Kenneth Razak

Lifetime Learning A Path to Career Development

Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION

Since the advent of compulsory education in the United States, an unparalleled school system has been developed. Faculty and staff of hundreds of institutions have evolved programs and prescribed curricula along which students move in sequential steps. Graduation from this school system, at least from high school and preferably from college, has been regarded as necessary for a successful career.

Radical and rapid changes in business and industry in the later years of the 20th century, primarily in technology, have altered the validity of this presumption. As the year 2000 approaches, a curricular education is still necessary but it is not sufficient.Institutionalized education is under attack as not being responsive to current situations, lagging behind technology, and not preparing persons for careers in a rapidly changing world. It is also accused of being too expensive.

No longer are schools the only source of knowledge. Companies, organizations, associations, government agencies and private enterprise provide multiple opportunities for learning in addition to knowledge gained in the performance of a job. As evidence of this trend, accreditation agencies for academic programs now require that one objective of schools must be "to instill in their students the need for lifetime learning"(Reference 1 ). These agencies also require that methods by which schools attain this objective be documented.

School faculties have tried to extend their educational services beyond and outside their institutions by developing "continuing", "extension", "distance", "outreach", "adult" and a variety of other terms to reach the population in addition to conventional "students". However, no adequate and systematic documentation exists of "extra-curricular" education.

LIFETIME LEARNING, meaning all learning achieved outside of curricular schools, must be recognized as a valid educational domain. This author has developed a method of analyzing, evaluating, documenting and rewarding educational accomplishments in this domain. This paper presents a description of the domain of LIFETIME LEARNING and outlines an approach to career planning in this domain.

THE TWO DOMAINS OF EDUCATION

The purpose of this paper is to describe a complementary path for persons to plan their career in conjunction with curricular education. This path is LIFETIME LEARNING. It starts when a person enters grade school and continues throughout a persons life as an adjunct to formal/public education. LIFETIME LEARNING has become an important method of acquiring new knowledge, for persons to both maintain current capabilities and skills, and develop new capabilities in a rapidly changing economy.

LIFETIME LEARNING must not be considered separately from curricular education.. They are different, but the boundary between the domains is not fixed. As Figures III and IV portray, education should be a seamless activity stretching throughout a person's lifetime. Unfortunately, it is difficult to talk about LIFETIME LEARNING without appearing to be against formal education. This tendency must be avoided. Both avenues of learning are necessary. Separately, neither is sufficient.

One way to resolve this apparent conflict is to recognize two unique domains of education/learning.

1. CURRICULAR/CREDIT/PUBLIC/FORMAL education
2. LIFETIME LEARNING.

These domains coexist. They may overlap but they are not contradictory. Each is "necessary but not sufficient". Public education provides a foundation and a broad educational experience. LIFETIME LEARNING enables a person to expand, renew, modify and adapt to rapid changes. Our industrial economy cannot wait for "problems" of public education to be "solved". Inexorably, people continue to move into the work force with knowledge and skill deficiencies. These deficiencies can be relieved and personal knowledge updated by LIFETIME LEARNING.

The population of the LIFETIME LEARNING domain, where the majority of the workforce exists, is several times greater than the population of the public education domain. Figure I illustrates the size of the LIFETIME LEARNING population. The stair-step reduction in formal school attendance is graphic evidence of the lack of competence of a huge percentage of the U.S. population in a rapidly changing social, economic and technological climate.

The Domain of Lifetime Learning

A fundamentally different approach to LIFETIME LEARNING is necessary. LIFETIME LEARNING must be centered on individuals, not on institutions. Personal goals must be emphasized in contrast to institutional goals, as exemplified by degrees and diplomas. Lifetime Learning cannot conform to a standard credit hour/semester related program. But Lifetime Learning must be recorded, documented, evaluated and presented on a credential, analogous to recording high school and college credits which are displayed on a school transcript. A necessary first step, therefore, is to develop a SYSTEM for documenting, evaluating, planning and recognizing individual achievements in LIFETIME LEARNING. Such procedures exist in curricular education; they are being developed for LIFETIME LEARNERS.

A SYSTEM FOR RECORDING LIFETIME LEARNING

Any system for recording, or managing, LIFETIME LEARNING must accomplish tasks similar to those performed in curricular education. These include definition of educational experiences, organizing, classifying, and evaluating those experiences. It must enable planning of career goals, determining available learning experiences and setting up programs to work toward individual goals.

