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Gary Brown

Op-Ed: 'Higher Education' Is A Waste Of Money : NPR - 4 views

www.npr.org/...story.php

shared by Gary Brown on 02 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Professor Andrew Hacker says that higher education in the U.S. is broken. He argues that too many undergraduate courses are taught by graduate assistants or professors who have no interest in teaching.
  • Gary Brown on 02 Aug 10
     
    Forwarded from a colleague.
Gary Brown

Views: Asking Too Much (and Too Little) of Accreditors - Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

www.insidehighered.com/...neal

accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 12 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Senators want to know why accreditors haven’t protected the public interest.
  • Congress shouldn’t blame accreditors: it should blame itself. The existing accreditation system has neither ensured quality nor ferreted out fraud. Why? Because Congress didn’t want it to. If Congress truly wants to protect the public interest, it needs to create a system that ensures real accountability.
  • But turning accreditors into gatekeepers changed the picture. In effect, accreditors now held a gun to the heads of colleges and universities since federal financial aid wouldn’t flow unless the institution received “accredited” status.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Congress listened to higher education lobbyists and designated accreditors -- teams made up largely of administrators and faculty -- to be “reliable authorities” on educational quality. Intending to protect institutional autonomy, Congress appropriated the existing voluntary system by which institutions differentiated themselves.
  • A gatekeeping system using peer review is like a penal system that uses inmates to evaluate eligibility for parole. The conflicts of interest are everywhere -- and, surprise, virtually everyone is eligible!
  • accreditation is “premised upon collegiality and assistance; rather than requirements that institutions meet certain standards (with public announcements when they don’t."
  • Meanwhile, there is ample evidence that many accredited colleges are adding little educational value. The 2006 National Assessment of Adult Literacy revealed that nearly a third of college graduates were unable to compare two newspaper editorials or compute the cost of office items, prompting the Spellings Commission and others to raise concerns about accreditors’ attention to productivity and quality.
  • But Congress wouldn’t let them. Rather than welcoming accreditors’ efforts to enhance their public oversight role, Congress told accreditors to back off and let nonprofit colleges and universities set their own standards for educational quality.
  • ccreditation is nothing more than an outdated industrial-era monopoly whose regulations prevent colleges from cultivating the skills, flexibility, and innovation that they need to ensure quality and accountability.
  • there is a much cheaper and better way: a self-certifying regimen of financial accountability, coupled with transparency about graduation rates and student success. (See some alternatives here and here.)
  • Such a system would prioritize student and parent assessment over the judgment of institutional peers or the educational bureaucracy. And it would protect students, parents, and taxpayers from fraud or mismanagement by permitting immediate complaints and investigations, with a notarized certification from the institution to serve as Exhibit A
  • The only way to protect the public interest is to end the current system of peer review patronage, and demand that colleges and universities put their reputation -- and their performance -- on the line.
  • Anne D. Neal is president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The views stated herein do not represent the views of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, of which she is a member.
  • Gary Brown on 12 Nov 10
     
    The ascending view of accreditation.
Gary Brown

Higher Education: Assessment & Process Improvement Group News | LinkedIn - 2 views

www.linkedin.com/news

accountability

shared by Gary Brown on 21 Feb 10 - No Cached
  • Gary Brown on 21 Feb 10
     
    The Forbes take--more vocationalism, more quality, less focus on quality, contain costs. Not interesting except as an example of how the work of higher ed is perceived in the business press.
Gary Brown

Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

chronicle.com/...9181

for profits teaching faculty development

shared by Gary Brown on 14 Dec 09 - Cached
  • colleges and universities can learn from for-profit colleges' approach to teaching.
  • "If disruptive technology allows them to serve new markets, or serve markets more efficiently and effectively in order to profit, then they are more likely to utilize them."
  • Some for-profit institutions emphasize instructor training in a way that more traditional institutions should emulate, according to the report. The University of Phoenix, for example, "has required faculty to participate in a four-week training program that includes adult learning theory," the report said.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The committee's largest sponsors include GE, Merrill Lynch and Company, IBM, McKinsey and Company, General Motors, and Pfizer.
  • Gary Brown on 14 Dec 09
     
    Minimally the advocates list suggests that higher ed might qualify for a bail out.
Gary Brown

The Ticker - Education Dept. Criticizes Accreditor Over Credit-Hour Standards - The Chr... - 2 views

chronicle.com/...8993

seat time accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 29 Nov 09 - Cached
  • The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools cannot consistently ensure the quality of academic programs it reviews without clearly defining what constitutes a credit hour, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education's inspector general. The accrediting organization, which assesses colleges in 11 states, responded that the variety of experiential, online, and distance courses that institutions now offer makes it impossible to define a single, common standard for credit hours. "The traditionally accepted definitions of semester credit hours and quarter credit hours based almost exclusively on seat time can no longer be applied to half of the credits now being awarded by our higher-education institutions," the association wrote in answer to the report.
  • Gary Brown on 29 Nov 09
     
