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Gary Brown

Opinion | Legislature's waning support for higher education creates chasm for middle cl... - 1 views

seattletimes.nwsource.com/...2012959173_guest22smith.html

future of education

shared by Gary Brown on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Today in Washington, the traditional on-campus experience is increasingly enjoyed primarily by children of the wealthy or the very poor who are very bright.
  • The Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board reports that based on the number of degrees per 100 residents, our children are not as well-educated as their parents.
  • we rank 48th in undergraduate enrollment and 49th in graduate enrollment. We are losing business to other states and need to realize they probably have better educated work forces.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • it is time for Washington to return to the concept that all individuals, regardless of their incomes, should have the opportunity to have access to an affordable, high-quality education.
  • If our public universities do not get increased support from the state of Washington, they will decrease in quality and need to become increasingly private.
  • Samuel H. Smith is president emeritus of Washington State University, a member of the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board, and a founding board member of the College Success Foundation and the Western Governors University. He is also a member of The Seattle Times board of directors.
  • Gary Brown on 22 Sep 10
     
    An old friend...
Theron DesRosier

Learning from The Wisdom of Crowds | Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching - 1 views

www.carnegiefoundation.org/...learning-the-wisdom-crowds

peerreview learning

shared by Theron DesRosier on 23 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 23 Sep 10
     
    In The New York Times article, "Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review," Patricia Cohen writes that some humanities scholars are arguing "that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work. Instead of relying on a few experts selected by leading publications, they advocate using the Internet to expose scholarly thinking to the swift collective judgment of a much broader interested audience."
Gary Brown

The Madness of Rankings - WorldWise - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...27100

ranking colleges

shared by Gary Brown on 23 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • In case it hasn’t already become obvious, I am among those who view rankings with some cynicism due to their past misuses and abuses. At the same time, I must concede that they can be a useful tool to help guide institutional improvement.
  • Indeed, rankings are part of the nature of education. Like it or not, comparisons are unavoidable.
  • To further complicate the utility of these rankings, it appears that not a single perspective was included from outside the Ivory Towers.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • I forgot that students can’t provide a legitimate opinion about their institutions. What do they know about them? I guess not much since their points of view are flatly ignored.
  • Gary Brown on 23 Sep 10
     
    Collector's item.
Theron DesRosier

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

www.nytimes.com/...17proof.html

learning peerreview

shared by Theron DesRosier on 23 Sep 10 - Cached
  • 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.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • 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.”
  • Theron DesRosier on 23 Sep 10
     
    "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."
Joshua Yeidel

Jim Dudley on Letting Go of Rigid Adherence to What Evaluation Should Look Like | AEA365 - 1 views

aea365.org/blog

assessment

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 27 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 27 Sep 10
     
    "Recently, in working with a board of directors of a grassroots organization, I was reminded of how important it is to "let go" of rigid adherence to typologies and other traditional notions of what an evaluation should look like. For example, I completed an evaluation that incorporated elements of all of the stages of program development - a needs assessment (e.g., how much do board members know about their programs and budget), a process evaluation (e.g., how well do the board members communicate with each other when they meet), and an outcome evaluation (e.g., how effective is their marketing plan for recruiting children and families for its programs)."
  • Joshua Yeidel on 27 Sep 10
     
    Needs evaluation, process evaluation, outcomes evaluation -- all useful for improvement.
Gary Brown

Students: Video lectures allow for more napping | eCampus News - 1 views

www.ecampusnews.com/...ectures-allow-for-more-napping

future of education

shared by Gary Brown on 28 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • College students gave video lectures high marks in a recent survey, although many students supported the technology because it freed up more time for napping and hanging out with friends.
  • A majority of students who responded to the survey, conducted in August by audio, internet, and video conferencing provider InterCall, said they would only attend a live lecture if an exam were scheduled for that day, or to borrow notes from a classmate
  • confirm a key fear of many college professors about the availability of video lecture-capture technology: that it could lead to a drop in attendance at the live lectures themselves.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Fifty-three percent of respondents said they “learn more effectively” with online lectures, and 54 percent “report that their grades improve when lectures are streamed via video online,”
  • Nearly three-quarters of students said that streaming lectures online “helps them be better prepared for exams.”
  • 49 percent of students take matters into their own hands and record lectures on their own so they can review the material later.
  • “indicative” of the modern college-student mindset. “They can’t be bothered with things that require stepping out of their own comfort and convenience zone,” she said. “Rather than adapt themselves … they want things the way they want things.
  • ‘It’s about me and my convenience’ is one that extends into many aspects of their lives, from school, to work, to community obligations,” Gregory said. “How much more self-absorbed does it get?”
  • Gary Brown on 28 Sep 10
     
