Weise, M. R. (2021). Long Life Learning: Preparing for jobs that don't even exist yet. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley

Abstract

Michelle Weise's new book is a gift you should give your professional self! The book tackles the need for change in postsecondary education by suggesting that the current education system is unprepared for a 100-year long work life with ongoing needs for upskilling. Long Life Learning is also a call to action for the Competency-Based Education (CBE) community with Weise's insightful recommendations for a new learning ecosystem in which CBE is part of the solution.

Formerly with Strada Education Network as its Chief Innovation Officer and Senior Vice President of Workforce Strategies, Michelle also brings expertise from her role as a Senior Research Fellow at the Clayton Christiansen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. Her book, Long Life Learning, consolidates her extensive research and innovation background into an impressive review of workforce realities and an open invitation to consider the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Long Life Learning is organized into two sections. The first section, From a Rigged System, sets out the research evidence for a 100-year work life and underscores the inadequacies of the current postsecondary education system in the United States. The second section, To a New Learning Ecosystem, unravels the complexities revealed in the first section to offer a clear and convincing roadmap for needed reforms, innovations, and collaborations.

In chapter 1, A 100-Year Work Life, Weise points out that 2, 4, or 6 years of front-loaded college will be woefully inadequate for the learning needs of future working adults with careers lasting more than 60 years and involving as many as twelve job changes. She highlights evidence that today's learning resources and funding models are geared to students between the ages of 18 and 24, despite that commitment approximately 70% of the high school graduates who enter college do not persist to a degree. Furthermore, of those who persist many are underemployed at graduation and 75% are underemployed 10 years later. Given the workforce reality that the top jobs sought after in 2014 did not even exist in 2009, the future calls for flexible upskilling and reskilling in a learn, earn, learn, earn cycle that is unlike standard higher education practice today.

Chapter 2, The Theories Behind the End of College, examines the growing issues about escalating costs, the rising number of Institutions of Higher Education, and the decreasing number of births in the United States. Fewer young people entering college and increasingly higher costs beg the need for disruption and innovation in the standard model of postsecondary education. Weiss sets the stage for a new system that is affordable, accessible, and structured in ways that facilitate portability and value to an employer.

Chapter 3, The Future of Work, The Future of Us, anchors Weise's arguments about the need for higher education change with a deeper look at worker reality, caregiving responsibilities, and the silver age. She points out that there is an opportunity gap as employers retreat from training. If we could, states Weise, “solve for the pain points of the most distressed” then everyone wins.

Chapter 4, Seamless On and Off-Ramps, establishes five guiding principles for a new learning ecosystem: navigable, supportive, targeted, integrated, and transparent. Each of the following five chapters delves into each principle in turn. Every chapter contains three parts: What We Are Hearing, The Predicament, and Seeds of Innovation. What We Are Hearing presents stories and statistics that establish the basis for the guiding principle. The Predicament reveals challenges to be met. Seeds of Innovation highlights case studies of agencies, organizations, or institutions meeting challenges with innovative and effective programs. In a spirit of continuous improvement, competency-based educators in secondary and higher education can leverage these principles and consider adapting the seeds of innovation into their own practice and processes.

Chapter 5, Navigating Our Next Job Transition, provides an overview of the current and future job markets and establishes the need for a variety of learning pathways responsive to interests, skills, past training, and former experiences. Weise identifies challenges in gathering better insights into skills needed, translating skills from one industry to another and finding ways to assess an individual's personal and informal learning experiences. Meeting those challenges are a variety of programs and entities opening up possibilities across a spectrum of job, skills, and employee characteristics. CBE is well positioned to highlight the ways in which current programs integrate, align, or update competencies with industry skills and to begin to solve for the challenges that Weise raises.

Chapter 6, Wrap Around Supports, acknowledges the complexities in the lives of working adults and seeks to give voice to the experiences of these learners in today's world. Weise explores the challenges of lack of necessities and access and counters those with examples of institutions and innovations that are meeting the call in immediate and effective ways. Although some institutions, such as Western Governors University, already surround students with a 360° community of care, newer CBE programs might imagine innovations based on the examples Weise provides.

Chapter 7, Targeted Education, shines a light on personalized learning to ensure that an individual's educational journey is tailored to access the right skills and the needed pathways at the opportune time. Weise bemoans the predicament underlying academic silos, the absence of connectivity across disciplines, and the general lack of knowledge transfer from postsecondary learning experiences to real life. The innovations cited are impressive and compelling from problem-centered learning to the integration of virtual and augmented reality. CBE institutions and programs have an opportunity to draw from Wiese's presentation of skills as “shapes” to work toward greater synergy and alignment with workforce needs.

Chapter 8, Integrated Earning and Learning, draws attention to the precious resources of time and money for an individual to continue their education while juggling multiple responsibilities of an adult learner. Innovations are highlighted that explore partnerships and collaborations between the earning and the learning stakeholders. CBE institutions might also benefit from exploring these examples of improved and intensive partnerships that are not limited to simply providing feedback on and input for learning competencies.

Chapter 9, Transparent and Fairer Hiring, points a spotlight on hiring practices. Given a new learning ecosystem that is navigable, supportive, targeted, and integrated, an adult learner is still prey to hiring practices in which job expectations and qualifications are not adequately defined. In this chapter, Weise underscores the need for transparency in hiring and explores the opportunities already emerging around skills-based hiring. Competency-based hiring programs are discussed and open up an opportunity for CBE programs to work toward integrating partnerships, internships, and matchmaking tools into their educational offerings.

Weise wraps up the five guiding principle chapters in Chapter 10, Getting Started: Taking Root, by highlighting the need for a system of data exchange among K-12, postsecondary, and workforce development. The Endnotes section alone is an opportunity for CBE administrators and workforce program developers to grow their understanding of the work ahead and initiate conversations about the basis for it.

In conclusion, Long Life Learning: Preparing for jobs that don't even exist yet is a book we need but didn't know we needed. It charts a way forward for those of us striving to provide access to learning opportunities and experiences that meet the needs of individuals who dream of a better life for themselves and their families. If nothing else, Weise's book offers five guiding principles for decision-making, program planning, and continuous improvement of the work that we already do in educating adults and all learners through CBE.