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Joshua Yeidel

New Web Site Compares Student Outcomes at Online Colleges - Technology - The Chronicle ... - 0 views

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    "College Choices for Adults [website] provides adults with specific information about what students are supposed to learn in the colleges' mostly career-oriented programs and measurements of whether they did." That's the billing in the Chronicle, but when I wen to the site, I found mostly self-reports of engagement and satisfaction.
Gary Brown

NCATE - public - Home Page - 0 views

  • “The new focus will help close the gap between theory and practice, and assure that teacher education program candidates are able to help diverse students be successful learners,” says NCATE president James G. Cibulka. “In the past, accreditation wrapped clinical experience around coursework. This approach reverses the priority, encouraging institutions to place teacher candidates in year-long training programs and wrap coursework around clinical practice.”
  • “However, regardless of pathway, all candidates should meet the same set of high standards.”
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    Note shift in NCATE accreditation to make the authentic or clinical training central; the classroom should supplement the authentic. There is also an emphasis on bringing change or transformation to the world.
S Spaeth

Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System | eMOLT - Overview - 0 views

  • This information will help both lobstermen and scientists understand variations in water temperature and salinity. Both fishermen and scientists have noticed changes in the location of lobsters based on changes in bottom temperature. eMOLT data will help quantify these observations.
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    Lobstermen collect data Lobstermen collect eMOLT data by attaching temperature and salinity probes to their lobster traps. The probes measure water temperature and salinity while the traps sit on the bottom. When the traps are brought in, the temperature and salinity data from the probes are downloaded to a computer. eMOLT data is available over the internet This website is a collaborative effort between GoMOOS and eMOLT to bring you environmental data collected by both of these programs. The Internet mapping tool found on this site allows you to see the location of GoMOOS and NOAA buoys and the approximate location of the eMOLT sites. We do not show the exact location of the eMOLT sites in order to keep these lobster trapping sites confidential. Using the map, you can select the data you are interested in and then create a graph to view the data.
Nils Peterson

Foreign Policy: The Next Big Thing: Personalized Education - 0 views

  • According to the analysis of business expert Clayton Christensen, personalized education is likely to begin outside formal school through a combination of entrepreneurial vendors on the one hand and ambitious students and parents on the other. Once far more efficient and effective education has been modeled in homes and clubs, those schools, communities, and/or societies that have the ambition, the means, and the willingness to take risks will follow suit.
  • Many more individuals will be well-educated because they will have learned in ways that suit them best. Even more importantly, these individuals will want to keep learning as they grow older because they have tasted success and are motivated to continue.
  • According to the analysis of business expert Clayton Christensen, personalized education is likely to begin outside formal school through a combination of entrepreneurial vendors on the one hand and ambitious students and parents on the other.
    • Nils Peterson
       
      That does seem right -- the system is unable to adapt and innovate and Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma seems to apply. But the previous paragraph, 'well programmed computers' seems to miss the collaborative, interpersonal, Web 2.0 potential for 1-1 tutoring.
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    most of history, only the wealthy have been able to afford an education geared to the individual learner. For the rest of us, education has remained a mass affair, with standard curricula, pedagogy, and assessments. The financial crisis will likely change this state of affairs. With the global quest for long-term competitiveness assuming new urgency, education is on everyone's front burner. Societies are looking for ways to make quantum leaps in the speed and efficiency of learning. So long as we insist on teaching all students the same subjects in the same way, progress will be incremental. But now for the first time it is possible to individualize education-to teach each person what he or she needs and wants to know in ways that are most comfortable and most efficient, producing a qualitative spurt in educational effectiveness. In fact, we already have the technology to do so. Well-programmed computers-whether in the form of personal computers or hand-held devices-are becoming the vehicles of choice. They will offer many ways to master materials. Students (or their teachers, parents, or coaches) will choose the optimal ways of presenting the materials. Appropriate tools for assessment will be implemented.
Nils Peterson

Apple Apps Ahead - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • new health-related iPhone accessories. LifeScan Inc., of Milipitas, Calif., a Johnson & Johnson-owned company that makes glucose monitors, recently demonstrated a software program it hopes will help make it easier for diabetes patients to communicate their glucose levels to caregivers and family. The program, taking advantage of the iPhone's new ability to connect with accessories wirelessly, reads the patient's glucose level from the monitor, then transmits it through the phone.
    • Nils Peterson
       