    Outcomes are mentioned as an alternative in the comments, but in a disconcerting way. As is the alternative approach to study time....
Gary Brown

Views: Accreditation 2.0 - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...eaton

accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 22 Jan 10 - Cached
  • The first major conversation is led by the academic and accreditation communities themselves. It focuses on how accreditation is addressing accountability, with particular emphasis on the relationship (some would say tension, or even conflict) between accountability and institutional improvement.
  • The second conversation is led by critics of accreditation who question its effectiveness in addressing accountability
  • The third conversation is led by federal officials who also focus on the gatekeeping role of accreditation.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • All are based on a belief that accreditation needs to change, though in what way and at what pace is seen differently
  • The emerging Accreditation 2.0 is likely to be characterized by six key elements. Some are familiar features of accreditation; some are modifications of existing practice, some are new: Community-driven, shared general education outcomes. Common practices to address transparency. Robust peer review. Enhanced efficiency of quality improvement efforts. Diversification of the ownership of accreditation. Alternative financing models for accreditation.
  • The Essential Learning Outcomes of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Collegiate Learning Assessment and the Voluntary System of Accountability of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities all provide for agreement across institutions about expected outcomes. This work is vital as we continue to address the crucial question of “What is a college education?”
  • peer review can be further enhanced through, for example, encouraging greater diversity of teams, including more faculty and expanding public participation
  • Accreditation 2.0 can include means to assure more immediate institutional action to address the weaknesses and prevent their being sustained over long periods of time.
  • Judith Eaton is president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which is a national advocate for self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation. CHEA has 3,000 degree-granting colleges and universities as members and recognizes 59 institutional and programmatic accrediting organizations.
  • Gary Brown on 22 Jan 10
     
    The way the winds are blowing
Nils Peterson

Higher Ed/: TLT's Harvesting Feedback Project - 0 views

highered.blogspot.com/...rvesting-feedback-project.html

harvest TLT demo webinar assesssment

shared by Nils Peterson on 31 Jul 09 - Cached
  • It's a fascinating project, and to me the most interesting design element is one not actually highlighted here, viz. that the plan is to be able to rate any kind of work anywhere on the Internet. The era of "enclosed garden" portfolio systems may be drawing (thankfully) to an end.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 31 Jul 09
       
      Interesting that David picked up this implication from the work, its something we didn't say but I think want to believe.
  • crowd-sourcing for assessment (you assess some of my students, I assess some of yours, for example) I wonder if the group has considered using Amazon's Mechanical Turk service as a cost-effective way of getting ratings from "the public."
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 31 Jul 09
       
      This is an interesting idea, i've started to follow up at Mechanical Turk and hope to develop a blog post
Nils Peterson

Views: The Limitations of Portfolios - Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

www.insidehighered.com/...shavelson

shared by Nils Peterson on 20 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Gathering valid data about student performance levels and performance improvement requires making comparisons relative to fixed benchmarks and that can only be done when the assessments are standardized. Consequently, we urge the higher education community to embrace authentic, standardized performance-assessment approaches so as to gather valid data that can be used to improve teaching and learning as well as meet its obligations to external audiences to account for its actions and outcomes regarding student learning.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 20 Oct 09
       
      Diigoed because this is the counter-argument to our work.
Gary Brown

News: Assessment vs. Action - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...assess

asesment

shared by Gary Brown on 26 Oct 09 - Cached
  • The assessment movement has firmly taken hold in American higher education, if you judge it by how many colleges are engaged in measuring what undergraduates learn. But if you judge by how many of them use that information to do something, the picture is different.
  • The most common approach used for institutional assessment is a nationally normed survey of students.
  • ut the survey found more attention to learning outcomes at the program level, especially by community colleges.)
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Much smaller percentages of colleges report that assessment is based on external evaluations of student work (9 percent), student portfolios (8 percent) and employer interviews (8 percent).
  • “Some faculty and staff at prestigious, highly selective campuses wonder why documenting something already understood to be superior is warranted. They have little to gain and perhaps a lot to lose,” the report says. “On the other hand, many colleagues at lower-status campuses often feel pressed to demonstrate their worth; some worry that they may not fare well in comparison with their better-resourced, more selective counterparts. Here too, anxiety may morph into a perceived threat if the results disappoint.”
  • The provosts in the survey said what they most needed to more effectively use assessment was more faculty involvement, with 66 percent citing this need. The percentage was even greater (80 percent) at doctoral institutions.George Kuh, director of the institute, said that he viewed the results as "cause for cautious optimism," and that the reality of so much assessment activity makes it possible to work on making better use of it.
  • Kimberly Green on 26 Oct 09
     
