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The Baccalaureate Degree:Meaning, Integrity, and Quality
Southern Association of Colleges & SchoolsCommission on Colleges Annual Meeting
Atlanta, GADecember 7, 2009
Carol Geary Schneider
Questions about Degree Integrity Are Proxies
The real Question is Whether Graduates Are Developing the
Capabilities They Need for Their Future and Our Shared Futures
Overview
Historical PerspectiveContemporary Pressures to Raise the Quality of LearningThe Academy in Transition—Ensuring Integrity and
Capability in 21st Century ContextsIssues We’re Avoiding—But Need to Address
“Robert’s” Story – The Laissez Faire Curriculum
Issues in Robert’s Story
Every Course Is an IslandAbsence of Shared Expectations about the
Goals for Advanced WorkGrades and Credits Masking Vastly
Different Expectations for Student EffortUnderdevelopment of Student Capability
Historical Perspective:Changing Designs for
College Learning
Changing Designs for College Learning
The Nineteenth Century College
The Twentieth Century University
A Common Core Curriculum(All learning is “general and liberal education”)
Breadth + Depth(Breadth = General Studies; Depth = Majors; “liberal education” becomes synonymous with “general education”)
The Twenty-First Century Academy
Changing Designs for College Learning
A Curriculum in Transition:Rethinking educational purposes and practices to better prepare students for
• global interdependence
• innovation in the workplace
• diverse democracy
The World Itself is Demanding More…
Disruptive Global and Social Change
Diversity as a Daily Reality
Epochal Choices Facing U.S. Citizens– e.g., Sustainability, Inequality, Energy,
Education
Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions
The World Itself Is Demanding More…
(continued)
An Economy Absolutely Dependent on Knowledge and Innovation
Employer Anxiety about Finding Highly Capable Employees
Productivity Is Now Tied to Learning…
Half Life of Industries, Companies, Jobs, and Skills Decreasing
Today's Students Will Have 10-14 Jobs by the Time They Are 38
50% of Workers Have Been With Their Company Less Than 5 Years– 25% Less than 1 Year
Breadth, Depth, & Applications of Academic Preparation Are Expanding
DOL-BLS
Key Capabilities Open the Door for Career Success
and Earnings
“Irrespective of college major or institutional selectivity, what matters to career success is students’ development of a broad set of cross-cutting capacities…”
Anthony Carnevale, Georgetown UniversityCenter on Education and the Workforce
The Growing Demand for Higher Order SkillsSource: Council on Competitiveness, Competitiveness Index
“[Employers] generally are...frustrated with their inability to find ‘360 degree people’ who have both the specific job/technical skills and the broader skills (communication and problem-solving skills, work ethic, and ability to work with others) necessary to promise greater success for both the individual and the employer.”
From Peter D. Hart Research Associates,
Report of Findings Based on Focus Groups Among
Business Executives (AAC&U, 2006)
LEAP
Bringing Educators and Employers Together Around the Learning—i.e.
Capabilities—Students Need
Narrow Learning is Not Enough!The Essential Learning Outcomes
Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
Intellectual and Practical Skills
Personal and Social Responsibility
Integrative Learning
Employers Want Colleges to Place More Emphasis on All
the Essential Learning Outcomes
The Academy in Transition:Ensuring Degree Integrity and
Capability in 21st Century Contexts
Five Crucial Priorities
Putting Learning Outcomes at the CenterSetting Standards for Expected Levels of LearningUsing High Impact Practices that Help Students
Develop Essential OutcomesDesigning Assessments that Put Students’ Own
Work at the CenterFacing and Changing the Inequities WITHIN
Each Campus (Robert’s Story)
Putting Learning Outcomes at the Center
Thanks to Accreditors, This Is Happening But Students Have Been Left Out
of the Loop
How many of your students understand your institution’s intended goals or outcomes for
undergraduate learning?*
* Among members at institutions with learning outcomes for all undergraduates
Majority
Some
Almost allNot many
Setting Standards for Expected Levels of Learning
Integrating General Outcomes with Specific Fields’ Outcomes
AAC&U’s VALUE Rubrics— An Important Beginning, but Only a Beginning
High-Impact Practices
First-Year Seminars and Experiences
Common Intellectual Experiences
Learning Communities
Writing-Intensive Courses
Collaborative Assignments and Projects
“Science as Science Is Done”/Undergraduate Research
Diversity/Global Learning
Service Learning, Community-Based Learning
Internships
Capstone Courses and Projects
High Impact Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter
by George D. Kuh
(LEAP report, October 2008, www.aacu.org)
Outcomes of High Impact Practices for Underserved Students:
A Review of the LiteratureLynn Swaner and Jayne Brownell
(Forthcoming AAC&U report, 2010)
The Good News
High Impact Practices Do Foster the Essential Outcomes –
and Persistance as Well
Assessments that Put Students’ Own Work at the Center
Turning High Impact Practices into Sources of Authentic Evidencee.g., Research; Collaborative Projects;
Internships; Capstones; e-Portfolios
Issues We’re Avoiding—But Need to Address
The Sanctioned Rise of Colleges Committed to Narrow Learning
“Career Programs” – Designed to Allow Minimalist Designs for General Education and the Erasure of Liberal Education
The Unacknowledged Obsolescence of the “Terminal Degree” Concept and Its Close Tie to Minimalist Designs for General Education
The Continued—but Outdated—Distinction Between Liberal Education and Career Education
An Outcomes Focus Can Forge New Synergy Between
Liberal Education and Preparation for Careers
Our Commitment to Outcomes Can—If It Goes Deep—Restore and Renew the Integrity of the Degree
But Will the Outomes Movement Go Deep?
Or Will We Continue as We Are—A House Divided—Producing Many Liberally Educated Graduates and...
Many Others Who Lack Fundamental Preparation for
21st Century Realities?