      Or point the camera at one of those 2D bar codes and enter a rubric-based feedback? Bar code could ID both the item and the feedback form to be used.
Theron DesRosier

www.courseportflio.org - an international repository for documenting student learning - 0 views

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    Home page: "The Peer Review of Teaching Project (PRTP) provides faculty with a structured and practical model that combines inquiry into the intellectual work of a course, careful investigation of student understanding and performance, and faculty reflection on teaching effectiveness. Begun in 1994, the PRTP has engaged hundreds of faculty members from numerous universities. In 2005, the project was awarded a TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award Certificate of Excellence in recognition of it being an exceptional faculty development program designed to enhance undergraduate student achievement. "
Gary Brown

Official Reuven Carlyle Blog - 5 views

  • The institutional establishment has too much control over higher education. There is a profound disconnect, in my view, between those who benefit and need access to opportunity in higher education and those who run the show
  • Is a tenured professor or subject matter expert with credentials—as defined by some distant institutions or organization—really the very best person to teach? Perhaps but only if they have the soul of a teacher!
  • As a general rule the institutions of higher education hold firm, despite our rhetoric, to rigid models of teaching and learning. Radical, disruptive debate about systems change is great in theory, tough in reality when you have to live and die by the marketplace of ideas.
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  • Which means the day is coming—sooner than many people think—when a great deal of money is going to abruptly melt out of the higher education system, just as it has in scores of other industries that traffic in information that is now far cheaper and more easily accessible than it has ever been before. Much of that money will end up in the pockets of students in the form of lower prices, a boon and a necessity in a time when higher education is the key to prosperity. Colleges will specialize where they have comparative advantage, rather than trying to be all things to all people.”
  • Instructors with the spirit of education inside of them drive our learning
  • What would your life be like if you went from high school into a customized, personalized, targeted program of learning—from the fancy UW programs to a welding shop anywhere—that was right for you as an individual?
  • I don’t know the answers anymore than anyone else. But I feel we have hit a tipping point where the pain and cost to our society and our future of not asking these questions has become too high
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    I blog to watch--and to comment upon
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    Thanks for your summary. From Nils' posts, I knew about the blog but your excerpts and recommendation lead me to see it in a new light.
Gary Brown

Renewed Debate Over the 3-Year B.A. - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Ed... - 0 views

  • Zemsky, chairman of the Learning Alliance for Higher Education, wrote in The Chronicle in August. Shifting to a three-year baccalaureate, Zemsky added, would force universities to "judge whether their shorter degree programs were achieving the same learning outcomes as their four-year programs had promised; they would find themselves in need of the performance measures they had hitherto eschewed." The idea has stirred some support, as well as considerable opposition.
  • the reality is that the question of whether or not this makes sense may have already been made for us by the Bologna Process, which has been moving toward mainstreaming and standardizing three-year degrees across the European Union and beyond (46 countries are participating) for some time now.
  • This idea treats an academic credit as a purchasable commodity, and a college experience as quantifiable, subject to rules of efficiency rather than humane values. In reality, so-called "credits" have no standard meaning or value. Furthermore, the idea on its own is superficial. Why not two years? One? Five?
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  • For those who see college as a place to learn marketable skills, the less time and money it takes, the better. For others who see college as a place to learn to think and to learn about the world and others as broadly as possible, and to grow into one's own, why rush? (The Choice, NYTimes.com)
  • they might want to rethink not just what time of year and how long students are in the classroom, but how student accomplishment is measured.
  • The high schools are not going to suddenly become more rigorous because the colleges reduce their expectations.
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    Today's rip-tide toward measures, this time from Alexander and Zemsky (and others), and the implications of standardized measures.
Gary Brown

Has Accreditation Produced an Ethical Business Climate? - Letters to the Editor - The C... - 0 views

  • Institutions that choose to seek program accreditation must, in the finite world of budgets, shift funds away from many struggling departments and toward the chosen few to ensure that all criteria, from faculty credentials and salaries to high-tech classrooms and generous support staff, are not only met but exceeded.
  • Last year's economic crisis, fueled largely by the graduates of elite, accredited M.B.A. programs who flocked into banking and Wall Street, suggests a startling ethical blindness, social irresponsibility, and historical ignorance.
  • What good are accrediting agencies that take no responsibility for the behavior of those they accredit?
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    We might choose to help our accreditors by forwarding a response to this letter in our Rain King write up.
Gary Brown

U.S. GAO - Program Evaluation: A Variety of Rigorous Methods Can Help Identify Effectiv... - 1 views

