Group items tagged

My thesis is this. We live in a world where much is changing, quickly. Economic crises, technology, ideological division, and a host of other factors have all had a profound influence on who we are and what we do in higher education. But when all is said and done, it is imperative that we not lose sight of what matters most. To paraphrase the oft-used maxim of the famous political consultant James Carville, it's the learning, stupid.

We believe that, to significantly increase higher education attainment rates, three intermediate outcomes must first occur: Higher education must use proven strategies to move students to completion. Quality data must be used to improve student performance and inform policy and decision-making at all levels. The outcomes of student learning must be defined, measured, and aligned with workforce needs. To achieve these outcomes (and thus improve success rates), Lumina has decided to pursue several specific strategies. I'll cite just a few of these many different strategies: We will advocate for the redesign, rebranding and improvement of developmental education. We will explore the development of alternative pathways to degrees and credentials. We will push for smoother systems of transferring credit so students can move more easily between institutions, including from community colleges to bachelor's degree programs.

"Lumina defines high-quality credentials as degrees and certificates that have well-defined and transparent learning outcomes which provide clear pathways to further education and employment."

International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which drew 650 people. The scholars who gathered here were cautiously hopeful about colleges' commitment to the study of student learning, even as the Carnegie Foundation winds down its own project. (Mr. Shulman stepped down as president last year, and the foundation's scholarship-of-teaching-and-learning program formally came to an end last week.) "It's still a fragile thing," said Pat Hutchings, the Carnegie Foundation's vice president, in an interview here. "But I think there's a huge amount of momentum." She cited recent growth in faculty teaching centers,

Mary Taylor Huber, director of the foundation's Integrative Learning Project, said that pressure from accrediting organizations, policy makers, and the public has encouraged colleges to pour new resources into this work.

The scholars here believe that it is much more useful to try to measure and improve student learning at the level of individual courses. Institutionwide tests like the Collegiate Learning Assessment have limited utility at best, they said.

October 26, 2009, 02:53 PM ET Most Colleges Try to Assess Student Learning, Survey Finds A large majority of American colleges make at least some formal effort to assess their students' learning, but most have few or no staff members dedicated to doing so. Those are among the findings of a survey report released Monday by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, a year-old project based at Indiana University and the University of Illinois. Of more than 1,500 provosts' offices that responded to the survey, nearly two-thirds said their institutions had two or fewer employees assigned to student assessment. Among large research universities, almost 80 percent cited a lack of faculty engagement as the most serious barrier to student-assessment projects.

If assessment is going to be required by accrediting bodies and top administrators, then we need administrative support and oversight of assessment on campus, rather than once again offloading more work onto faculty members squeezed by teaching & research inflation.

Outcomes assessment does not have to be in the form of standardized tests, nor does including assessment in faculty review have to translate into percentages achieving a particular score on such a test. What it does mean is that when the annual review comes along, one should be prepared to answer the question, "How do you know that what you're doing results in student learning?" We've all had the experience of realizing at times that students took in something very different from what we intended (if we were paying attention at all). So it's reasonable to be asked about how you do look at that question and how you decide when your current practice is successful or when it needs to be modified. That's simply being a reflective practitioner in the classroom which is the bare minimum students should expect from us. And that's all assessment is - answering that question, reflecting on what you find, and taking next steps to keep doing what works well and find better solutions for the things that aren't working well.

“Well-attended lectures were well-watched; poorly attended lectures were not watched,” Stringer said, pointing to research she had conducted at Stanford. "If you’re bad, you’re bad. If you’re bad online, you’re bad in lectures, students don’t come.”

Our students at Berkeley tell us that this is supplemental material, and it doesn’t affect their decision to attend class,” said Mara Hancock, director for educational technologies at the University of California at Berkeley

The faculty’s general unwillingness to work with lecture capture technology prompted Purdue to enlist the educational technology firm Echo360 to formulate a work-around solution that would require minimal cooperation from professors.

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.”