Earning College Credit for Prior Experiential Learning

A Student Handbook for the Assessment of Prior Learning Program

Prepared and written by the staff of the Vermont State Colleges System Office of Prior Learning Assessment

Contributors

Rhonda J. Barr, Beth Chiquoine, Melissa DeBlois, Gabrielle Dietzel, Timothy J. Donovan, Judith Fitch, G. Richard Eisele, Stephen Gerard, Bari Gladstone, William Harrison, Ruth R. Keech, Raymond A. Lambert, Kenneth J. Laverriere, Susan McKenney, Myrna R. Miller, Ann Newsmith, Ellen Roffman, Dee Steffan, and Judith Yarnall.

August 2021

FOURTEENTH EDITION

Vermont State Colleges System, Office of Prior Learning Assessment (PLA)

P.O. Box 489, 660 Elm Street

Montpelier, Vermont 05601

(802) 828-4064 • www.ccv.edu/priorlearning

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Adult Students, Higher Education and the Assessment of Prior Learning

Chapter 2 Assessment of Prior Learning at the Vermont State Colleges System

Chapter 3 Experience and Learning

Chapter 4 Describing Learning

Chapter 5 Guidelines for Organizing, Crediting and Evaluating Prior Experiential Learning

Chapter 6 College-Level Learning

Chapter 7 The Areas of Study

Chapter 8 Documentation: Evidence That You Know What You Know

Chapter 9 Integrating APL Credit into a Degree Plan

Chapter 10 Writing the Essay

Chapter 11 Bringing It All Together

APPENDIX

Sample Pages from Portfolios, Glossary of Higher Education Terms, Sample Grids and Checklists

This handbook is written primarily for adults entering or returning to higher education and covers the information needed to successfully complete the Vermont State Colleges System Assessment of Prior Learning (APL) program. It will be useful to any student who has developed college-level competencies and skills outside the traditional college classroom.

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CHAPTER 1

Adult Students, Higher Education and the Assessment of Prior Learning

The Growth of Adult Higher Education

As an adult student, you are part of a growing trend in higher education. Many colleges have created new programs to serve adult students. Adults, in turn, are finding colleges to be a key to career aspirations and personal enrichment. Adult students over the age of 25 have become the largest segment of the total college population. In fact, only one in six of today’s college students is a “typical” student who, at age 18, enrolls at a campus-based, residential institution, and graduates after four years with a bachelor’s degree.

New realities have deeply affected the lives of adult learners. While some have prospered, others have lost ground as globalization, technological development, and economic changes have led to a decline in many economic sectors and, for many people, decreased job security. As a result, adults return to education to help retain their jobs, access new jobs, and create maximum stability in their lives. A significant number of adult students use these educational opportunities to create exciting and satisfying new lives, finding new and enhanced possibilities in the face of change (Michelson, Mandell, et al., 2004).

Beginning in the 1970s, adults have had increasing interest in higher education, while, ironically, the traditional college population of 18 to 21 year-olds has fallen. By 2001 adult students represented 43% of all college students in the U.S. By 2021, more than half the student population in the U.S. will be over 25 years of age (Lumina Foundation).

“The major change in college and university enrollment patterns during the past decade,” wrote Fred Harrington in The Future of Adult Education, “has been the increase in older students. Part-time enrollment, mainly an adult phenomenon, has increased more rapidly than full-time enrollment, and now exceeds full-time registration in many institutions. When non-credit programs are added, this means that adults now outnumber younger students, and are the new majority in higher education.”

Adults entering or returning to higher education today have become an integral part of many college communities. Bookstore hours are extended to serve the needs of evening students, and advisors are available outside the traditional office hours in order to provide adult and continuing students with academic and administrative services.

On-line options for study are now offered everywhere, and study through open educational resources has supplemented or even taken the place of classroom learning. Colleges are offering weekend courses, hybrid courses, intensive courses, and are developing more and more programs to enable adult, working students to go to school while maintaining a life that includes family, jobs, community commitments, and mobility. Most colleges now bear the unmistakable imprint of adult students. Of course, this variety of offerings also benefits traditional-aged students.

Assessment and Other Programs for Adult Students

Most adult students have learned through work experiences, community service activities, independent study through the internet, non-credit course work, and interests which provided learning experiences of college-level quality. To acknowledge these special accomplishments, more and more institutions are awarding college credit, advanced standing or some other kind of recognition for learning acquired through these non-collegiate experiences. “Credit for learning through life experience, credit by examination, drop-out and drop-

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in arrangements, special degrees for adults, weekend classes,” and many other non-traditional experiments, according to Harrington, have placed adults “at the center of today’s most interesting innovations in higher education.”

Assessment of prior learning programs are often at the center of the adult’s experience in higher education. They provide the essential link between an adult’s prior learning and their future educational goals.

A number of methods are used to determine how much credit should be awarded to an individual student. Among the most familiar are the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) and Subject Standardized Tests (DSST) exams. Some of the Vermont State Colleges, such as the Community College of Vermont, have special “Course Challenge” programs for students. The Assessment of Prior Learning (APL) program at the Vermont State Colleges System is another such method for awarding college credit for prior experiential learning.

APL’s main advantage is its broad applicability – it can be used to assess college-level learning across most academic disciplines. It is also flexible enough to measure competence within these disciplines given adults’ varied and unique learning experiences. APL meets the student where they are at – rather than the student having to follow a predetermined college curriculum.

Awarding credit for such learning acknowledges that college-level skills can be gained from a variety of experiences. One way to learn accounting, for example, is to take a course called “Principles of Accounting.” Another equally valid way is to work for an accountant. Programs that assess prior learning compare and contrast the breadth of learning from a variety of experiences, and then make a translation of this learning into the “currency” of higher education - the college credit, the accompanying course title, and a transcript.