  • In the absence of detailed guidance, the panel defined sizable and sustained effects through case discussion
  • The Top Tier initiative's choice of broad topics (such as early childhood interventions), emphasis on long-term effects, and use of narrow evidence criteria combine to provide limited information on what is effective in achieving specific outcomes.
  • Several rigorous alternatives to randomized experiments are considered appropriate for other situations: quasi-experimental comparison group studies, statistical analyses of observational data, and--in some circumstances--in-depth case studies. The credibility of their estimates of program effects relies on how well the studies' designs rule out competing causal explanations.
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    a critical resource
Joshua Yeidel

Scholar Raises Doubts About the Value of a Test of Student Learning - Research - The Ch... - 3 views

  • Beginning in 2011, the 331 universities that participate in the Voluntary System of Accountability will be expected to publicly report their students' performance on one of three national tests of college-level learning.
  • But at least one of those three tests—the Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA—isn't quite ready to be used as a tool of public accountability, a scholar suggested here on Tuesday during the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Research.
  • Students' performance on the test was strongly correlated with how long they spent taking it.
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  • Besides the CLA, which is sponsored by the Council for Aid to Education, other tests that participants in the voluntary system may use are the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency, from ACT Inc., and the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress, offered by the Educational Testing Service.
  • The test has sometimes been criticized for relying on a cross-sectional system rather than a longitudinal model, in which the same students would be tested in their first and fourth years of college.
  • there have long been concerns about just how motivated students are to perform well on the CLA.
  • Mr. Hosch suggested that small groups of similar colleges should create consortia for measuring student learning. For example, five liberal-arts colleges might create a common pool of faculty members that would evaluate senior theses from all five colleges. "That wouldn't be a national measure," Mr. Hosch said, "but it would be much more authentic."
  • Mr. Shavelson said. "The challenge confronting higher education is for institutions to address the recruitment and motivation issues if they are to get useful data. From my perspective, we need to integrate assessment into teaching and learning as part of students' programs of study, thereby raising the stakes a bit while enhancing motivation of both students and faculty
  • "I do agree with his central point that it would not be prudent to move to an accountability system based on cross-sectional assessments of freshmen and seniors at an institution," said Mr. Arum, who is an author, with Josipa Roksa, of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press
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    CLA debunking, but the best item may be the forthcoming book on "limited learning on College Campuses."
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    "Micheal Scriven and I spent more than a few years trying to apply his multiple-ranking item tool (a very robust and creative tool, I recommend it to others when the alternative is multiple-choice items) to the assessment of critical thinking in health care professionals. The result might be deemed partially successful, at best. I eventually abandoned the test after about 10,000 administrations because the scoring was so complex we could not place it in non-technical hands."
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    In comments on an article about CLA, Scriven's name comes up...
Gary Brown

Quick Takes: May 13, 2010 - Inside Higher Ed - 2 views

  • A proposed change in the Council for Higher Education Accreditation's policies for recognizing accrediting agencies is drawing criticism from the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Under the proposed change, which is part of a larger revision of the council's procedures for reviewing the work of accreditors, would require agencies to show that they "inform the public of decisions on [individual colleges' or programs'] accreditation status and the reasons for these decisions."
  • CHEA language is ambiguous about the purpose of the new requirement." CHEA is seeking comment on the new standards.
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    changing pressures influencing changes in accreditation, and a link to weigh in....
Nils Peterson

Does having a computer at home improve results at school? | A World Bank Blog on ICT us... - 0 views

  • Does differential access to computer technology at home compound the educational disparities between and rich and poor? and Would a program of government provision of computers to early secondary school students reduce these disparities? In this case, Vigdor and Ladd found that the introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high-speed internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps.
    • Nils Peterson
       
      so there is some contextualization of computers in the home that is also needed... as I find when my daughter wants to spend computer time dressing up Barbie.
  • A 2010 report from the OECD (Are New Millennium Learners Making the Grade? [pdf]) considers a number of studies, combined with new analysis it has done based on internationally comparable student achievement data (PISA), and finds that indeed that gains in educational performance are correlated with the frequency of computer use at home.
  • One way to try to make sense of all of these studies together is to consider that ICTs may function as a sort of 'amplifier' of existing learning environments in homes.  Where such environments are conducive to student learning (as a result, for example, of strong parental direction and support), ICT use can help; where home learning environments are not already strong (especially, for example, where children are left unsupervised to their own devices -- pun intended), we should not be surprised if the introduction of ICTs has a negative effect on learning.
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  • On a broader note, and in response to his reading of the Vigdor/Ladd paper, Warschauer states on his insightful blog that the "aim of our educational efforts should not be mere access, but rather development of a social environment where access to technology is coupled with the most effective curriculum, pedagogy, instruction, and assessment."
    • Nils Peterson
       
      specific things need to be done to 'mobilize' the learning latent in the computing environment.
Nils Peterson

