Partnering to Meet the Needs of a Changing Workplace
Abstract:
Technology is changing the way we live, work, play and learn. Successful partnerships between education and industry can provide the technology and innovations necessary to provide a flexible learning framework to meet the needs of today’s life long learners. Fostering collaborative and innovative partnerships will help enable higher education to transform in this high speed information age. A nationwide study was conducted with 350 industry and education partners. The results of the study to be discussed include the key characteristics of successful partnerships as well as the potential for new partnerships. The lack of highly skilled workers, the growing needs for access to education by life long learners, the lack of response from the university regarding the needs of industry and the difficulty in forming fruitful partnerships will be addressed in this paper.
Author:
LuAnn Hiniker
LuAnn Hiniker, is an Instructor and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Workforce Education and Development, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She teaches courses in occupational analysis and instructional design, multimedia development and multimedia delivery of workforce education. She is actively involved in the delivery of online learning at SIUC and serves as a team leader for the campus wide online learning course development team. Her research focuses on university outreach and partnerships, more specifically technology partnerships which provide alternative methods of delivery to adult learners.