Assessment of Prior Learning recognizes that learning is a life-long activity. No student is too old to finish a college degree.

Overcoming Limitations

Most adults entering college do so at considerable sacrifice. Many have families and full-time jobs. For some, money for tuition and books is hard to come by. And for almost all, time is restricted. Fortunately, new approaches exist to help adults overcome these limitations.

Two noteworthy innovations that benefit adult learners are community colleges and bachelor’s degree programs that emphasize external study. They offer flexible scheduling, community-based and off-campus programs, provisions for part-time and independent study, and often, online courses. Many community colleges and external degree programs also credit the prior experiential learning of adult students.

The Community College of Vermont (CCV) and Northern Vermont University (NVU) Online (formerly Johnson State College’s External Degree Program (EDP)) are two examples of such innovations in adult higher education. Both CCV and NVU Online have the primary mission of serving adult students throughout Vermont.

Today, community colleges, assessment programs, programs for external study, online formats, and traditional day and evening college programs provide an opportunity for adults, both in Vermont and nationally, to further their education. The opportunity for a college education has never been more available. Prior Learning Assessment is often one of the core experiences for the adult student entering or returning to college. Many adults find assessment to be the most significant experience they have in higher education.

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Our assessment program provides an essential link between an adult’s prior learning and their future educational goals. The program includes two very broad and far-reaching activities. The first is looking back. The second is planning ahead. In looking back, APL students consider what they have learned, trends that might indicate career paths, and at the choices they have made. In planning ahead, APL students spend time considering their future, especially in developing and relating personal goals to opportunities in higher education.

Looking Back

In APL, students explore the depth and complexity of their learning by examining their past experiences. During the first seven or eight weeks of the course, students complete a comprehensive examination of their learning, starting about the time of high school graduation and continuing up to the present. Students organize learning in a way comparable to the traditional organization of learning in college. They compare and contrast the various elements of their learning, then evaluate these elements against principles used to assess college-level characteristics. Although the task sounds complicated, it is explained in a series of manageable steps throughout the remaining chapters of this handbook.

Planning Ahead

Relating a vision of a personal future to one’s current situation is important. Attending college and earning college credit for prior experiential learning do not occur in a vacuum. These activities are often the result of broader personal goals, such as professional advancement, a quest for knowledge, or self-discovery. The act of planning ahead in assessment helps students examine these goals in three ways.

First, planning ahead helps students describe the concrete, educational steps necessary to realize a particular goal. All APL students design a (draft) degree plan. This degree plan outlines the specific courses necessary to realize a specific educational goal.

Second, planning ahead encourages students to uncover the values that help determine their goals. For example, students who value professional advancement may seek degrees directly related to their careers. Students who value self-discovery, on the other hand, may wish to study the liberal arts.

Third, planning ahead challenges students to consider their values. Different values can result in different goals, and changing goals can yield different educational plans. Becoming a teacher requires a different set of educational steps than becoming an accountant. Both, however, can be part of valuable introspection that helps students achieve the goals they set for themselves.

Preparing for the Task

Almost all students who successfully complete APL earn credit for their prior learning. The average award for an individual student is 25 - 30 credits. This figure, however, is not necessarily representative of assessment results, because the amount of requested credits are so wide ranging – anywhere from 12 to over 100 credits. Therefore, a more informative statistic is that students who complete their portfolios receive, on average, about 70% of the credits they request.

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To be successful in APL, students must meet four minimum requirements. They must:

• have enough time to attend all classes and complete extensive assignments, • have computer skills and access • be willing to participate in group activities, and • have college-level competence in writing.

Time

The process of assessing prior experiential learning takes time to be done well. Students who have a job, a family, or other significant commitments are advised not to take more than one other course while enrolled in APL. Activities and tasks are not restricted to class time. There are many lengthy, out-of-class assignments. Earning many credits in one semester is no easy task, and the amount of credit awarded is directly related to the time invested.

How much time is enough? At session one, students often wonder why the course takes 15 weeks. At session five, they worry if the remaining ten weeks will be enough! The amount of time needed depends on one’s writing proficiency, the number of credits requested, and on how difficult it becomes to obtain documentation. In general, students spend about 10 - 15 hours per week, in addition to the three hours of class time, for the first five to six weeks. Depending on the size of the portfolio and the number of credits requested, fewer hours may be needed after the first six weeks. Here’s some typical student advice for prospective APL students:

“Plan on spending a lot of time. This is quite a process and it cannot be done quickly.”

“Do not take more than one other class, if you absolutely have to. Try not to get discouraged with all the work – it will all come together. Make sure you do everything on time as the teacher requests or you will get behind.”

“It’s a lot of work. Make sure you start early in the course so you’re not overwhelmed at the end.”

“The APL Instructor was extremely helpful. The course is very difficult work and it’s imperative you have a lot of time and energy because a lot of research is necessary. There is no limit to the amount of credits you can receive and it's extremely rewarding to complete this highly difficult course and receive credits.”

Group Interaction Skills

APL is, in part, a group activity. Although students will produce an individual portfolio, they are aided in this project by the discussion, comparison, feedback and sharing of information found in class. Group activity encourages students to break out of their routine into a new kind of learning environment. Class discussion also results in helpful suggestions on the description, organization and documentation of a student’s learning. This discussion is usually a good indicator of what the final response to a portfolio will be. Students in APL classes taught online must participate in group discussions as much as students taking the class in the classroom.

As part of the group activity in APL, students will need to:

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• Share the parts of their portfolio with other students;

• Review and critique the work of others; and

• Participate in discussions on learning styles, values, higher education and goal setting.

Students are not expected to be experienced or proficient at this type of activity. A willingness to commit oneself to building the solidarity and cohesion of the class, however, will have a positive effect on the final outcome.