The New Muscle: 5 Quality-of-Learning Projects That Didn't Exist 5 Years Ago - Special ... - 0 views

shared by Nils Peterson on 30 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The New Muscle: 5 Quality-of-Learning Projects That Didn't Exist 5 Years Ago   Lumina Foundation for Education's Tuning USA Year started: 2009 What it does: Supports statewide, faculty-led discussions, meetings, and surveys to define discipline-specific knowledge and skills that college and state officials, students, alumni, and employers can expect graduates of particular degree programs to have.
    • Nils Peterson
       
      That they lump VSA in here with the others suggests to me that the Chronicle's author doesn't distinguish the nuance.
Nils Peterson

Excerpt from Informal Learning - 2 views

  • WORKERS LEARN MORE in the coffee room than in the classroom. They discover how to do their jobs through informal learning: asking the person in the next cubicle, trial and error, calling the help desk, working with people in the know, and joining the conversation.
    • Nils Peterson
       
      Jay Cross, _Informal Learning_ ca 2003
  • Training programs, workshops, and schools get the lion’s share of the corporate budget for developing talent, despite the fact that this formal learning has almost no impact on job performance. And informal learning, the major source of knowledge transfer and innovation, is left to chance. This book aims to raise your consciousness about informal teaming. You will discover that informal learning is a profit strategy, that it flexes with change, and that it respects and challenges workers. You will see how hard-nosed businesses use organizational network analysis, conversation space, and communities of purpose to fuel innovation and agility.
  • Taking advantage of the double meaning of the word network, “to learn” is to optimize the quality of one’s networks.
Nils Peterson

CITE Journal -- Volume 2, Issue 4 - 0 views

  • The ability to aggregate data for assessment is counted as a plus for CS and a minus for GT
    • Nils Peterson
       
      This analysis preceeds the Harvesting concept.
  • The map includes the portfolio's ability to aid learners in planning, setting goals, and navigating the artifacts learners create and collect.
    • Nils Peterson
       
      Recently, when I have been thinking about program assessment I've been thinking how students might assess courses (before adding the couse to their transcript (aka portfolio) in terms of the student's learning needs for developing proficiency in the 6 WSU goals. Students might also do a course evaluation relative to the 6 goals to give instrutors and fellow students guideposts. SO, the notion here, portfolio as map, would be that the portfolio had a way for the learner to track/map progress toward a goal. Perhaps a series of radar charts associated with a series of artifacts. Learner reflection would lead to conclusion about what aspect of the rubric needed more practice in the creation of the next artifacts going into the portfolio.
Gary Brown

The Profession: More Pressure on Faculty Members, From Every Direction - Almanac of Hig... - 2 views

shared by Gary Brown on 25 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Changes in the American professoriate’s employment patterns and types, demographics, and work life are the greatest we have seen in over half a century.
  • But averages obscure the widening salary ranges on campuses, particularly between presidents and faculty members
  • The drive toward institutional prestige that most professors consider a high priority at their four-year institutions has intensified the focus on research there.
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  • Some faculty members, permanent and contingent, are expected to cover their full salaries with grants. With the tenure bottleneck narrowing, junior faculty members are often advised to focus on research, do a reasonable job of teaching, and avoid service.
  • Faculty members report spending more than half of their time on teaching and classroom-related activities. Professors are increasingly expected to use new technologies in both distance education and on-campus courses, and to be more systematic about assessing student learning at both course and program levels.
  • The scholarship of teaching and learning, in which faculty members examine the effects of their teaching strategies, is spreading; the advent of conferences and publications marks its increasing acceptance as serious scholarship.
  • The “corporatization” of institutional administrations in the face of fiscal distress and severe budget cuts imperils faculty governance, which falls increasingly to the shrinking number of permanent tenured faculty members.
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    New realities rendered starkly.
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    Note: A "premium content" article -- you must be a paid subscriber to see it, not just a registered site user.
Joshua Yeidel

A Measure of Learning Is Put to the Test - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

