

Technology is changing education, but education changes at a much slower pace.

References

Association of American Colleges and Universities (2016) Trends in Learning Outcomes Assessment. Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/LEAP/2015_Survey_Report3.pdf

Bowen, J.A. (2012) Teaching Naked: How moving technology out of your college classroom will improve student learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Canadian Council of Directors of Apprenticeship (July 2012) Strengthening the Red Seal: Lessons Learned and Next Steps. Retrieved from http://www.red-seal.ca/images/SRS-FinalReport-ENG-Accessible.pdf

Contact North (2016) A 2016 Look at the Future of Online Learning – Part 1. Retrieved from http://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/exploring-future-education/2016-look-future-online-learning-part-1

Red Seal Program (n.d.) Overview of the Red Seal Examination. Retrieved from http://www.red-seal.ca/resources/.2x.1ms_.1b.4.5t-eng.html

Royal College of Physicians of Canada (n.d.) Competence by Design. Retrieved from http://www.royalcollege.ca/portal/page/portal/rc/resources/cbme

Blended Learning, Educational technology

Journal Entry – PIDP 3240 Week 1

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Objective

The world of education is changing. With that change has come a new focus on the ability of graduates to perform effectively in the workplace, and the question of whether credentials themselves are valued less than the skills, learning or knowledge they represent. In 2015, several leading companies, including Ernst and Young, Penguin Random House, and Deloitte all removed the requirement of a university degree from their recruitment policies, citing no clear link between holding a university degree and better on the job performance (BBC, 2015).

More and more students are taking online courses, with over a third of all post-secondary students taking at least one course online and over 70% of academic leaders saying that online learning is critical to the long term strategy of their institutions ( Allen & Seaman, 2015). With that, educators are starting to focus more on developing the skills needed for the 21st century economy, which has meant that knowledge management, or the ability to find, analyze, and apply information, and new information in particular, has become more important than all of the knowledge gained during one’s course of study (Bates, 2015).

Add to this pressure from administrators to embrace new classroom technologies, as well as an influx of tech savvy younger teachers entering the college system, and the stage is set not only for change but also for some huge opportunities for existing instructors to re-think how they teach their craft.

Reflective

For teachers, this can be a scary thought. Most instructors I know, particularly at the post secondary level, were hired on the basis of expertise in their field. To now face a cohort of digital natives, who have access to the breadth of information accessible from smartphones anywhere there is wi-fi or a data plan, poses a whole new set of challenges, and can be downright scary. Much of the information students bring forward will be untested, unreliable, or even downright wrong. There will also be things you as an instructor haven’t seen and new insights that will add to your expertise.

This will undoubtedly create some discomfort, particularly for faculty who have been teaching the same subject matter for a long time. In my field of expertise (cooking), there have been huge changes in style and technique is the relatively short time since I left the industry, so without some way of being connected to those trends, there is no way that I would be able to even fathom some of the concepts that questions students may have questions about.

Interpretive

The question becomes, what to do as a teacher in this environment? Some will try and grasp furiously to tradition, and others will willingly embrace the technology that has effected the change. To be able to access something close to the sum of all human knowledge from the palm of your hand is overwhelming and presents a host of distractions, but also creates the opportunity to leverage that power for the collective benefit of the class. Technologies change rapidly, and as quickly as they emerge they change or are overtaken by a new trend. Without awareness and understanding of how students are changing their ways if accessing information, how are we supposed to help the students make sense of the informational overload and learn to select, analyze, and disseminate information? Perhaps we should be encouraging students to individually search for the same content and then work together to separate the wheat from the chaff. More than anything, we need to help students harness the technology and the world they live in and apply it to the context of learning.

By embracing the technology and speaking the same technological language as our students, we as teachers have the ability not only to be current, but also to be a leader and a catalyst for change within our organizations. For me, as an individual who entered the workforce just at the same time the personal computer did, I have seen the evolution and insight that using technologies as they emerge can bring. Having had to write assignments longhand or type them, without the benefit of spellcheck, fonts, or formatting, I jumped at the idea of a personal computer and every new technology since that has emerged with a new opportunity.

Decisional

I’m actually quite excited about the opportunity that today’s connected society brings to the classroom. It’s now a given that students can go out and find as much information as they need on anything. I love the fact that I can watch something happening in the kitchen of one of the world’s top restaurants in real time on Periscope and interact from half a world away in real time. As I write this, the twitterverse was aghast at the rumours of moving from a linear to an algorithmic feed (Fingas, 2016), but it’s just another example of how rapid information moves in today’s world.

The role of the teacher is transitioning just like the world around us, and actually is allowing us to focus more on helping students understand the information they are given, than a focus on being the fountain of all knowledge. We need to be connected, to use the platforms they use and discover new tools for ourselves. We should be coming into the classroom knowing what was happening in the social feeds since we last saw our students, and we should be finding ways to use the tools of their generation to connect the knowledge of ours. To do anything less would be to turn our backs on why many of us wanted to teach in the first place – a commitment to the sharing of knowledge and life long learning.