Writing Skills

Throughout APL, students will ask themselves some very complicated questions. Not only will they ask “What do I know?” but also “How can I state that I know it?” The most significant step in this process of inquiry will be the description and organization of the knowledge in written words that may be understood by a reader. However, the APL class is not a course in the techniques of writing. Although a number of writing exercises are part of the class, they are primarily designed to stimulate self-reflection, the recognition of significant personal themes, and fluency in written expression. These exercises require, but do not teach, writing skills.

“APL was a wonderful experience, full of personal growth, reflection, and goal setting. It offered me a view of my life and experience that would not have occurred if it was not for this class. It created a supportive, strong group of people who all had one thing in common: their desire to pursue further education.”

Successful assessment students should be able to do all of the following prior to enrolling:

• Use the fundamental rules of grammar, including correct spelling and punctuation, subject-verb agreement and subject-object complement;

• Write clear and logical paragraphs and organize these into an essay;

• Compare and contrast concepts in both paragraph and outline form;

• Write formal and informal letters; and

• Write in an autobiographical style.

The most successful students will write at a skill-level equivalent to that acquired after one or two college semesters of English Composition. Prior to enrolling in the APL class, students will likely be asked to take a writing skills assessment, unless they have successfully completed English Composition or a similar course at a college in the past. Depending on the outcome of a writing assessment, an advisor might recommend or require that students take a college-level writing class before enrolling in APL. Ease and confidence in one’s writing skills are very important in APL.

Expectations and Benefits

There are almost as many reasons for enrolling in APL as there are students who enroll. In addition to awarding college credits, APL has the potential of being a richly rewarding educational experience in many ways. Students’ common reasons for enrolling in APL are:

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• to develop a realistic understanding of their present level of competence;

• to obtain credit in order to shorten the time required to earn a degree;

• to meet professional requirements for licensure or certification;

• to understand the process of personal assessment;

• to meet the requirements of an employer or to obtain a promotion;

• to increase personal mobility and flexibility;

• to satisfy the requirements of a degree program;

• to review, organize, analyze and integrate parts of their life, past and present; and

• to simply find out how many and what kind of college-level skills they actually have.

Each student’s reasons will, of course, be determined by individual circumstances and situations, but students who are enrolling for one or more of the reasons above should feel confident in knowing they are not the first students to do so, and that, with effort, they will be able to meet their expectations.

The Lasting Benefits

Time and again, assessment of prior learning is described as a central feature of an adult learner’s experience in higher education. APL provides a forum for adults to examine their past and to speculate about their future in the context of personal or professional values and goals. There are many ways of thinking about the benefits of APL. For purposes of this handbook, we have grouped them into four categories, which are listed below. These benefits are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive.

Practical Benefits

Education is expensive. In addition to the direct costs of tuition, fees and books, adult learners must often add indirect costs such as travel, meals and lodging. And, education also has another cost: the time spent in a classroom is time not spent at a part-time job, or relaxing with family or a favored hobby.

Education is also time-consuming. The student who believes that a college course can be successfully completed in one night per week is in for an unpleasant surprise. Readings, term papers and homework often add many hours to the two or three hours spent in class. Moreover, one course does not a degree make. Enrolling in only one course per semester can often extend the time required to earn a degree to five or six years.

By earning credit in those areas in which they have prior college-level learning, APL students save significantly in both time and money, making APL one of the best education bargains around.

The completed portfolio also has another practical value. As a single document of career, education and life accomplishments, it can be used in seeking a job, a promotion or in planning for the future.

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Here’s what an APL student said after completing the process: “Assessment of Prior Learning can be an important and integral part of a student's education, especially if you have military, work or community experience. As a new student with a lot of work experience, I made the decision to take the APL course because it was so highly recommended by my college advisor. I now highly recommend this course to fellow students. I received over 50 credits, which helped me greatly in completing my A.S. Degree in Computer Science. It saved me time and lots of money.”

Intellectual Benefits

APL provides students with a realistic appraisal of their learning. They will have a better sense of what they know and don’t know after completing the portfolio. This realistic appraisal is important in planning further educational activities, especially those which culminate in a degree.

APL also helps students to develop insight into their personal strengths and weaknesses. This insight (and the confidence that results from it) is invaluable in professional and academic settings. “This course has made me more introspective. I have realized how much I have learned in my life and how much more I want to learn.”

Personal/Interpersonal Benefits

A recent APL student remarked: “I don’t care how many credits I get. It [APL] has changed my attitudes and my confidence in myself. I now know I can do things I was afraid to even try before.”

Statements like the one above are common. APL builds self-confidence, a sense of self-worth, and a willingness to take risks. Looking critically and carefully at one’s accomplishments is a tremendous psychological boost. Students who begin by saying, “I haven’t accomplished anything,” often end by saying, “I didn’t realize I’d accomplished so much.”

Another student wrote this letter to her instructor after completing the process: “Dear Mary, I just wanted to tell you that I did it. I have finished my portfolio. I took it to the local copy shop last night and had five copies made and after 15 minutes I was standing there holding them. It was such a great feeling. I feel I have accomplished a great thing. This was not an easy thing to do but now I have more self-confidence than I have ever had in my life. I am so glad I followed through with the whole thing. Thank you for your time and help. Margaret.”

The opportunity to enrich one’s life through higher education has never been greater. Innovations that were non-existent 20 years ago now make higher education both more challenging and more realistic for adults. Among these innovations, assessment of prior experiential learning is often central to the adult’s experience in higher education. Through APL, adults integrate their personal history with their future.

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CHAPTER 2

Assessment of Prior Learning (APL) at the Vermont State Colleges System

By beginning the assessment process, you are accepting an important challenge. Over the next 15 weeks, you will join with others to closely examine your life. Through it all, the Office of Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) staff and your trained, experienced instructor will assist you. We hope that APL will become not only a way to get credit, but an important learning experience itself.

