Group items tagged

One risk, according to the auditor, was that colleges and universities would create programs that were just correspondence courses, without any meaningful interaction between students and faculty. Another risk was that students might receive Title IV federal funding for their life experience, without using the school’s learning resources.

the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, had approved the school’s first competency-based degree program: a master's of health professions. The distance learning program is aimed at working professionals in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, and social work.

The program doesn’t have traditional campus-based classes — its students interact with mentors by phone, email, video chat, or, for students and mentors near each other, in person.

The Flexible Option program at University of Wisconsin System offers five competency-based online certificates and degrees, targeting adult students with college credits but no degrees.

Wisconsin won approval from the Education Department and an accreditor for its self-paced, direct assessment arts and sciences associate’s degree.

The program is “transdisciplinary” — open to students in any discipline — with a theme-based organization and learning driven by problem-solving instead of how much time is spent in the classroom.

students receive credit based on learned and demonstrated competencies.

Western charges a flat-rate tuition for every six months of enrollment, and students’ advancement is based on what they can prove they know

The 2-year-old program has partnered with 55 employers to create programs for job-specific skills. College for America claims to be the only program of its kind to be approved by a regional accrediting agency and by the Department of Education for Title IV federal financial aid, although the Education Department says there is one other.

The university allows students to receive credit for knowledge already gained through their experience with a “prior learning assessment.” As of Jan. 23, Capella and Southern New Hampshire had the only two programs approved by the Department of Education to receive Title IV financial aid, according to the department.

Northern Arizona University offers a competency-based online learning program, called Personalized Learning, that allows students to use their previous experience to pass pretests and opt out of certain lessons.

is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Does it really make sense to expect, even implicitly, that a person already engaged in work and family should step out of that life in order to participate in an institution-based learning community? Instead, shouldn’t we be asking how to provide educational experiences that foster collaborative learning, supporting growth and development, to people who are already fully engaged in their lives outside of an educational institution?

The question is not how to help an adult student engage in a university-designed learning community; it’s how institutions can help students incorporate quality educational experiences and opportunities into their existing lives.

Adult learners need multiple opportunities to earn degrees, including educational models that differ greatly from traditional college programs.[9] They need new models that are structured around the entire 12-month calendar, where one can start and stop without penalty, and quickly move forward when mastery over material is demonstrated. We need to make use of new technologies and the latest in the science of learning to allow students to integrate their education into existing lives and careers. In short, to educate the population that is currently not served well by our traditional institutions of higher education, we need new models and methods that allow education to fit the interests, motivations and lives of our adult learners, not ask them to fit their lives into an educational system geared to 18- to 24-year-old full-time students. This is the promise of CBE.

The best CBE programs will design competencies that articulate the skills and abilities needed by productive citizens, and evaluate mastery of those competencies through assessments that blend seamlessly into students work and family.

Schejbal sees the difference as a great example of why competency-based education makes sense.

Traditional students may need the structured learning experience and all of the knowledge and information that comes from a standard, semester-based model because they don’t bring as much with them to the classroom. Older students, though, come to the classroom with experience from work, the military, self-study, or previous college. Schejbal says they need a more malleable learning experience that lets them demonstrate what they know, apply that knowledge to a program, and spend time learning only the additional information they need.

University Learning Store

These non-degree options are distinct from stackable credentials that Schejbal sees less value in, though he says the stackable credentials are fine if they’re within the realm of traditional credits.

Schejbal sees the value in both the traditional model for younger students and newer, alternative models for the “nontraditional” learner

But serving such a diverse student population — and doing it well — is complicated.

Schejbal says culture plays a major role in whether a college or university makes the effort to find a way. “Some institutions have both cultures and business models that are rooted in traditional higher education structures,” Schejbal said. “Those institutions have very little incentive to change.”