    It is interesting to see the resistance to what is sometimes considered student-centered approaches to learning.   One wonders whose "convenience" will have primacy in the education market, and at what....cost?
Gary Brown

Western Governors U. President Wins a McGraw Prize in Education - The Ticker - The Chro... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...27252

outcomes competency future of education

shared by Gary Brown on 28 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • The university's president, Robert W. Mendenhall, was cited for creating "a compelling example of how technology and a competency-based academic model -- where students earn degrees by demonstrating what they know and can do -- can expand access to higher education."
  • Gary Brown on 28 Sep 10
     
    Western Governor's getting some attention
Gary Brown

Accreditation Council Sets Stricter Standards for Recognizing Accreditors - Government ... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...124638

accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 28 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • As Congress and the Education Department turn up the heat on accrediting agencies to be more stringent in monitoring colleges and universities,. a nongovernmental group is also raising its requirements for recognizing accreditors.
  • requiring accreditors to disclose the specific reasons for denying or withdrawing their approval of a college.
  • Gary Brown on 28 Sep 10
     
    I guess just saying because we say so no longer suffices.
Joshua Yeidel

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

chronicle.com/...124519

assessment higher_education

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • "The CLA is really an authentic assessment process,"
    • Joshua Yeidel
      Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10
       
      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
      Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10
       
      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
      Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10
       
      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?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • 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
      Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10
       
      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
      Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10
       
      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?
  • Joshua Yeidel on 20 Sep 10
     
    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

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

chronicle.com/...124519

assessment accountability CLA

shared by Gary Brown on 20 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Others say those who take the test have little motivation to do well, which makes it tough to draw conclusions from their performance.
  • "Everything that No Child Left Behind signified during the Bush administration—we operate 180 degrees away from that," says Roger Benjamin, president of the Council for Aid to Education, which developed and promotes the CLA. "We don't want this to be a high-stakes test. We're putting a stake in the ground on classic liberal-arts issues. I'm willing to rest my oar there. These core abilities, these higher-order skills, are very important, and they're even more important in a knowledge economy where everyone needs to deal with a surplus of information." Only an essay test, like the CLA, he says, can really get at those skills.
  • "The CLA is really an authentic assessment process," says Pedro Reyes, associate vice chancellor for academic planning and assessment at the University of Texas system.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • "The Board of Regents here saw that it would be an important test because it measures analytical ability, problem-solving ability, critical thinking, and communication. Those are the skills that you want every undergraduate to walk away with." (Other large systems that have embraced the CLA include California State University and the West Virginia system.)
  • value added
  • We began by administering a retired CLA question, a task that had to do with analyzing crime-reduction strategies,
  • performance task that mirrors the CLA
  • Mr. Ernsting and Ms. McConnell are perfectly sincere about using CLA-style tasks to improve instruction on their campuses. But at the same time, colleges have a less high-minded motive for familiarizing students with the CLA style: It just might improve their scores when it comes time to take the actual test.
  • by 2012, the CLA scores of more than 100 colleges will be posted, for all the world to see, on the "College Portrait" Web site of the Voluntary System of Accountability, an effort by more than 300 public colleges and universities to provide information about life and learning on their campuses.
  • If familiarizing students with CLA-style tasks does raise their scores, then the CLA might not be a pure, unmediated reflection of the full range of liberal-arts skills. How exactly should the public interpret the scores of colleges that do not use such training exercises?
  • Trudy W. Banta, a professor of higher education and senior adviser to the chancellor for academic planning and evaluation at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, believes it is a serious mistake to publicly release and compare scores on the test. There is too much risk, she says, that policy makers and the public will misinterpret the numbers.
  • most colleges do not use a true longitudinal model: That is, the students who take the CLA in their first year do not take it again in their senior year. The test's value-added model is therefore based on a potentially apples-and-oranges comparison.
  • freshman test-takers' scores are assessed relative to their SAT and ACT scores, and so are senior test-takers' scores. For that reason, colleges cannot game the test by recruiting an academically weak pool of freshmen and a strong pool of seniors.
  • students do not always have much motivation to take the test seriously
  • seniors, who are typically recruited to take the CLA toward the end of their final semester, when they can already taste the graduation champagne.
  • Of the few dozen universities that had already chosen to publish CLA data on that site, roughly a quarter of the reports appeared to include erroneous descriptions of the year-to-year value-added scores.
  • It is clear that CLA scores do reflect some broad properties of a college education.
  • Students' CLA scores improved if they took courses that required a substantial amount of reading and writing. Many students didn't take such courses, and their CLA scores tended to stay flat.
  • Colleges that make demands on students can actually develop their skills on the kinds of things measured by the CLA.
  • Mr. Shavelson believes the CLA's essays and "performance tasks" offer an unusually sophisticated way of measuring what colleges do, without relying too heavily on factual knowledge from any one academic field.
  • Politicians and consumers want easily interpretable scores, while colleges need subtler and more detailed data to make internal improvements.
  • The CLA is used at more than 400 colleges
  • Since its debut a decade ago, it has been widely praised as a sophisticated alternative to multiple-choice tests
Judy Rumph