In Chapter One, we spoke generally about assessment, transfer credit, adult learners and higher education. In this chapter, we will specifically discuss the Assessment of Prior Learning program in Vermont. We will describe how this program is organized, define terms, and outline the necessary procedures to follow. Most importantly, we will explain how to begin preparing your portfolio.

The Organization of APL

How your portfolio is assessed relates to how APL is organized. APL is a service of the Vermont State Colleges System. There are four Vermont State Colleges—Castleton University, Northern Vermont University (formerly Johnson State College and Lyndon State College), Vermont Technical College and the Community College of Vermont. It is a statewide college system with many campuses and satellite centers. The administration of APL for the state colleges is centralized in the Office of Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), which has managed the program in Vermont since 1975. Sometimes, other colleges outside of the Vermont State Colleges System (VSCS) contract with PLA to run the APL course for their own students.

Because the APL program serves a number of colleges, it necessarily attracts a broad range of students, approximately 150 each year. Since its inception, more than 7,000 students have had their prior learning assessed. It is a well-known program which has received a national award from the Council on Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) in 2009. You are in good hands!

Applying APL Credit to a Degree

Because APL is managed centrally by PLA, APL credit is transferable to any of the Vermont State Colleges. This is important to keep in mind. Although you have enrolled in APL through a specific college, you can transfer the credit you receive through the process to other colleges in Vermont and beyond. Of course, the applicability of assessed credit to a degree will vary among colleges. This variability, however, allows you to select a college most suited to your needs. In other words, just because you took the APL course at CCV, it does not mean your credit can only be used at CCV, or only in Vermont. In fact, many colleges in the United States accept transfer credit from experiential learning.

The Vermont State Colleges System Office of Prior Learning Assessment awards the credit for your prior experiential learning. This credit is always transfer credit. PLA itself is not a college, so we cannot award you a degree. To apply your credit to a degree, you must transfer it from PLA to the college you wish to attend – even if you intend to pursue your degree at the same college through which you enrolled in the APL course. Transfer credit has advantages and limitations of which you should be aware.

Flexibility—An Advantage

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The spectrum of possible college-level learning is broader than the range of courses offered at any one college. Rather than assess your learning in comparison with the courses at any particular college, PLA assesses your prior experiential learning against standards for college-level quality and content in general. You will have all the prior learning from your many unique areas assessed at one time.

When writing your portfolio, you should, therefore, try to be comprehensive. Include all the learning for which you can legitimately request credit. By doing so, you can maximize the number of college credits that can be considered for your degree.

Varying Applicability—A Limitation

Not all the credit awarded for your portfolio, however, will necessarily fit into the degree program of your choice. Which credits and how many credits will apply to your degree will be determined, in part, by your choice of college and degree program. Transfer credit is always subject to the restrictions of the institution awarding the degree. Three common restrictions are:

• The minimum amount of credit that must be earned “in residence” at the college (called “residency requirement”).

• The maximum amount of transfer credit that may be applied to the degree program.

• The maximum amount of prior experiential learning credit that may be accepted at the receiving institution.

Since colleges differ greatly in these restrictions, it is important to have all of your prior experiential learning assessed. By being comprehensive, you can maximize the amount of prior experiential learning that will apply to a degree. As you create your portfolio, it is very useful to be in touch with one or several colleges you may want to attend in the future to explore their degree programs and to find out how your assessment credits will fit in with their requirements.

Since PLA is part of the Vermont State College System, many APL students choose to attend one of our four colleges. Generally, transferring your APL credits to these colleges is straightforward, but do remember that each college has its own rules and requirements regarding transfer credit.

The four Vermont State Colleges are located around the State of Vermont. Please find their websites below:

Castleton University, Castleton, Vermont www.castleton.edu

Community College of Vermont, statewide www.ccv.edu

Northern Vermont University, Johnson and Lyndon, Vermont www.northernvermont.edu

Vermont Technical College, Randolph, Vermont www.vtc.edu

How the Process Works

Your instructor will guide you through the APL process from beginning to end. There are some very specific things to do, in a particular order. Here’s a quick overview:

1. Develop an experience list of significant personal events (jobs, marriage, family, community service) to be used as the starting point for the portfolio.

2. Develop a personal goal statement.

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3. Distinguish between “experience” and “learning.”

4. Extract learning from items on your experience list, and refine these rough statements into learning components.

5. Organize related learning components into areas of study and title each one.

6. Assign credit amounts to areas of study.

7. Eliminate areas of study and/or learning components that are not college level.

8. Request documentation from qualified third parties for the learning components and areas of study in your portfolio.

9. Draft a degree plan that reflects your educational objectives and lists required courses.

10. Integrate areas of study into a final degree plan.

11. Write an autobiographical essay that describes the origin and significance of your learning.

12. Combine all the portfolio parts into a final portfolio.

13. Submit the final portfolio to your instructor, who will then submit it to PLA

Portfolio Preparation Timeline Session:

Steps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Experience List X X

Learning from Experience X X X Learning

Components and Study Areas

X X X X X X

Documentation X X X X X X X X X

Degree Planning X X X X X

Essay X X X X X X X

Resume X X X

Editing X X X X X X X

Submission of Portfolio X

Terminology and Procedures

Most programs in higher education have unique sets of procedures and specialized terminology. APL is no different: you need to know certain words and procedures before preparing your portfolio. Understanding them will also provide you with insight into what you are required to do in portfolio preparation. We begin this section on terminology and procedures with a word already used frequently: assessment.