    From National Institute for LOA:\n\n"The provosts in the survey said what they most \nneeded to more effectively use assessment was more faculty involvement, with 66 \npercent citing this need. The percentage was even greater (80 percent) at \ndoctoral institutions."
  • Gary Brown on 28 Oct 09
     
    another report on survey with interesting implications
Gary Brown

Might Companies, Not Colleges, Deserve the Blame for a Shortage of Engineers? - Faculty... - 2 views

chronicle.com/...48948

employers education

shared by Gary Brown on 28 Oct 09 - Cached
  • But in fact the number of talented college graduates in the sciences is "quite in excess of the demand," said Harold Salzman, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University. In a new paper, he and a colleague argue that the real problem is at the employment end of the pipeline.
  • It may not be so easy to convince companies, however, that they're the main problem. Susan L. Traiman, director of public policy at Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of the largest American companies, said the analysis by Mr. Salzman and Mr. Lowell has some potential shortcomings that may explain why its findings contradict the experience of many engineering companies.
  • The fundamental suggestion by Mr. Salzman and Mr. Lowell—that science and engineering companies perhaps should be doing more to grab science and engineering students—may even have trouble winning support on university campuses, where engineering deans increasingly take pride in graduating students with a diverse set of talents, who are able to take on a range of professional challenges, rather than simply follow traditional engineering paths.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • And Ms. Traiman, despite questioning some of the specifics in the report, said she understands the need for American companies—including those in engineering—to compete harder on both salary and lifestyle issues to attract graduates like Ms. Anderegg.
  • Gary Brown on 28 Oct 09
     
    A new twist on what Dewey worried about: the forfeit of the shaping roleof higher ed.
Gary Brown

News: Assessing the Assessments - Inside Higher Ed - 2 views

www.insidehighered.com/...vsa

assessment CLA VSA

shared by Gary Brown on 05 Nov 09 - Cached
  • The validity of a measure is based on evidence regarding the inferences and assumptions that are intended to be made and the uses to which the measure will be put. Showing that the three tests in question are comparable does not support Shulenburger's assertion regarding the value-added measure as a valid indicator of institutional effectiveness. The claim that public university groups have previously judged the value-added measure as appropriate does not tell us anything about the evidence upon which this judgment was based nor the conditions under which the judgment was reached. As someone familiar with the process, I would assert that there was no compelling evidence presented that these instruments and the value-added measure were validated for making this assertion (no such evidence was available at the time), which is the intended use in the VSA.
  • (however much the sellers of these tests tell you that those samples are "representative"), they provide an easy way out for academic administrators who want to avoid the time-and-effort consuming but incredibly valuable task of developing detailed major program learning outcome statements (even the specialized accrediting bodies don't get down to the level of discrete, operational statements that guide faculty toward appropriate assessment design)
  • f somebody really cared about "value added," they could look at each student's first essay in this course, and compare it with that same student's last essay in this course. This person could then evaluate each individual student's increased mastery of the subject-matter in the course (there's a lot) and also the increased writing skill, if any.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • These skills cannot be separated out from student success in learning sophisticated subject-matter, because understanding anthropology, or history of science, or organic chemistry, or Japanese painting, is not a matter of absorbing individual facts, but learning facts and ways of thinking about them in a seamless, synthetic way. No assessment scheme that neglects these obvious facts about higher education is going to do anybody any good, and we'll be wasting valuable intellectual and financial resources if we try to design one.
  • Gary Brown on 05 Nov 09
     
    ongoing discussion of these tools. Note Longanecker's comment and ask me why.
Joshua Yeidel

News: A Jobs Mismatch - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...jobs

higher_education

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 08 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 08 Jul 10
     
    A report of a Georgetown University study that describes the shift in the job market toward requiring post-secondary education (up from 20% of jobs in 1973 to 59% of jobs in 2018) and the looming shortfall of college-eduvated workers. The director of the study opines that that means more vocational orientation in college education, but the report stops short (thankfully) of that mis-conclusion.
Kimberly Green

News: Class Advantage - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...inequality

enrollment education

shared by Kimberly Green on 02 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Kimberly Green on 02 Oct 09
     
    Re SAT scores and college admissions: … Parents of all economic classes want their children to succeed, but the wealthier ones "better understand the postsecondary landscape and competitive admission process and they invest in resources to promote college attendance," she [Alon] writes. As a result test score gaps of high school seniors -- grouped by economic background -- have grown during recent years. Alon writes that as long as college admissions remains competitive, such trends will continue -- with wealthier parents finding ways to improve performance for their children, no matter what measures colleges use to sort applicants.
Joshua Yeidel

