Workforce needs are in constant flux. As social needs and institutions change, so do workforce needs and opportunities. As economic conditions change, so do workforce shortages and opportunities. As science and innovation shape and re-shape professions and interventions, the skills and knowledge required of new professionals also evolve. This paper describes a strategy for designing targeted interventions for critical competency development, bridging the gap between existing programs of study and rapidly emerging workforce needs.

Educational institutions are slower to change than emerging workforce needs: Curricula are often designed to align with professional standards that have been developed and refined over many years, and which may take years to update. These are based on a broad conception of expertise and professional environments. Once programmatic goals and outcomes have been designed in alignment with standards, specific courses and study and skills development are designed to support learners progressing through a program. Completing a program should imply that graduates have mastered the programmatic outcomes, which in turn should align with workforce needs. In practice, however, workforce needs, professional standards, programmatic goals, and learning experience designs change at different paces and in response to different external factors. This means that many programs of study are not well-aligned with current professional standards, and that programmatic goals and professional standards often fail to account for critical competencies that are in urgent demand.

In professions and under conditions where workplace needs change rapidly, such as cybersecurity or the health professions, novel interventions can close the gap between professional training and workforce readiness. The project described here entailed a team of subject matter experts, educators, postsecondary administrators, and educational technology designers working together with employers to identify critical competencies which were needed to address workforce shortfalls. We then mapped these onto curricula as targeted outcomes and designed technology-enhanced educational interventions which support skills development, complement degrees and certifications, and meet critical workforce needs. Interventions included virtual simulation labs, AI-enabled problem sets, and computer-supported collaborative learning tools. Participants in a pilot project demonstrated significant mastery gains in workforce-critical areas. We describe our approach and offer guidance to others designing workforce training programs, continuing education units, micro-certifications, and other interventions which bridge gaps between existing postsecondary curricula and emerging workforce needs.

Keywords: Transfer, workforce development, competency-based.