about | outcomes_assessment | planning | NYIT - 1 views

www.nyit.edu/...about

shared by Judy Rumph on 17 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The Assessment Committee of NYIT's Academic Senate is the institutional unit that brings together all program assessment activities at the university - for programs with and without professional accreditation, for programs at all locations, for programs given through all delivery mechanisms. The committee members come from all academic schools and numerous support departments. Its meetings are open and minutes are posted on the web site of the Academic Senate.
  • Judy Rumph on 17 Aug 10
     
    This page made me think about the public face of our own assessment process and how that can influence perceptions about our process.
Joshua Yeidel

5 Non-Western Teaching Strategies - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...123908

teaching education

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 19 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 19 Aug 10
     
    Methods and attitudes from other cultures can enliven the classroom.
Gary Brown

Student-Centered Learning: Target or Locus for Universities? -- Campus Technology - 1 views

campustechnology.com/...or-Locus-for-Universities.aspx

future technology student centered

shared by Gary Brown on 25 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Student-centered learning has been largely a rhetorical distinction for decades--e.g., more group work or less group work--because, practically speaking, everything happened in the classroom.
  • Now, the distinction is not just rhetorical, but a life style distinction: scarcity learning (content delivery) in the classroom or abundance learning (discovery) often out in real-world situations. In scarcity learning, the student is the target for delivery systems, while in abundance learning the student is the locus, the starting point, of learning.
  • Gary Brown on 25 Aug 10
     
    missing here is the resistance we encounter--from faculty and students alike. Still a good read from our colleague at AAEEBL.
Joshua Yeidel

E. Jane Davidson on Evaluative Rubrics | AEA365 - 1 views

aea365.org/blog

higher_education assessment rubric

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 26 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 26 Aug 10
     
    Some context for rubrics like ours
Theron DesRosier

Engaging Departments: Assessing Student Learning, Peer Review single issue - 1 views

secure.aacu.org/...index.cfm

AAC&U assessment program_evaluation learning_outcomes

shared by Theron DesRosier on 26 Aug 10 - No Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 26 Aug 10
     
    "Description This issue explores how departments are developing assessment approaches that deepen student learning. Recognizing that most faculty identify strongly with their discipline and that students are engaged in more complex and sophisticated practice of liberal learning as they complete their majors, the issue presents articles that advance integrative and engaged learning in and across disciplines. The features draw on sessions and presentations from AAC&U's 2009 Engaging Departments Institute. " A pdf download is available on this page.
Gary Brown

