By Dian Schaffhauser. When Purdue University announced in 2013 that it intended to introduce a new technology school built on the “competency” model, it joined a field with few other players. Delaware County Community College, Southern New Hampshire U, Western Governors U, Excelsior College and a handful of other institutions have pursued a similar path in developing educational programs that put the emphasis on helping their graduates master specific competencies vs. counting the number of hours they sit in classrooms. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The myths about Canada’s skills gap
Chris Sorensen, 2014/10/02
Reasonably coherent article about the skills shortage in Canada. Here's the first major data point: “There are increasing calls by employers for educators to do more job-ready training. But these calls have been increasing at the same time employers’ spending on training has been dropping.” Why would this be? "A sort of workplace prisoner’s dilemma: Why spend thousands improving an employee’s skills only to have him or her poached by a hungry competitor?" That's why our focus is on personal learning, while looking for industry support. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent
Joyce Ehrlinger, Kerri Johnson, M. Banner, D.Dunning, Justin Kruger, PubMedGov, 2014/09/29
It is well known that low-skilled people tend to over-estimate their performance. This is typically thought to result from their inability to recognize what poor and good performance looks like. But in this paper, the authors suggest there may be more to it than that. More...