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Assessment: Any process used to determine how much credit or recognition you are to receive for your prior learning is known as ASSESSMENT. Appropriately, the program and course in which you are participating is called ASSESSMENT OF PRIOR LEARNING. It has three basic steps:

1. The description and documentation of your learning in a format that can be reviewed;

2. The review of your learning by an appropriate academic committee called “Advanced Standing Committee”;

3. The awarding of college credit by this committee that can be considered for use in a degree program.

The entire process takes a while. First, you take a 15-week class, at the end of which your portfolio is handed in for review. Review committees begin their work at the start of the following semester, except summer. Fall semester portfolios will usually be evaluated by the end of April, spring semester portfolios will be reviewed by the end of November. Students receive results of their review within a couple of weeks of the committee meeting.

Prior Experiential Learning: The college-level knowledge you have already acquired has a special name: prior experiential learning. In the context of higher education, a number of words and phrases are often used interchangeably to describe this learning. The most commonly used are “experiential learning,” “life experience learning,” “college-level knowledge,” “college equivalencies” and “college-level competencies.”

Portfolio Preparation: Portfolio preparation is the process of examining, identifying, describing and documenting learning for college-level competencies and skills. Your prior experiential learning must be described in a portfolio to be assessed by the Vermont State Colleges System. The steps in portfolio preparation are briefly outlined above.

The Portfolio: Your individual student portfolio is the formal written document through which your petition for college credit is made. At this point, you are probably wondering what a portfolio looks like. A sample portfolio can be found on the PLA website: www.ccv.edu/priorlearning. It will give you an idea of how the final product will look.

Portfolio Parts: A portfolio has ten parts. While the content of each portfolio may be different, the format of all portfolios should be the same. Following the correct format contributes to the overall effectiveness of the final document, and facilitates the review process. The ten parts of your portfolio are listed below:

1. Cover Page/Committee Worksheet

2. Title Page

3. Table of Contents

4. Areas of Study

5. Degree Plan

6. Essay

7. Resumé

8. Index to Documentation

9. Documentation (primary & secondary)

10. Bibliography

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Some of your success in APL is based on the correct organization of your portfolio. If the portfolio is not organized acceptably, it will be returned to you either by your instructor or by PLA staff with an explanation of the items necessary to be corrected by you. This might delay the evaluation of your portfolio significantly.

Portfolio Privacy: Your portfolio has information about your life experience and may contain material that is personal in nature. It will be read only by individuals acting under the auspices of PLA. At the end of the semester, PLA may ask you if we may use parts of your portfolio as examples for future students. You may restrict access to PLA staff and members of your review committee; or you may permit PLA to use your portfolio as a sample. In either case, your decision will not influence the credit award or the grade you receive.

The Advanced Standing Committee: Your portfolio is evaluated by an Advanced Standing Committee. This committee consists of college faculty and occasionally other individuals called practitioners, who are competent, knowledgeable and credentialed in an area of your portfolio. PLA organizes and chairs each Advanced Standing Committee.

College Credits & Transcripts: Earning a college degree requires a certain amount of academic bookkeeping. You and the college need to keep track of the areas and amount of your learning. The most common method is to assign credits to your learning. Colleges record these credits on a document called a transcript. The academic bookkeeping associated with earning a degree can get complicated (for both you and the college) because credits may be earned in a number of ways. You may, for example, earn credit from regular college courses, CLEP tests, the military, and programs such as APL. To obtain a degree, you must combine these credits at a single institution.

Official Transcripts: PLA requires that you include transcripts in your portfolio for all the college credits you have previously earned or attempted to earn. Moreover, these credits must appear on an official, as opposed to an unofficial, transcript. An official transcript is one sent from the college you attended directly to another college. An unofficial transcript is one which was sent to you or anyone else first and cannot be used by PLA. Including transcripts in your portfolio serves two purposes.

First, transcripts document learning. Transcripts can demonstrate to an Advanced Standing Committee your prerequisite study for some of the credits you are requesting. If, for example, you request credit in advanced accounting, you will also need to document your proficiency in beginning accounting. Having passed an introductory level accounting course is one way to demonstrate your prerequisite learning in this area.

Secondly, the transcripts help the committee avoid duplicating previous credit awards. The Advanced Standing Committee will award credit only in areas where credit has not already been earned. If you have already earned three college credits for “Introduction to Nutrition”, the Advanced Standing Committee cannot award this credit again.

Colleges you have attended should forward transcripts directly to CCV or another member of the VSCS (Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, or Vermont Technical College). When PLA receives your Information Form & Portfolio Release Permission, they will check for official transcripts in the system and send a copy to you. Use this copy as your original in preparing your portfolio. It is your responsibility to ensure that you list all of the colleges and post-secondary institutions you have attended on your Information Form and that CCV or another VSCS institution receive official copies of ALL of your college transcripts.

Tests you may have taken to be awarded college credit, such as the CLEP, ACT, or DSST tests, transcribed by the American Council on Education (ACE), should be submitted to PLA as part of your portfolio’s documentation. For more information, ask your instructor.

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A Final Word on Terminology and Procedures

The terminology and procedures discussed above will assist you in portfolio preparation. Use them to formulate questions when you are having difficulty, to request documentation, or to aid in planning your degree. Additional terminology and procedures you need to know will be highlighted throughout the text.

Goal Clarification

As one of your first activities in assessment, you will be required to prepare a statement of your goals. Formulating well-defined goals and examining their implications will be one of your most critical tasks.

A goal is a statement about what you intend to do in the future. People have many goals. In APL, we are most concerned with how your goals will influence your educational choices. Your goals influence how your prior learning will apply to your degree. This point is best made by way of an example:

Karen was 34, married, and had three children when she enrolled in APL. At age 18, she had attended a college near her home. She completed one year and earned 30 credits for coursework in history, English composition, public speaking and psychology. She left college to care for her parents who were seriously injured in a car accident.

