Emergent Strategies and Cross-System Partnerships | Workforce Innovation and Learning
Old ways of siloed and cautious program design are making workforce investments inefficient or outdated. We are passionate about emergent innovations that hold promise to transform workforce systems. See how we are helping our workforce partners take stock of emergent innovations in adjacent fields and design pilots to test new areas of impact.
Our Projects
Leveraging Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) to Improve Outcomes in Per Scholas’ Sectoral Training Program
Sectoral training programs, which offer occupational skills training, career readiness training support services, and assistance with job searches and job placement to low-income individuals, offer a promising model for closing the gap. One of the binding constraints on program growth is the costs of finding and retaining instructors for live instruction and after-hours, on-demand learner support.
Through AIR’s PROMISE Center, we are partnering with Per Scholas and the University of Memphis to develop and integrate an ITS into Per Scholas’ popular A+ CompTIA course. The goal of the project is to examine whether the addition of the ITS improves the certification rate for students in the course by providing them with a safe environment to test their knowledge, refamiliarize themselves with prior lessons, or catch up if they have had to miss class days.
Once this course demonstrates that it has improved pass rates, particularly for people underrepresented in the IT workforce and those from economically challenged backgrounds, the partnership created through this project will expand to more ambitious applications, including application of adaptive ITS and integrative generative AI.
