The December 2009 issue of the newsletter for AAC&U's Bringing Theory to Practice project is now available. Items include:
From a member of this new organization’s board of directors…
A few years ago I heard the president of one of our finest research universities say, “Great universities measure what they value.”
He was emphasizing a commitment to ambitious goals and rigorous self-discipline, while describing the metrics he planned to use to monitor progress toward the aspirations of his institution to become even greater in national and international stature.
I have no doubt he personally, and also his faculty and administrative leaders, deeply value student learning. But the metrics they employed emphasized research grants, faculty memberships in prestigious societies, citations, publications, etc. The systematic assessment of student learning was not visible in the metrics assembled to monitor progress toward their goals. We tend to take student learning for granted.
Perhaps it is not yet a consensus, but I believe there is a growing conviction within American higher education that all students need to learn more, and more of our students need to achieve high levels of knowledge and skill in order to realize their potential for productive lives in the 21st century. We value student learning. We are likely to expand what students know and can do if we set clear goals and take account of what they are learning.
These views and this conviction are being promulgated by the New Leadership Alliance for Student Learning and Accountability. I have joined the board of this organization, and I invite you to visit its website, www.newleadershipalliance.org, in order to learn more about the movement it hopes to foster.
I hope you will take a moment to review the website. I will be grateful in the coming months and years for your counsel and your participation in these efforts to advance both the depth and breadth of learning among students attending our colleges and universities.
With every good wish,
Paul E. Lingenfelter, President
State Higher Education Executive Officers
Today I'm thinking about working smarter. That's because we're nearing the end of an extremely busy semester. Until today I hadn't posted anything on this blog for several weeks. To put it very simply, I had other things to do. You know how it is.
Something I was doing previously was perusing sites like Academic Impressions, Innovative Educators, and Faculty Focus for tidbits that I'd then feature as separate items on this blog. Well, I'm trying something different, as you can tell by looking at the other items I've posted this morning. From time to time (on a regular schedule, I hope), I'll post an item similar to this one in which I remind readers to take a look at the latest offerings from these organizations, each of which has some very good stuff.
Go ahead and take a look at them right now. You'll find something that interests you.
From the article:
But while Phoenix may have framed its academic information (as many colleges do) in the most flattering possible ways, it remains virtually alone among its peers in the for-profit sector of higher education in revealing this sort of information.And now, for the rest of the story...
"But we seem to be coming toward a tipping point [in favor of being more transparent], and I would bet that in the next three to five years, there will be a lot more easily accessible, publicly available data about the performance of many of our institutions."
The big challenge for Phoenix (to the extent that a university with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in profit is challenged) and its peers in for-profit higher education is the perceived need to measure themselves not against one another, but against the traditional institutions -- largely community colleges and open-access public institutions -- with which they compete for students. With Phoenix and its peers charging significantly higher tuitions than most public institutions, for-profit colleges are feeling pressure (from regulators more than consumers, at least so far) to prove that the education they are delivering is worth the higher price.
Much like Innovative Educators (see the post before last), Academic Impressions also offers conferences, webinars, etc. that are generally of high quality.
From the article:
Some for-profit institutions emphasize instructor training in a way that more traditional institutions should emulate, according to the report. The University of Phoenix, for example, "has required faculty to participate in a four-week training program that includes adult learning theory," the report said.And now, for the rest of the story...
The report says for-profit institutions' attention to costs and outcomes, driven by the need for profit, provides a guideline for how traditional colleges can pay attention to student achievement rates.
Innovative Educators maintains an ongoing list of professional development opportunities in several formats including face-to-face, webinars, & other variations, some free, some for pay. We've sampled some of their wares and generally it's good stuff. Take a look.
Assess this! is a gathering place for information and resources about new and better ways to promote learning in higher education, with a special focus on high-impact educational practices, student engagement, general or liberal education, and assessment of learning. The blog's name comes from one of the major activities in the ongoing cycle that starts with establishing student learning outcomes and proceeds through designing learning opportunities, assessing their effectiveness, and using assessment results to make improvements in educational practices.
If you'd like to help make Assess this! more useful, there are some things you can do. You can comment on a post by clicking on the comments link following the post. You can forward a post to a friend by clicking on the envelope icon below the post. You can recommend Assess this! to someone else. If you have other suggestions, contact me using the email address below.