Later, in raising her children, Karen was active in local educational programs. She volunteered at the school library in the children’s reading program, and participated in a parents’ day care group. Through it all, Karen discovered that she enjoyed working with children.

In the seven years before enrolling in assessment, Karen did bookkeeping for three area businesses. She managed accounts payable and receivable and participated in year-end closings, payroll and tax preparation. The three owners she worked for were very pleased with her thoroughness and wealth of knowledge about accounting. On more than one occasion, she was offered full-time work in accounting.

Karen came to assessment with a dilemma over the choice of a professional future. She needed to clarify her career goals. Karen had an extensive background in business while personally desiring a career in education. Her career goal would directly influence her choice of degree and how her assessed prior learning would apply to that degree.

Karen decided on a degree in education, although a significant amount of her assessed prior learning was awarded in business. This meant that her degree would take a full year longer to complete. Her assessment credits in business, although not directly applicable to her major, helped fill elective and general education requirements. In addition, Karen chose a college responsive to adult learners. She was able to take courses part time, on weekends and through online and independent study and completed a degree in education.

Situations like Karen’s are common. Many students come to assessment ready for a career change. The majority of their assessed prior learning will be in one area, and their degree in another. These cases illustrate the importance of defining goals early.

Personal Goals

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Defining your personal goals will help you in the portfolio preparation process. If your goals are clear, describe them in writing. If your goals are unclear, try to clarify them by answering the following questions about why you want to be a student. Write your answers. It will be useful to have a record of them to review as you think through your plans. Do you want to:

• learn a new vocation or profession?

• broaden your knowledge of the arts?

• become a more informed citizen?

• learn more about yourself and your relationships with others?

• qualify for graduate or professional school?

• acquire credentials for career advancement?

• increase your competence on the job?

• receive recognition for what you have already accomplished?

• have freedom to design your own education?

• break out of the routine of your life and learn something new?

• find a solution to a problem, such as inflation, environmental pollution, a legal issue, the high cost of medical care?

• do several of the above?

• pursue some other objective?

Another approach to clarifying goals is to develop a life portrait for the future. APL students commonly do this by asking “What do I want to be doing in five years?” or “What do I want to become in five years?”

“I learned a lot about myself, about ‘refueling’ my dreams. I realized how strongly I want to reach my goals. I improved my writing skills and it made me realize why being organized is so important.”

Translating Life Goals into Educational Goals

Once you have established your life goals, you will need to translate these into educational goals. Most of us engage in a similar activity daily. Often we decide what to do (go shopping, bring the kids to school), then we think about the steps necessary to accomplish this task (e.g., put money in the checking account, fill up the car with gas, etc.).

Relating life goals to educational objectives is similar. If you decide that you want to be an elementary school teacher, you need to outline the steps to realize this objective. You will need to check out a number of colleges and the programs at each, compare degree requirements, course scheduling, options for part-time students, and tuition costs, and decide on the best option for you. A good place to start this process is in writing down life goals and then translating them into educational goals. Here are a few examples of how this might be done:

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Life Goals

• to help others to achieve their goals

• to develop career counseling skills

• to develop more skills to be helpful in my community

Educational Goals

• develop a deeper understanding of psychology and sociology

• to move from a production job to the management level

• gain knowledge of management theory and practices

You will increase the specificity of these educational goals later in the course when you prepare your degree plan.

Experience List & Statement of Goals

Early in the semester, your APL instructor will ask you to work on an experience list and a statement of goals.

The experience list is a general list of events in your life that you consider to have been important. Because we are dealing with college-level learning, it usually begins about the time of high school graduation and concludes at the present. The experience list may include your marriage, the various jobs you’ve held and the community service work in which you have participated. A detailed description of the experience list is part of the next chapter.

You will also prepare a general statement of goals. The specific format for this statement will be worked out by you with the help of your instructor.

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CHAPTER 3

Experience and Learning

In this chapter we present material to help you begin the process of describing and organizing the prior experiential learning for which you will request credit. We will temporarily put aside the “planning ahead” process described in Chapter One. We will, instead, be “looking back” at your previous experiences to discover your competencies and skills. We will do this in a series of steps which together comprise the experience-to-learning method.

Before exploring each of these steps in detail, it is important that you understand the overall sequence. The steps are as follows:

1. Develop an experience list covering significant events in your life (jobs, marriages, etc.);

2. Combine similar experiences into groups;

3. Describe the learning that resulted from or contributed to each experience;

4. Organize that learning into areas of study based on its content;

5. Refine learning within categories in concise, descriptive phrases called learning components;

6. Evaluate categories against standards for college-level quality and content;

7. Create titles for each area of study;

8. Assign a credit amount to each area of study.

Experience

When you prepare a resume for a job, you try to provide employers with pertinent information about your past experiences. For example, you may list the jobs you’ve held, and how long you’ve held them. All these statements are about what you do or have done—your experience. You provide this information to an employer to create an impression of you as a person. You include information about former employment to show you are qualified for the job for which you are applying. In short, you use your former experiences to help employers make judgments about you.

In assessment, we also begin with your experiences. We do not, however, use experiences as the basis for the award of credit. Simply knowing a person’s former experiences is an unreliable basis for making judgments. Two people may have similar experiences, like being in the army, with the details of the experience being very different. For one, being in the army may have meant travel across Europe; for another, it may have meant watching over a supply room in Nome, Alaska.

In assessment, you begin with a list of your significant experiences because this gives you an outline from which to build your portfolio. Early in the semester, your APL instructor will ask you to work on an experience list, which is a general listing of events in your life that you consider important. Because we are dealing with college-level learning, it usually begins about the time of high school graduation and concludes at the present. The experience list may include your marriage, the various jobs you’ve held and the community service work in which you have participated. The most common experiences which can result in college-level learning

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include one-on-one training, non-credit courses, seminars, in-service training programs, community and volunteer service, hobbies and recreational activities, independent reading, work, and military service.

