Bridging College Coursework and Career Readiness: Using Canvas Outcomes to Assess Academic, Career/Community, and Employability Skills

Companies from IBM to Whole Foods to Home Depot are recruiting for positions offering decent income, benefits, education, and growth opportunities, with college credentials taking a backseat to candidates’ skill sets during the hiring process. At the same time, the CA Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office is pursuing Competency Based Education models, and employers have identified skills sets they value. Chaffey College has developed ACES (Academic, Career/Community, and Employability Skills), utilizing Canvas technology and infrastructure to inextricably link college coursework to personal, academic, and career readiness. We will demonstrate how we adapted New World of Work outcomes to develop our ACES framework for certifying attainment of transferrable, interdisciplinary skills. We will show how we are bringing ACES to scale through the program review process. Chaffey is using Badgr Pro technology to connect acquisition of skill sets to student pathways and Academic & Career Communities, while leveraging the SLO assessment processes and existing curriculum to promote equitable outcomes, transparency, authenticity, and robust assessment while increasing efficiency of data management. Finally, we will reveal initial efforts to develop employer-verified digital micro credentials and explore opportunities for bringing this to scale. Our presentation will conclude with panelist responses to questions from the audience.

Session Outcomes:

• Integrate academic, personal, and career readiness skills with existing curriculum and LMS infrastructure.
• Leverage the SLO assessment process to connect college coursework to acquisition of highly valued transferrable skills.
• Identify a process for bringing this work to scale and expanding the impact and benefits for students