April 23, 2020
By Patty Reinert Mason

Read Time

In the second season of Strada Education Network’s podcast, Lessons Earned: Putting Education to Work, co-hosts Ben Wildavsky and Andrew Hanson explore how educators, employers, and policymakers are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a time when postsecondary education has shifted to an online learning model and millions of workers around the country have been displaced by layoffs, Wildavsky and Hanson talk with experts at the intersection of education and the workforce to find out how those systems are coping with the new reality and what to expect in the coming months.

Season 2, recorded remotely in the era of social distancing, gathers insights from experts in supporting vulnerable student populations, delivering competency-based online learning, and reskilling displaced workers during poor economic times.

The season premiere, launching today, features Tony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, who provides an economist’s take on higher education and its relationship to the economy in the midst of a pandemic that changed the world overnight. Normally, when the economy is down, workers return to school, Carnevale says. But what’s the right strategy if school is not a great option right now? Carnevale explains why this economic crisis is different, who is most at risk, and what it means for post-high school education and training in the months ahead.

Upcoming Season 2 guests include:

  • Meghan Hughes, President of the Community College of Rhode Island, who explains what happens to work-based, hands-on learning when you can’t be work-based or hands-on.
  • Aimee Eubanks Davis, co-founder of Braven, who discusses how to help our most vulnerable students who were struggling long before the pandemic upended their lives and their studies.
  • Scott Pulsipher, of Western Governors University, who shares what he’s learned at the helm of an online university where learning is self-paced and competency-based, and where progression is based not on hours in the classroom, but on proven mastery of the content.

Season 2 of Lessons Earned, which continues weekly, is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

To listen, subscribe, or learn more about our guests, please visit LessonsEarned.org.

Patty Reinert Mason

Director of Content
Strada Education Network
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