Your Advanced Standing Committee (ASC), however, will not award credit based on your experiences. To earn credit, you must analyze each experience to discover the learning associated with it. You use your experiences to uncover what you know. A sample experience list appears below. You may employ a number of strategies in preparing one:

• Develop a chronological list of jobs held including part-time jobs. • Write a free-association list of people, places, and events from your past. • Conduct a “remember when” session with your spouse, friends, or family. • List key events, markers, or milestones in your life. Include successes and failures. • Develop a personal interest/hobby list. Include procedures used or products created by you.

Regardless of the strategy you use, the final list should be comprehensive, stating after high school and covering employment, community service, independent learning projects, and other personal activities. Specify dates and locations.

After you have created your list, you may find it helpful to group related experiences. If, for example, you held a number of administrative jobs, or worked in more than one elementary school as an aide, you may want to group these on a separate piece of paper or index card. This will help you in the next step, which is describing the learning associated with each experience.

A Sample Experience List

Summers 2001, 2002, 2003 Worked with pulp cutting crew and lumber company. Learned how hard it is to make a living!

2003 – 2005 U.S. Army Signal Corps. Went in a private and came out a sergeant.

2005 Fell in love and married my wife.

1/2006 – 3/2006 Took course in real estate brokering and law, passed examination. I think this is when I began to want to get somewhere in life.

2006 – present Joined Westmount Church and started working with disabled kids. This started me thinking about other people and also about having kids.

2006 – 2013 Began selling real estate; this eventually developed into my own small business.

November 3, 2006 Had our first baby; read Dr. Spock cover to cover and everything else we could find. This had to be one of the most important things that ever happened to me.

April 14, 2008 Had our second child; didn’t read a thing. Ditto.

August 2010 Went to Mexico with our church group and stayed on later. This gave us a chance to practice our Spanish.

Summer 2013 Sold my small business and joined a large real estate company. Made a lot more money but also had to get used to having a boss!

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From Experience to Learning

The most important distinction you will make in APL is between experience and learning. Credit is not awarded simply for experiences such as being an accountant, a teacher’s aide, or attending a workshop. Credit is awarded for the learning that has resulted from these experiences. An experience is an event that usually can be measured in time. Experiences have a beginning, middle, and end. They are in your past, present, or planned for the future. For example, reading this book is an experience. When you put it down, the experience is over until the next time you pick it up again.

Learning, on the other hand, is something you take from experience to experience. Learning is not only what you think, but the way you think as well. What you learn from this book is very different from the physical act of sitting in a chair and reading it. Although all students in your class will have the same experience of reading this text, they will all learn something slightly different. In this sense learning is more complicated and more personal than the description of the experiences that resulted in it. When you prepare your portfolio, you will use your experience list as a basis for focusing on the things you know. You will need to examine each item on your experience list and ask yourself two important questions: “What did I learn from this experience,” and/or, “What did I have to know to have this experience?” By doing this you will take the first major step toward writing your portfolio. The following examples illustrate how this step may be applied to a number of experiences: EXPERIENCE LEARNING (what I did) (what I learned or had to know) Vice-President of The • public relations techniques Downhill Ski Slope • principles of accounting from 1997 to 2004 • public speaking • price setting and inventory control • personnel hiring and firing procedures • interviewing

(what I did) (what I learned or had to know) Volunteered in 2002-09 • how to counsel adolescent girls with the Vermont • normal growth and develop- Chapter of the Girl ment patterns of children Scouts • camping techniques • first aid procedures

(what I did) (what I learned or had to know) Managed the Barton- • breeds of horses ville Equestrian Riding • how to build and design a barn Academy from • purchasing and inventory control 2004-2010 • how to supervise and motivate employees • how to teach inexperienced people to ride a horse

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(what I did) (what I learned or had to know) Dog owner & breeder • feeding & water requirements & 4-H class instructor • knowledge of basic animal from 1999 - 2011 health care • how to teach dog owners proper animal care • how to develop a lesson plan • how to speak in public (what I did) (what I learned or had to know) Established a small • tax reporting procedures construction business in • payroll and billing procedures 2007 • inventory control and price setting • fair hiring practices A number of points can be made from reviewing these examples. The most important one is that different experiences can result in the same or similar learning. The vice president of the Downhill Ski Corporation and the person who established a small construction business learned inventory control, price setting, and aspects of human resources management. When you examine your experiences, you will probably discover that two or more of them contributed to your learning in a particular area. You should note these similarities. Later, you will need to group related learning together to prepare your areas of study. Second, a broad range of learning can result from a single experience. The manager of the Bartonville Riding Academy not only learned about horses and barns, but also about inventory control, staff supervision, and teaching methods. Each of these learning areas can be a separate credit request if its breadth and depth is sufficient. In the final preparation of the portfolio, the related learning from separate experiences is usually combined under an appropriate title. If, for example, the manager of the riding academy also raised horses as a hobby, he might combine the learning from the academy and his hobby under an area of study called Equestrian Management. And third, because the focus of your assessment is learning, the description and organization of this learning is more important than its source. When your advanced standing committee reviews your portfolio, it will not distinguish learning acquired on the job, in a workshop, or through a free, non-credit online course. Your committee will be concerned with what you know, and that you know it, and only secondarily with where this learning came from. If your learning meets standards for college-level quality and content, and if it is adequately verified, your committee will award credit for it regardless of its source. This means that the way you describe and organize your learning is an important factor influencing your credit award. In the following section, we present guidelines on selecting learning areas for your portfolio, and criteria by which to organize and describe the learning you include.