The LIFETIME LEARNING segment of a person's development must be flexible. It cannot meet rigid and time consuming accreditation procedures. It is not impeded (nor affected) by a cumbersome institutionalized educational system with a faculty that does not always have necessary and current knowledge. Many activities which should not be part of public education can be in the LIFETIME LEARNING domain. A market driven economy will determine whether those activities can continue, based on their own merit.

Continuing emphasis on and recognition for lifetime learning are complementary activities to curricular/formal education. In order to be complementary, a credential in Lifetime Learning is necessary. A person must have a record of their formal (curricular) education and also a record of their LIFETIME LEARNING. These two records describe a person's capabilities in terms of what they have studied. An inventory of what a person has studied, in both domains, is a strong indicator of that persons knowledge. An important step, therefore, in determining the competence (knowledge) of a workforce, is to tabulate both their formal education and their LIFETIME LEARNING.

Based on over 50 years experience in university teaching, administration, research and consulting practice, this author has developed a computer based system for documenting, evaluating, planning and recognizing INDIVIDUAL achievements in LIFETIME LEARNING. This system is KMI FolioOne™. The following steps can be performed with this system.

1. Tabulate and codify ALL education/training of an individual, in both curricular education and lifetime learning. This can be called a knowledge inventory.
2. Establish, and document future personal objectives in terms of jobs desired, knowledge needed, scheduling, These objectives will change as conditions change.
3. Search for learning experiences as appropriate for short and long term objectives. This will include curricular and lifetime learning experiences.
4. Prepare a credential to cumulatively document all lifetime learning experiences and maintain transcripts of curricular education.

Just as a coherent system of recording and evaluating credit work exists in formal education, so must a standard system be developed so that individuals can display a record of their LIFETIME LEARNING. The four steps listed above will be covered in sequence to illustrate how KMI FolioOne™ can be used to perform them.

STEP 1

EDUCATIONAL HISTORIES OF INDIVIDUALS

The purpose of LIFETIME LEARNING is to develop personal competence as necessary for individual career development. Competence can be inferred from specific subjects that a person has studied. The first step therefore in planning a career development program is to determine the TOTAL educational/learning history of persons. This includes both curricular education and Lifetime Learning. Each educational experience must be listed; individual courses, seminars, workshops, institutes, on-the-job training, vocational studies, correspondence, etc. etc. Every learning experience in both domains must be tabulated and preferably coded by subject matter. This enables a systematic search for areas of competence.

A personal education history is the foundation for planning a LIFETIME LEARNING program. It is the equivalent of "prerequisites" in curricular education. In order to be useful, it should be in database format so that persons with particular knowledge can be found. A omputer database is the logical way to compile this educational history. Once a database has been set up, it need not be redone. Additional experiences are added to the database as they occur. KMI FolioOne™ is available with which this can be done. Procedures and methods of developing this database are a part of the system which has been developed by this author

STEP 2

PROGRAM PLANNING IN LIFETIME LEARNING

An individual may be at a point where employment is being terminated, a job is being phased out, a business is changing, etc. It may be necessary, for whatever reason, to develop alternative or additional knowledge/skills. A personal development plan starts with a tabulation of knowledge and skills which are required to perform a desired task or acquire desired employment. This set of requirements forms the basis for developing an educational plan, both LIFETIME LEARNING and curricular.

Personal employment/business goals can be correlated with knowledge/skill requirements by coding subject matter or specific knowledge as required for job(s) or goal(s). A computer based subject coding procedure is required to accomplish this. Interest patterns of persons are compared with subject matters required for specified goals to determine compatibility. Required subject matters for a personal goal will be the basis for a combinations of either, or both, a curricular education and a LIFETIME LEARNING program plan.

STEP 3

CAREER AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

The next step in planning personal development is to determine sources of necessary knowledge or methods of developing skills. This is done by locating career/educational/skill development opportunities wherever they are. Catalogues of schools should be searched. Seminars, correspondence, video, classes, in-plant training and all types of educational opportunities must be considered.

In order to make a choice of LEARNING EXPERIENCES, a database on ALL opportunities must be available for inspection. The huge variety of schools, organizations, businesses, seminar givers, consultants, technical organizations, trade associations, etc., which provide some type of educational offering make it physically impossible for an individual to know what is available. This is in contrast to curricular education where a single catalogue/schedule of a school, university, college, etc., tabulates offerings of that institution. In curricular education a finite number of organizations can be searched (2 or 3 colleges) and a reasonable choice made of a curricula leading toward a formal, institutional degree.

