ALIGN Vision and Value
The Vision for ALIGN was the following:
The ALIGN project will explore and create an educational model aligned to the knowledge and skills most relevant to state, regional, and local workforce needs and propose a feasible plan for potential implementation which identifies the financial and human resources needed for system-wide adoption and sustainability of this model in its General Education, Technical Programs, and Workforce Solutions.
- A community that surrounds each learner with the services and supports needed for success;
- Flexibility to ensure all learners have the opportunity to pursue education and persist to completion;
- Instruction that leads to workforce readiness through the demonstration of required knowledge and skills needed by employers both now and in the future; and
- Applicability to all modes of delivery including face-to-face, online, and hybrid models.
- ALIGN will be shaped by key stakeholders, including 草莓流氓视频 faculty and staff from all 16 institutions and the system office, students, employer and industry partners, government agencies and other Commonwealth constituents, who collaboratively participate in a guided 12-month planning process, with support from national experts.
Those invited to serve on the ALIGN project will abide by these community norms:
- Commit to collaborative discussion
- Seek input from diverse stakeholders
- Communicate often, always with honesty and transparency
- Demonstrate openness and flexibility
- Provide constructive feedback, offering solutions to challenges
- Respect the role of faculty and shared governance
- Recognize the needs of others
- Leverage what works today and refine for future growth
ALIGN Value Propositions for Key Stakeholders
The model should enable key stakeholders to realize the following benefits:
- Achieve individual goals and aspirations by progressing along a carefully crafted and efficiently designed learning pathways with targeted services and supports.
- Save time and money while still earning a high-quality credential with the flexibility to leverage knowledge and skills acquired elsewhere.
- Participate in a learning community where each individual is valued.
- Build confidence in both the relevance of the credential earned and the instruction received, leading to employment or admission for advanced studies.
- Be able to achieve personal and professional needs through just-in0time educational options.
- Build confidence that all 草莓流氓视频 credential holders are workforce ready because these learners know and can do what is required in their respective fields of study.
- Reduce on-the-job training costs by hiring 草莓流氓视频 graduates with transparently aligned knowledge and skills
- Increased responsiveness by institutions to specific workforce challenges through meaningful business engagement opportunities.
- Able to quickly respond to upskilling and reskilling needs, enhancing competitive position in today's global and digital economy.
- Increase external appreciation for the liberal arts by articulating general education content in terms of transferable knowledge and skills that learners and employers can understand and embrace.
- Allow faculty to focus on its area of expertise without being burdened with administrative responsibilities better suited for staff support.
- Eliminate repetition across the curriculum so instructional time can be spent moving learners to high cognitive and behavioral levels of learning
- Hone the craft of teaching by receiving additional training in pedagogy, andragogy, and learning science.
- Embrace a growth mindset while receiving the necessary support to more effectively express curriculum in a workforce aligned manner.
- Enhance course and program enrollment and completions by delivering in a variety of modalities.
- Showcase the transferability of knowledge and skills beyond individual courses or programs to workforce and career needs.
- Increase enrollment by providing relevant credentials for in-demand careers and attracting learners who may not have previously engaged in higher education.
- Remain competitive in a rapidly changing academic environment by partnering with work-based learning providers to validate college-level student learning.
- Create an innovative model that meets federal, state, and accreditor requirements and allows learners to access federal financial aid.
- Enhance consistency of outcomes across all 16 institutions by using common knowledge and skill definitions, shared agreements of proficiency, and access to a suite of curriculum and assessment tools.
- Assess and improve policies, processes and systems to encourage and support all institutions to participate and reach desired scale.
- Enable all Kentuckians to earn a high-quality credential leading to more equitable outcomes in educational attainment rates.
- Deploy a state, regional and local approach to address economic and workforce needs and opportunities in partnership with chambers of commerce, employers, and business associations.
- Attract new businesses to the Commonwealth by having a responsive higher education system to grow the talent needed by incoming industries.
- Become the first state system in the Nation to create a workforce-aligned higher education model based on a shared repository of knowledge and skill sets.
- Identify state policy opportunities that enable adoption and implementation of proposed model.
- Accelerate the credential to employment transition, which increases economic productivity of Kentucky business and industries, and reduces dependence on government assistance programs, demonstrating a return on state investment in higher education.
- Help Kentuckians secure and maintain employment by providing needed education and workforce training, resulting in increased career opportunities and higher lifetime earnings.