3 Skill Insights to Support Career-Relevant Instruction
Summary
While that may sound like a lot of work (the kind of administrative burden we advocated not laying on faculty in our previous post), tools like Skillabi make it easy to do this comparison quickly, easily, and at scale. For example – a professor teaching “Introduction to Philosophy” as part of a General Education program might emphasize to students the broad applicability of a skill like “Critical Thinking,” which is sought after in both healthcare and business roles. Knowing the historical trajectory of demand for certain skills, while not a crystal ball, can shed light on the future that helps faculty (and students) anticipate shifts in the job market. Sharing a few example job titles or employers at the start of class can be a simple, low-effort way to alert students to the career relevance and labor market value of topics about to be covered. As we mentioned in our previous article, labor market data may sound like the exclusive purview of institutional research or career services departments, but there are good reasons for circulating these insights to those who have the most face-time, and often the most influence, with learners: the faculty who instruct them.