The Quality Question - Special Reports - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...124185

shared by Gary Brown on 30 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Few reliable, comparable measures of student learning across colleges exist. Standardized assessments like the Collegiate Learning Assessment are not widely used—and many experts say those tests need refinement in any case.
    • Gary Brown
      Gary Brown on 30 Aug 10
       
      I am hoping the assumptions underlying this sentence do not frame the discussion. The extent to which it has in the past parallels the lack of progress. Standardized comparisons evince nothing but the wrong questions.
  • "We are the most moribund field that I know of," Mr. Zemsky said in an interview. "We're even more moribund than county government."
  • Robert Zemsky
Lorena O'English

Effective Assessment in a Digital Age: A guide to technology-enhanced assessment and fe... - 1 views

www.jisc.ac.uk/...digiassass_eada.pdf

shared by Lorena O'English on 07 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Lorena O'English on 07 Sep 10
     
    from JISC (pdf)
Gary Brown

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...07mind.html

shared by Gary Brown on 08 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • Gary Brown
      Gary Brown on 08 Sep 10
       
      like practice
Gary Brown

Under Obama, Accreditation Is Still in the Hot Seat - Government - The Chronicle of Hig... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...124361

accountability market

shared by Gary Brown on 13 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • George Miller, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House education committee, said defining a credit hour is critical to ensure that students and taxpayers, through federal student aid, are not footing the bill for courses that are not worth the amount of credit being awarded.
    • Gary Brown
      Gary Brown on 13 Sep 10
       
      "Worth" opens up some interesting implications.  Intended I suspect, to dampen courses like basket-weaving, the production of outcomes cannot be far off, the production of economic impact related to those outcomes a step or less behind. 
  • Senators also questioned the independence of accreditors, which are supported by dues from member institutions and governed by representatives of the colleges they accredit.
  • Sen. Michael B. Enzi, the top Republican on the Senate Education Committee, has said he wants Congress to look beyond just problems in the for-profit sector. He said at a hearing last month that he would be "working to lay the groundwork for a broader, thorough, and more fair investigation into higher education" that would ask whether taxpayers are getting an appropriate value for the money they spend on all colleges.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • State and federal governments are better equipped to enforce consumer protections for students, say accreditors, who have traditionally focused on preserving academic quality.
  • Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which represents about 3,000 colleges, said that over the past several years accrediting organizations have responded to the growing calls for accountability and transparency from the public and lawmakers. The groups, she said, have worked to better identify and judge student achievement and share more information about what they do and how well the institutions are performing.
  • Peter T. Ewell, vice president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, said the debate boils down to whether accreditors should serve primarily as consumer protectors or continue their traditional role of monitoring academic quality more broadly.
  • Richard K. Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability & Productivity and a member of the Spellings Commission
  • "We should be moving to more of a Consumer Reports for colleges, to provide the public with information that the college rankings do imperfectly," he said.
  • accreditation will have to evolve to meet not only government's expectations but also the changing college
  • market
  • Nearly two years into the Obama Administration, colleges have not gotten the relief they expected from the contentious battles over measuring quality that defined the Bush Education Department.
  • Bracing for the prospect of new rules and laws that could expand their responsibilities, accreditors and the institutions they monitor are defending the self-regulation colleges use to ensure academic quality. But they are also responding to the pressures from the White House and Capitol Hill by making some changes on their own, hoping to stanch the possibility of more far-reaching federal requirements.
  • Advocates of change say the six regional and seven national accreditors have varying standards that are sometimes too lax, allowing for limited oversight of how credits are awarded, how much learning is accomplished, and what happens to the mission of institutions that change owners.
Gary Brown

Some say bypassing a higher education is smarter than paying for a degree - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2010090903350_2.html

shared by Gary Brown on 14 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • Gary Brown
      Gary Brown on 14 Sep 10
       
      Of course many faculty have been calling for this for a long time, wanting to teach students who elect to be here for reasons other than presumably maximizing their learning potential.
  • "If you major in accounting or engineering, you're pretty likely to get a return on your investment," Vedder says. "If you're majoring in anthropology or social work or education, the rate on return is going to be a good deal lower, on average.
  • The unemployment rate among those with bachelor's degrees is at an all-time high
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