Not so in the LIFETIME LEARNING domain. A database of ALL learning experiences must be available which can be searched to find matches between opportunities and individual requirements. This is done through subject matter codes.

A database on every kind of LIFETIME LEARNING experience requires a survey of a community, area or region for every available opportunity. Each opportunity must be coded as to subject matter. This database can be searched for subject matters of specific interest to an individual. A matching is made between opportunities and individual career goals.

The work place is an important place to seek knowledge. Corporations, businesses, associations, etc., are rich sources of knowledge. By waiving the strict certificate requirements in curricular education, a huge reservoir of talent can be tapped. Persons in industry are knowledgeable about current activities and, because of industrial planning, have knowledge about future developments. Persons with knowledge must be sought. These are the "faculty" of the LIFETIME LEARNING domain. Businesses and industries give much on-the-job and in-plant training. Each company should establish a database of internal LIFETIME LEARNING experiences. This "internal" database together with an "external" database is a "catalogue" of ALL opportunities available to company employees.

This type of database does not exist. Many, many catalogues and schedules tabulate offerings of hundreds of organizations but there is no single, coherent database, classified by subject matter, from which a selection can be made and priorities established for individuals to achieve personal career goals. Computer software must be used to tabulate all past education/training of individuals, to define career goals and, by use of subject matter coding, match needs of individuals with educational opportunities. KMI FolioOne™ has been designed to enable this search.

STEP 4

KEEPING RECORDS OF LIFETIME LEARNING

After a knowledge history has been developed, after requirements (or goals) of a program have been established and after experiences have been found that count toward a person's goal, the next step is to attend appropriate learning experiences. Enrollment records must be set up and a running account kept of learning experiences. This is done as a matter of course by academic institutions but procedures for academic records are not appropriate for LIFETIME LEARNING. All data necessary to describe individual experiences, including subject matter coding, is entered into databases. Many different reports must be printed, including a cumulative educational history. A local, regional or national database of LIFETIME LEARNING, can be established. A person could attend an learning experience, send data to the appropriate central office and maintain a cumulative record of ALL LIFETIME LEARNING.

It is not enough to merely make a memorandum of an educational experience. It must be described in a quantitative manner, just as academic courses are described by college credit hours or quarter credit hours. A quantitative evaluation must be computed for each lifetime learning experiences. The magnitude of this computation is the measure of the quality of the offering. The subject matter code defines content.

Unfortunately no method has been available to coherently record non-curricular, LIFETIME LEARNING educational experiences. They have to be recalled from memory, many bureau drawers must be searched and the mind must be cudgeled to produce data that describes an educational history. Merely assembling this information in ragtag fashion produces no usable result. A method must be available to arrange, evaluate, document and codify this educational history.

KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS PORTFOLIO

Finally a credential is necessary to display and codify ALL learning experiences of a person. This credential, in conjunction with an academic transcript, defines the TOTAL education of a person. This author recommends a KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS PORTFOLIO that can be printed directly from a computer. It is a credential that includes both curricular education and Lifetime Learning. It is the mark of an educated person.

SUMMARY

LIFETIME LEARNING has become necessary for all persons, particularly those employed in businesses and industries, that are altered by rapidly changing technology. Institutional education is struggling to fulfill its primary mission of educating the lower 1/3 age group of the population. The majority of the work force resides in the LIFETIME LEARNING DOMAIN.

LIFETIME LEARNING must be centered on individuals not institutions. Individuals must develop educational plans to fulfill their own goals, not the goals of an institution. This can be done by establishing databases which define:

1. TOTAL knowledge of a person as evidenced by past education. (educational history).
2. A personal development plan, including education and LIFETIME LEARNING.
3. LEARNING opportunities compatible with a personal development plan.
4. TOTAL LEARNING experiences of a person (credential).

After current knowledge (past education) has been tabulated, future plans can be defined and a learning opportunities database be searched. Subject matter coding is the link between needs and opportunities.

Individuals must have a record of their lifetime learning achievements, preferably on a cumulative record of these achievements. A KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS PORTFOLIO, analogous to academic diplomas and transcripts, is necessary. A KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS PORTFOLIO is available at www.folioone.com.