It is no longer uncommon for working adults to actively create their own lifelong “DIY” education and training pathways by stopping in and out of formal education, mixing credits from more than one institution, and intermixing that education with on-the-job and other forms of noncredit training. In a nutshell, adults already “mix and match” throughout their lives, using unbundled and stackable education and training across both credit and noncredit options, to create their own education and training pathways in order to meet their personal and professional goals.
In this new edited volume, we take the approach that students’ ability to build education and training paths for themselves demonstrates a clever and productive approach to lifelong learning, and one that should be actively supported by institutions of higher ed (IHEs) and higher ed industries outside of the academy. With better planning and design comes better and more intentional student outcomes.
We are seeking chapter proposals for an edited book, “New Models of Higher Education: Unbundled, Customized, DIY.” Our objective is to pull together leading voices and stakeholders who are committed to this student-centered, DIY, mix-and-match vision of how higher education has evolved. We wish to showcase what is already being done within IHEs and in the business community, and what is not yet being done but should be. We therefore hope to push the higher ed field to fully embrace this student-centered approach to lifelong engagement of education and training.
By drawing on the experiences of a wide range of experts across industries and functional areas, this edited volume is intended as a playbook for institutions of higher education and their business and ed tech partners, to develop and grow high-quality postsecondary educational experiences in a variety of modalities that meet the demands of adults throughout their lifetimes. In addition to showcasing innovative approaches taken by IHEs to support their students, chapters will also discuss the ways in which policies (institutional, state, and federal) and “back office” operations (e.g. admissions, financial aid, bursar, registrar, LMS) have adapted and will need to further adapt to support this kind of fluid exchange between formal education and training, and throughout students’ lives. Important viewpoints from outside academia will be sought from educational technology companies and public policy makers.
A section of this volume will be dedicated to quality assurance and credentialing, as IHEs wrestle with how to best document and validate mixed-and-matched learning from multiple sources. Particular attention will also be paid to the ways in which mixing-and-matching of educational products and services can lead to more equitable outcomes across diverse adult learners.
Please consider submitting a proposal. Further information and submission guidelines appear here.
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