5 Ways to Upskill your Team for Success in Computer Science for 2022

According to the World Economic Forum (Oct 2020), the future of work has already arrived for a large majority of the online white-collar workforce. A staggering 84 per cent of employers are set to rapidly transition to working digitally, including significant expansion to remote working. With this, skill gaps continue to be as high as in-demand skills across jobs change in the next few years. The top skills and skill groups which employers see as rising in prominence in the lead up to 2025 include groups such as critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving, and skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility.

Every job, either directly or indirectly, depends on a range of applications to automate tasks, provide directions, analyse data and facilitate decision making. To fully understand where we are today and what is possible in the future, requires an understanding of computer science and programming. If you’re looking for ways to upskill your team for success in Computer Science, whether if you’re in tech or non-tech industry, you’re in the right place.

For our recent CS101 Course: Programming and Computational Thinking, we had surveyed our enrolled learners and approximately 22 per cent have indicated that they are looking to enhance their career and be more successful in their role. Another 17 per cent had indicated that they are looking to upskill/ challenge themselves to stay more relevant.

Here are five ways to upskill your team for success in Computer Science for 2022:

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#1 Start with bite-sized, interactive modules

When scouting courses for your team to upskill, consider moving toward bite-sized learning modules, or in other words, micro-learning. Given the nature of juggling day-to-day work to personal schedules, finding suitable bite-sized structures can be the key to meeting the employees where they are. This can further increase accessibility for remote employees.

For our CS101 course, our survey has uncovered that approximately 63 per cent of enrolled learners look for flexibility in curriculum and delivery modes. Hence, to support the success of your team to complete any upskilling courses, take into consideration of this learning structure.

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#2 Focus on tailored support and mentoring with employees

Remote courses can be a little intimidating for some people, hence it is vital to seek if there’s available tailored support and mentorship for your employees to ensure successful completion. According to Forbes (2019), about 70 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs.

Did you know that CS101 offers tailored support and mentoring with enrolled learners? With this model, it includes:

• Weekly consultation group of up to eight people with a coach;
• Ongoing learning community facilitation; and
• Fortnightly portfolio review and feedback.

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#3 Encourage and promote self-training 

To encourage participation from your employees, this starts within your organisation. Whether it be through performance reviews or simply, asking your employees or direct reports to review and note areas of improvements or what skills they want to work on, this can be a valuable learning pathway for you to remove barriers and build incentives to achieve these goals.

When upskilling in Computer Science, your team will be a part of a vibrant learning community that is driven by activities and projects, and facilitated by experts in the field. Ever so rarely, programmers work alone so if your team is keen to upskill in this area, do keep in mind that this is community-based learning so learning together can be another motivational factor to promote self-training.

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#4 Explore real-world projects and case studies

It is essential to select upskilling courses that explore real-world projects and case studies, to allow your team to understand theories and put them into practice. Hence, learning outcomes are something to research into when choosing to upskill your employees, not only in Computer Science but any other disciplines. The end goal here is to bridge the knowledge gap of your employees and consequently, how to put more value into the work they produce. Our survey had revealed that 83 per cent of our respondents look out for learning outcomes (syllabus, things I will get to learn from the course, and skills gained) when they are researching for online courses.

For CS101, we have listed our learning outcomes and broken them down into three categories: attitudes, knowledge and skills. For more information, click here to find out more.

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#5 Maximise opportunities through social, community-based learning

With any kind of remote learning, it is in our interest to provide a collaborative learning experience for ourselves and our team members. Through collaboration, this opens up more opportunities and “surface area” for any learners to come across.

CS101 is designed from the ground up to maximise opportunities for peer interaction and engagement for the purpose of developing a broad range of computer science and professional skills. Delivered on OpenLearning and designed around the principles of social constructivism, your team will interact because it's fun, not because they are forced to do so.

What next?

Interested in taking your team to the next level in 2022 with CS101 powered by OpenLearning? Download our Course Syllabus today:

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