  • "The CLA is really an authentic assessment process,"
    • Joshua Yeidel
       
      What is the meaning of "authentic" in this statement? It certainly isn't "situated in the real world" or "of intrinsic value".
  • add CLA-style assignments to their liberal-arts courses.
    • Joshua Yeidel
       
      Maybe the best way to prepare for the test, but the best way to develop analytical ability, et. al.?
  • the CLA typically reports scores on a "value added" basis, controlling for the scores that students earned on the SAT or ACT while in high school.
    • Joshua Yeidel
       
      If SAT and ACT are measuring the same things as CLA, then why not just use them? If they are measuring different things, why "control for" their scores?
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  • improved models of instruction.
  • it measures analytical ability, problem-solving ability, critical thinking, and communication.
  • "If a college pays attention to learning and helps students develop their skills—whether they do that by participating in our programs or by doing things on their own—they probably should do better on the CLA,"
    • Joshua Yeidel
       
      Just in case anyone missed the message: pay attention to learning, and you'll _probably_ do better on the CLA. Get students to practice CLA tasks, and you _will_ do better on the CLA.
  • "Standardized tests of generic skills—I'm not talking about testing in the major—are so much a measure of what students bring to college with them that there is very little variance left out of which we might tease the effects of college," says Ms. Banta, who is a longtime critic of the CLA. "There's just not enough variance there to make comparative judgments about the comparative quality of institutions."
    • Joshua Yeidel
       
      It's not clear what "standardized tests" means in this comment. Does the "lack of variance" apply to all assessments (including, e.g., e-portfolios)?
  • Can the CLA fill both of those roles?
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    A summary of the current state of "thinking" with regard to CLA. Many fallacies and contradictions are (unintentionally) exposed. At least CLA appears to be more about skills than content (though the question of how it is graded isn't even raised), but the "performance task" approach is the smallest possible step in that direction.
Gary Brown

Many College Boards Are at Sea in Assessing Student Learning, Survey Finds - Leadership... - 0 views

  • While oversight of educational quality is a critical responsibility of college boards of trustees, a majority of trustees and chief academic officers say boards do not spend enough time discussing student-learning outcomes, and more than a third say boards do not understand how student learning is assessed, says a report issued on Thursday by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
  • While boards should not get involved in the details of teaching or ways to improve student-learning outcomes, they must hold the administration accountable for identifying needs in the academic programs and then meeting them, the report says. Boards should also make decisions on where to allocate resources based on what works or what should improve.
  • The most commonly received information by boards was college-ranking data
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  • Boards should expect to receive useful high-level information on learning outcomes, the report says, and should make comparisons over time and to other institutions. Training in how to understand academic and learning assessments should also be part of orientation for new board members.
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    This piece coupled with the usual commentary reveal again the profound identity crisis shaking education in this country.
Theron DesRosier

Debate Over P vs. NP Proof Highlights Web Collaboration - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • The potential of Internet-based collaboration was vividly demonstrated this month when complexity theorists used blogs and wikis to pounce on a claimed proof for one of the most profound and difficult problems facing mathematicians and computer scientists.
  • “The proof required the piecing together of principles from multiple areas within mathematics. The major effort in constructing this proof was uncovering a chain of conceptual links between various fields and viewing them through a common lens.”
  • In this case, however, the significant breakthrough may not be in the science, but rather in the way science is practiced.
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  • What was highly significant, however, was the pace of discussion and analysis, carried out in real time on blogs and a wiki that had been quickly set up for the purpose of collectively analyzing the paper.
  • Several of the researchers said that until now such proofs had been hashed out in colloquiums that required participants to be physically present at an appointed time. Now, with the emergence of Web-connected software programs it is possible for such collaborative undertakings to harness the brainpower of the world’s best thinkers on a continuous basis.
  • collaborative tools is paving the way for a second scientific revolution in the same way the printing press created a demarcation between the age of alchemy and the age of chemistry.
  • “The difference between the alchemists and the chemists was that the printing press was used to coordinate peer review,” he said. “The printing press didn’t cause the scientific revolution, but it wouldn’t have been possible without it.”
  • “It’s not just, ‘Hey, everybody, look at this,’ ” he said, “but rather a new set of norms is emerging about what it means to do mathematics, assuming coordinated participation.”
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    "The difference between the alchemists and the chemists was that the printing press was used to coordinate peer review," he said. "The printing press didn't cause the scientific revolution, but it wouldn't have been possible without it." "The difference between the alchemists and the chemists was that the printing press was used to coordinate peer review," he said. "The printing press didn't cause the scientific revolution, but it wouldn't have been possible without it."
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