References

Allen, I.E., Seaman, J. (2015) Grade Level: tracking online learning in the United States. Babson Survey Research Group. Retrieved from http://info2.onlinelearningconsortium.org/rs/897-CSM-305/images/gradelevel.pdf

Bates, A.W. (2015). Teaching in a digital age [Bccampus open textbook version]. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/section-1-3-the-skills-needed-in-a-digital-age/

Couglan, S. (January 18, 2016). Penguin scraps degree requirement. BBC.com. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35343680

Fingas, J. (2016, Feb 6). Twitter says your timeline isn’t changing (update: details). Engadget.com. Retrieved from http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/06/twitter-says-timeline-isnt-changing/

Learning, Writing

Converging Paths – A New Approach to Dual Credit and the Double Major

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Setting the stage

As Canada enters the 21st century, we find ourselves facing an interesting dilemma and a labour market that has been markedly different from the past. With the looming retirement of the largest demographic cohort in the history of the planet and a birthrate that hasn’t kept pace, combined with economic growth and increased technological advances, our post-secondary education system is faced with new challenges, but also new opportunities.

There are more people leaving the Canadian workforce every year than entering it, so the current generation has unprecedented choices in terms of choosing a career path, and the same forces are creating the need to have our youth enter the workforce with the skills they need to be successful, but also with pathways that can lead to several different career destinations. Competition for young workers is encouraging them to step right into the workforce to high pay in some sectors and regions, particularly in Northern BC and Alberta, and shrinking graduating classes have put immense pressure on sustaining an education system that had grown to support a much larger population swell. With these pressures government is looking intently at how to create efficiencies and direct funding into pathways that lead to the highest likelihood of employment, and that investments in training are directed where there is the most need, but without increasing overall training budgets and maintaining fiscal restraint.

The Opportunity

The landscape of the post-secondary system has always had two streams: academic pathways leading to “professions”; and vocational pathways leading to careers in the trades and technologies. High school students are facing increased pressure to “choose a path” and are often influenced by a bias that working with your hands is somehow less of an accomplishment than a career founded on a university degree. In a world where most trades were mechanical and revolved around much hard and heavy labour, (as existed in the early part of the last century) there may have been some root in that bias, but in today’s world, the oft revered skills of academia – critical thinking, analysis and diagnosis, interpretation of complex scientific and mathematical information, and a strong ability to communicate effectively and concisely are exactly the skills needed to be successful in today’s trades.

In British Columbia, like many other jurisdictions nationally and internationally that face similar pressures, we see a movement of tradespeople moving into the next stages of their career as a project manager, executive, or educator and into a job that draws on a previous life as a tradesperson “on the tools”, but requires a degree as a pre-requisite, limiting the options for many talented and competent people. Many of the skills required have been developed in the workplace running a business or a jobsite, instructing apprentices and other employees, and managing the finances of a successful company, but had not been attained formally through a university degree.

This has led to a movement to assess and articulate prior learning in the trades towards university degrees to improve pathways for those individuals, but those options are not universally available, consistently clear, or widespread. A small pocket of innovative educators and advocates are at the forefront of these initiatives, but as of yet, we are primarily remedying sins of the past without addressing the challenges of the future.

As a certified tradesperson highly involved in the vocational training system, I have been returning to a single train of thought concerning the current climate. I have heard over and over again about how we need to convince the youth and their parents that choosing a career in the trades is as valid as choosing a to get a university degree, that choosing to work with one’s hands is no less noble than a white collar career path, that choosing a trade gives an equal or better financial outlook, but the questions we need to ask ourselves are:

Why must they choose one path or the other?
Why can’t we set up a system to allow them to do both?

• What about the student who excels at physics and math and loves to take things apart?
• What about the student who is passionate about food and cooking and wants to build a social media empire?
• What about the student who wants to make things out of wood but has an entrepreneurial spirit?
• Why can’t we create a pathway that converges vocational and academic education from the onset, instead of a remedial approach after years in the trade?

This is where opportunity presents itself if we as a community of industry and educators in both the academic and vocational worlds can see past our own historical biases and envision a newly unified system that integrates trades training and certification pathways and traditional degree-granting institutions. Of the industrialized nations, only Germany has fully integrated the vocational and academic streams into one system, and we have the opportunity to address our needs in a uniquely Canadian way.

In order to facilitate some discussion, let’s analyze how different (or not) our two streams of education are, and then discuss possible solutions.

