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Gary Brown

Law Schools Resist Proposal to Assess Them Based on What Students Learn - Curriculum - ... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...63494

assessment

shared by Gary Brown on 11 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Law schools would be required to identify key skills and competencies and develop ways to test how well their graduates are learning them under controversial revisions to accreditation standards being proposed by the American Bar Association.
  • Several law deans said they have enough to worry about with budget cuts, a tough job market for their graduates, and the soaring cost of legal education without adding a potentially expensive assessment overhaul.
  • "It is worth pausing to ask how the proponents of outcome measures can be so very confident that the actual performance of tasks deemed essential for the practice of law can be identified, measured, and evaluated," said Robert C. Post, dean of Yale Law School.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The proposed standards, which are still being developed, call on law schools to define learning outcomes that are consistent with their missions and to offer curricula that will achieve those outcomes. Different versions being considered offer varying degrees of specificity about what those skills should include.
  • Phillip A. Bradley, senior vice president and general counsel for Duane Reade, a large drugstore chain, likened law schools to car companies that are "manufacturing something that nobody wants." Mr. Bradley said many law firms are developing core competencies they expect of their lawyers, but many law schools aren't delivering graduates who come close to meeting them.
  • Gary Brown on 11 Jan 10
     
    The homeopathic fallacy again, and as goes law school, so goes law....
Gary Brown

Accrediting Agencies Confront New Challenges - Letters to the Editor - The Chronicle of... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...63530

accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 19 Jan 10 - Cached
  • The Chronicle, December 17). In an era of global expansion in higher education, accreditation agencies are increasingly confronted with myriad challenges surrounding various forms of distance education (whether virtual, so-called branch campuses, or study abroad) and cross-institutional certification.
  • the American Academy for Liberal Education is particularly well placed to view this changing pedagogical and institutional landscape, both domestically and worldwide.
  • AALE goes several steps further in evaluating whether institutions meet an extensive set of pedagogical standards specifically related to liberal education—standards of effective reasoning, for instance, and broad and deep learning. This level of assessment requires extensive classroom visitations, conversations with students and faculty members, and the time to assess the climate of learning at every institution we visit.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Innovation and quality in higher education can only join hands when institutions aspire—and are held to—independent, third-party standards of assessment.
  • Gary Brown on 19 Jan 10
     
    a small but clear stress made for independent review
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.
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  • 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.
Nils Peterson

Office of the President: Perspectives Home - 1 views

president.wsu.edu/perspectives

shared by Nils Peterson on 22 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Clearly, a world-class research university cannot long stand on such a shaky IT foundation. In fact, in the  generally glowing accreditation report filed by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities about our university this summer, one recommendation read: “The Committee recommends that Washington State University provide contemporary information management systems that will address the needs of the future for its student, academic and management support requirements.”
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Nov 09
       
      Perhaps the President recalls the Spring preliminary accreditation report more clearly than the final report sent to him in the summer and linked at accreditation.wsu.edu which does not have the "glowing" comments but does say "...the Commission finds that Recommendations 1,2, and 3 of the Spring 2009 Comprehensive Evaluation Report are areas where Washington State University is substantially in compliance with Commission criteria for accreditation, but in need of improvement. The two additional Recommendations follow below. Recommendation 2 states that the implementation of the educational assessment plan remains inconsistent across the University despite promising starts and a number of exemplary successes in selected programs. The Commission therefore recommends that the Universìty continue to enhance and strengthen its assessment process. This process needs to be extended to all of the University's educational programs, including graduate programs, and programs offered at the branch campuses (Standard 2.8).
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