News: Measuring 2-Year Students' Success - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...data

assessment accountability

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 21 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 21 Oct 10
     
    Measuring student success for federal purposes in community colleges -- and only one passing mention of learning. The factory model prevails -- stamp that widget (student) and send it out the door (they sell themselves!)
Judy Rumph

Blog U.: It Boils Down to... - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed - 4 views

www.insidehighered.com/...it_boils_down_to

Outcomes Assessment accountability

shared by Judy Rumph on 29 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • I had a conversation a few days ago with a professor who helped me understand some of the otherwise-puzzling opposition faculty have shown to actually using the general education outcomes they themselves voted into place.
  • Yet getting those outcomes from ‘adopted’ to ‘used’ has proved a long, hard slog.
  • The delicate balance is in respecting the ambitions of the various disciplines, while still maintaining -- correctly, in my view -- that you can’t just assume that the whole of a degree is equal to the sum of its parts. Even if each course works on its own terms, if the mix of courses is wrong, the students will finish with meaningful gaps. Catching those gaps can help you determine what’s missing, which is where assessment is supposed to come in. But there’s some local history to overcome first.
  • Judy Rumph on 29 Sep 10
     
    This is an interesting take on what we are doing and the comments interesting
Kimberly Green

Commodification of Academic Research (Inside HIgher Ed) - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...radder

education higher_education

shared by Kimberly Green on 25 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Kimberly Green on 25 Oct 10
     
    This article provides an international view of the commodification of academic research, including this base line definition, from an email interview with Hans Radder, a professor of the philosophy of science and technology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Q: Academic research has always cost money to produce, and led to products that made money for others. How is the "commodification" of research different today than in past periods? A: Commodification means that all kinds of activities and their results are predominantly interpreted and assessed on the basis of economic criteria. In this sense, recent academic research is far more commodified than it was in the past. In general terms, one can say that the relation between "money" and specific academic activity has become much more direct. Consider the following examples: first, the amount of external funding acquired is often used as a measure of individual academic quality; second, specific assessments by individual scientists have a direct impact on departmental budgets; for instance, if I now pass this doctoral dissertation, my department receives a substantial sum of money; if not, it ends up with a budget deficit; third, the growing practice of patenting the results of academic research is explicitly aimed at acquiring commercial monopolies. Related to these financial issues are important and substantial changes of academic culture. Universities are increasingly being run as big corporations. They have a top-down command structure and an academic culture in which individual university scientists are forced to behave like mini-capitalists in order to survive, guided by an entrepreneurial ethos aimed at maximizing the capitalization of their knowledge.
Theron DesRosier

News: Student Data Systems, Unite! - Inside Higher Ed - 2 views

www.insidehighered.com/...data

education standards data assessment change

shared by Theron DesRosier on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 16 Feb 10
     
    "Step by step, an infrastructure is emerging that would make it possible for dozens of states to share data about the students in their K-12 and postsecondary education systems, creating the equivalent of a national system of data on students' educational progress. "
Kimberly Green

Assessment Gap (From INSIDE HIGHER ED) - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...assess

assessment

shared by Kimberly Green on 11 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Kimberly Green on 11 Dec 09
     
    At the Middle States meeting, the Temple officials offered strategies for winning faculty involvement and follow through: Recognize differences among departments; publicize success stories; start with the basics; reward -- don't punish -- flaws that are revealed. I think it would be worth talking about these approaches and the extent to which OAI is / isn't or should / shouldn't build them in.
Joshua Yeidel

News: 'You Can't Measure What We Teach' - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...humanities

assessment accountability

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 27 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 27 Jan 10
     
    "Despite those diverging starting points, the discussion revealed quite a bit more common ground than any of the panelists probably would have predicted. Let's be clear: Where they ended up was hardly a breakthrough on the scale of solving the Middle East puzzle. But there was general agreement among them that: * Any effort to try to measure learning in the humanities through what McCulloch-Lovell deemed "[Margaret] Spellings-type assessment" -- defined as tests or other types of measures that could be easily compared across colleges and neatly sum up many of the learning outcomes one would seek in humanities students -- was doomed to fail, and should. * It might be possible, and could be valuable, for humanists to reach broad agreement on the skills, abilities, and knowledge they might seek to instill in their students, and that agreement on those goals might be a starting point for identifying effective ways to measure how well students have mastered those outcomes. * It is incumbent on humanities professors and academics generally to decide for themselves how to assess whether their students are learning, less to satisfy external calls for accountability than because it is the right thing for academics, as professionals who care about their students, to do. "
  • Joshua Yeidel on 27 Jan 10
     
    Assessment meeting at the accreditors -- driven by expectations of a demand for accountability, with not one mention of improvement.
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