The Current Systems

The academic system is built on a system of credits, with degrees being conferred upon those who have completed the credits required, including a set number of mandatory courses related to the field of study, and a set number of elective credits from additional areas of study to ensure the breadth of knowledge encompasses a fundamental set of critical thinking, communication, and problem solving skills. Some programs have a requirement of on the job experience related to the field of study, which also results in credits towards the degree. Courses may include a lecture, tutorial or lab component, and a minimum grade in the core subjects is required, with higher grades resulting in degrees with honours or distinction.

The vocational system is built around development of specific skills over time, with certification being granted upon the completion of the technical training (in-school) portion and the work-based training (apprenticeship) portion of the program, as well as national or provincially administered certification exams and in some cases practical assessments. Critical thinking, problem solving, math, and science are all built into the training and skill development in a contextual way, as they are directly related to performing the job at hand. Minimum grade requirements in the trades are generally higher than those required in the academic stream.

From a first glance these seem like two completely different approaches to education, being primarily “school based” or “work based”, but in closer comparison, are we really that far apart, or is it language and interpretation that confuses the issue?

Let’s take a closer look at the two pathways side by side and see how different they really are.

Certification Theoretical Training Practical Training Work Experience Duration
Bachelor’s Degree Lecture, in school or online coursework Assignments, Tutorials and Labs (sciences) Optional Co-op or practicum or post -degree 4 years
Red Seal Lecture, in school Shop, in school and on job site with supervision Mandatory hour requirement with qualified sponsor/mentor 3-5 years

In comparison, both streams offer theoretical training and some hands on practical activity that is evaluated. The apprenticeship stream has a mandatory workplace component, while the academic stream has co-op ad practicum options (which may be mandatory in some programs). Both take approximately the same amount of time to complete and require the development of critical thinking, analytical and problem solving skills to different extents.

The challenges we face are not that we can’t see how academic credits can be applied to the learning that goes on in the trades, but more about delivery and scheduling. Trades training is generally delivered in block release, and in levels than encompass a number of subject areas. Academic delivery is course-based over a longer period of time, with each course and subject having its own learning outcomes and credits. Even colleges that offer both academic training and trades programs run the two on slightly different schedules, making it near impossible to navigate for a student interested in completing both streams.

With a pro-active approach and some innovation, especially with the advent of flexible learning and online training options, proposing a solution is within grasp. The K-12 system, as they deliver both types of training to some extent, has started to address these issues to some extent, and we see a large number of dual credit courses that grant students credit for post-secondary training based on secondary school course completion. This is where the dialogue needs to happen as we explore a new form of “dual credit” for the trades in the post-secondary world.

The Proposition

I don’t think we are that far off, if we look at typical completion requirements for a few select degrees and what granting similar credit for the trades training that goes into apprenticeship could accomplish. Currently, Academic credits are based on the Carnegie model, whereby 1 academic credit is assigned for approximately 15 hours of contact time. In the community college system vocational programs are offered 1 credit for every 30 hours of contact time, based on the assumption that approximately 50% of the contact time is spent on guided practice or hands-on training. Credits for workplace experience in the academic model are generally assigned 1 credit for each 140-160 hours of work experience. Using these as the basis, consider the following examples:

Academic:

Degree Academic Credits required Core Subjects Elective Subjects Credits for work experience (Co-op)
Bachelor of Science (UBC) 120 72 38 9 (additional) for ±1200 hours
Bachelor of Commerce (UBC) 121 79 42 9 (additional) for ±1200 hours

Trades:

Qualification Potential Credits Technical Training Work Based Training Notes
Cook (Professional Cook 3) Apprenticeship 18-36 (academic) +

31 (workplace experience)

 540 hours 5000 Hours Technical Training is currently 25% Theory
Carpenter Apprenticeship 28-56 (academic) +

40 (workplace experience)

 

 840 hours 6,480 hours Technical Training is currently 65% Theory
Electrician Apprenticeship 40-80 (academic) +

37 (workplace experience)

 1200 hours 6,000 hours Technical Training is currently 100% theory

Some schools, like Thompson Rivers University are allocating up to 60 credits towards degrees for certified tradespeople, but we have yet to look at a strategy to link the two worlds from the onset. By refining the credits to be allocated for trades training to both core and elective degree requirements could lead to the development of a new type of “double major” that encompasses both the trades and academic worlds. In real terms, this would likely take 5-6 years for someone to complete, but the impact could be meaningful.

Food for Thought

Imagine a system where a student can choose to work on a carpentry apprenticeship and a commerce degree concurrently, or the student who is supplementing their degree as a mechanical engineer with work as a millwright. How about the student who is completing their Red Seal as a cook and is a few credits away from a marketing degree?

Imagine the impact on the economy of graduating a class of degree holding, Red Seal ticketed individuals, students who not only are finishing their degrees, but have a marketable skill, a few years’ experience in the workforce, and have not needed to incur debt in getting there. Doesn’t that sound like a choice you want our kids to have? It does for me.