In this Campus Technology John Waters presents the argument that nanodegrees also referred to as “micro” online certification programs are changing the educational pathways. If you take away the new terms of nanodegree or micro degree certification courses have been around education for well over 100 years so this idea isn’t that new.
What is new and exciting is the fact that Waters identifies the significance of people being able to show potential employers what they are able to do, create or build through some sort of a portfolio. The following affirmation from Cathy Sandeen, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension that people without traditional four years degrees are showing employers what they can do:
A growing number of industries are open to the idea of employing people with portfolio backgrounds — that is, people without four-year degrees who have done different things and can show you what they’ve done,” she said. “We see it in tech industries, especially software development, but also in creative industries — Web design, graphic design, screen writing — jobs that have traditionally been open to people who have followed different sorts of educational pathways other than the traditional four-year degree. I think we’ll see more and more certification programs that may appeal to those industries.
I find Sandeen’s statement paradoxical. A growing number of industries are employing people without degrees who can show employers what they have done and can do – so Higher Ed should focus on certification programs for these people who are getting work based on their portfolios. This doens’t follow. Furthermore Sandeen and other quoted in the article to the fact that traditional degree students are either doing after degree certifications so that they can show some sort of experience or some are doing certification training while they are in their degrees to gain experience to be able to show potential employers that they can actually create something authentic. The common factor is that students are recognizing that they need to be able to show what they have been able to do, build or create and traditional education doesn’t give them this ability.
We have to acknowledge that Higher Ed is in the business is credentialing and if the traditional credentials (four year degree) have stopped mattering as much as they used to it may be time for High Ed to consider a different form of credential. Sandeen, Thurn and most other educators from the article are pointing to these new nano, micro, meso certificates as the new credential, but perhaps the new credential should be the portfolio. More specifically an eportfolio that can show what a person has created, their creative potential and their ability to learn how to learn.
