Group items tagged

Alverno's Eight Abilities Communication Make connections that create meaning between yourself and your audience. Learn to speak, read, write and listen effectively, using graphics, electronic media, computers and quantified data. Analysis Think clearly and critically. Fuse experience, reason and training into considered judgment. Problem Solving Define problems and their causes, and use a range of abilities and resources to reach decisions, make recommendations, or carry out plans. Valuing Recognize different value systems while holding strongly to your own ethic. Recognize the moral dimensions of your decisions and accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Social Interaction Know how to get things done in committees, task forces, team projects and other group efforts. Elicit the views of others and help reach conclusions. Developing a Global Perspective Act with an understanding of and respect for the economic, social and biological interdependence of global life. Effective Citizenship Be involved and responsible in the community. Act with an informed awareness of contemporary issues and their historical contexts. Develop leadership abilities. Aesthetic Engagement Engage with various forms of art and in artistic processes. Take and defend positions regarding the meaning and value of artistic expressions in the contexts from which they emerge.

\nIn 1973 Alverno College\n\nbegan a new curriculum based on eight abilities integrated within the content of the disciplines.\n\nStudent Assessment-as-Learning is Alverno's term for a process that involves individual student demonstration of those abilities as requirements for graduation.

Twitter: A Tool for Academia to Connect, Share, and Grow Relationships\n\nTwitter: A Tool for Academia to Connect, Share, and Grow Relationships\nJohn LeMasney\nDigital Media Convergence\nCOMM 563 SP09\nIntroduction\n\nTwitter allows individuals to send out messages to followers as well as the public about any topic, without editing, complete with what a power user of the system named Andrew Korf calls "ambient intimacy" or "to follow or be somewhat intimate with people without needing to directly engage them" (Salas, 2009). It is a very direct way to broadcast, relatively easy to do (comparative even to blogs), and allows for an asynchronous audience and interaction (Siegel, 2007). It allows for the following of others in the thousands and the ability to be followed by thousands (Johnson-Elie, 2009). As a result, it has the potential for greatness as a mass communication tool, as well as a one-to-one communication, often simultaneously (Johnson-Elie, 2009). While it was first envisioned as a fun way to keep in touch with friends, its ability to meet much more serious needs is being quickly realized (Shropshire, 2009; Antlfinger, 2009). Given the right context, training, and support, it can transform the ways that organizations, businesses, and communities communicate (Robinson, 2009; Ferak, 2009; Antlfinger, 2009). I'll demonstrate in this paper that Twitter is a yet-undiscovered powerful communication tool for academic staff, faculty and students to connect, share, and grow relationships.

About the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education\n\nThe Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) was established in 1997 to provide independent assessment of how higher education institutions in the UK maintain their academic standards and quality.\n\nThe primary responsibility for academic standards and quality rests with individual institutions. QAA reviews and reports on how well they meet those recommendations, and encourages continuous improvement in the management of the quality of higher education. We do this by:\n\n * conducting external reviews of universities and colleges\n * publishing reports on the confidence that can be placed in an institution's ability to maintain standards and quality\n * offering expert guidance on maintaining and improving the quality of higher education\n * advising the government on applications for degree awarding powers and university title.

Educational Research and Evaluation at Alverno College In 1976, the college formally established an office of educational research and evaluation that would investigate a series of questions at the behest of the faculty, with special attention to linking the outcomes of college to the curriculum,establishing the validity of assessment techniques and the assessment process, and demonstrating the link between college-learned abilities and alumnae performance in the world of work, personal life, service, and citizenship. Our initial concerns were for assessment activities that operated at the level of individual students and were integral to their learning. (For additional information, go to Student Assessment-as-Learning.) Alongside this use, assessment can also be an instructor's tool for improving learning or a policy tool for planning and improvement. We have gradually developed a program of assessments that operates at the levels of individual student, program, curriculum, and institution. In this context, educational research and evaluation are part of a dynamic learning system based on the educational principles and values underlying Alverno's mission and supported by structures that ensure coherence and continuing improvement. One such structure is the Research and Evaluation Council, made up of senior faculty, staff, and administrators. However, responsibility for review of program, curriculum, and institution-wide effectiveness lies with departments faculty and staff across this institution.

Last week I went to the annual conference of the Practice based Professional learning unit at the Open University; mainly to see David Boud, whose research I've quoted from extensively in my work on reflective practice and experiential learning. David's paper was on assessment, experience and reflection, and was very provocative and challenging in terms of his interpretation of the role of assessment. He posed a simple question to the audience: 'If we were going to modify assessment as if making a contribution to their ability to learn after their course rather than during it was the primary need, how would it be different?' His focus was then on how to reshape assessment policies so that their main intention was to help the learner build their capacity for self and peer judgment to further their lifelong learning.