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The Complexity and Diversity of Learning: The Many Kinds of Learning

Not all things we learn are considered college-level. Learning that results from a religious experience, from marriage and child rearing, or from introspection is often outside the range of commonly defined college-level learning–even though this learning may be more complicated and more advanced than the subjects learned in college.

Early in APL, you will need to decide what learning is appropriate for your portfolio. When you examine each of your experiences to describe your learning, you will need to eliminate those for which college credit is not awarded. To help you with this process, we have prepared five short biographies that describe typical assessment students. After each biography is a possible evaluation of the learning described. When you read these biographies, think about your own experiences and learning that are similar. Then use the evaluations as a guide in deciding what to include in your portfolio.

1. Victoria

Victoria is 38 years old. From an early hobby, ceramics, she started her own business, which has grown and currently employs 25 part-time workers. She also discovered that she had a talent in writing and has had several fictional pieces published in children’s magazines. She has read widely in American and English drama and goes to the theater frequently. She also spends a considerable amount of her leisure time walking in the parks in her community. She likes to talk with friends about what she has seen and thought about on her walks.

Before meeting her husband, an archaeologist, Victoria fell in and out of love several times and considers that she has learned a lot about herself and human nature as a result of these experiences. She and her husband have traveled extensively in the United States and have visited a number of archaeological sites. She enjoys talking with her husband about the site visits and does extensive reading prior to each visit.

Victoria has managed to accumulate 33 hours of college credit by taking courses part-time at the local community college. She now wishes to transfer this credit, receive recognition for her prior non-college experience, and work toward a bachelor’s degree with dual emphasis on business administration and ceramic production.

Possible Evaluation: Victoria will probably have creditable knowledge and skill in the areas of ceramics, business management, creative writing, introductory archaeology, and American and English drama.

Although being in love is a very significant human experience, what she has learned from this experience is highly subjective and difficult to be verifieed by others. She likely will not receive credit or recognition toward her degree for these experiences. Also, although her walks in the park have undoubtedly been very significant to her in thinking through her problems and enjoying the scenery, she will have a great deal of difficulty in identifying knowledge and skills which have a conceptual base and/or are of college-level quality. She might be able to demonstrate some knowledge in the area of archaeology. She may receive recognition for knowledge in this area with a little additional reading to fill the gaps in her knowledge.

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2. Jim

Jim is 48 years old. Several years ago, he lost his wife and two children in an automobile accident in which he was charged with negligent driving. Coming through this experience, learning to live with his guilt by undergoing therapy, and adjusting to his new lifestyle have made him feel that experience taught him quite a bit about himself and other people. He is presently the personnel manager of a local plant of a nationally recognized manufacturing company. He rose to his present position after 11 years in personnel administration with this company. He has written three articles for a professional journal in the field of human resources management. For three of the years that he has worked for this company, he lived and worked in Brazil. In preparation for this job he used Portuguese tapes to learn to speak this language. While in Brazil, he traveled extensively in South America and feels that he has learned a considerable amount about cultural differences.

For 20 years, Jim has had an interest in modern architecture. He has traveled extensively in the United States, visiting well-known examples of modern architecture. He has read widely in the field. He has also served as a lay leader and board member in his local church. He has read pertinent church literature and participated in an adult study group over a six-year period. Jim would now like to go to college and pursue a liberal arts degree. He feels he should receive substantial credit for the learning experiences that he has had outside of a formal classroom. Possible Evaluation: Jim will most likely receive credit in the areas of human resources management, Portuguese language, and professional writing. In order to receive credit for his knowledge of modern architecture, Jim will need to have it evaluated by an expert in the field. This might be done in several ways.

The expert might interview Jim, or evaluate an essay on modern architecture Jim has written, or both. If, in the opinion of the expert, Jim’s knowledge has sufficient breadth and depth to qualify as college-level learning, the evaluator will make an appropriate recommendation for credit.

If Jim can demonstrate that the leadership and management skills he developed as a result of his experience in his local church are generally applicable to other situations and are not duplications of skills developed on his job, he could receive some credit for what he has learned in that setting. Although the loss of the other members of his family was a significant and traumatic experience, he will probably not be able to convey to others the insights that he gained about himself in a way that would be academically measurable.

3. Dianne

Dianne is 38 years old. At the age of 18 she entered the local community college and pursued a general liberal arts program with no clear career objective. She received her associate degree at 20 and married. Since then, she has been a part-time baker and took care of her two children. The children, a boy and a girl, are age 17 and 15 respectively. Throughout the time of raising her children, she has read numerous books and articles and has discussed them with her pediatrician. The pediatrician has recommended much of the reading that Dianne has done.

Dianne has also read extensively in the interior decoration field. She has applied much of her reading in decorating the home which she and her husband own. She is a skilled clothing designer. She sews and has won awards for the clothing that she has constructed. She enjoys gourmet cooking. Her husband, a painter, frequently comments on how much he values her support and companionship. He says that he could not have achieved the success in his career without her help.

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Dianne participated in a number of civic organizations. She has been president of the PTA and vice president of the local chapter of the League of Women Voters. In her spare time, she enjoys playing tennis as well as teaching tennis to children.

Dianne’s children are growing up and she finds herself less content with her part-time job at the local bakery. She is not sure what career, if any, she would like to pursue. She feels enrolling for a B.A. degree program will help her find an area of interest. She hopes her years of experience will count toward the degree.

Possible Evaluation: Although raising two children has been an important part of Dianne’s life, she should not expect college credit for that activity alone. However, since she has attempted through reading and discussion to learn and apply theories related to the rearing of children, she may be able to demonstrate creditable knowledge at the college-level in the areas of general psychology and child development. She might also receive credit in the culinary arts, organizational leadership, and some physical education credit in tennis and possibly coaching sports. Also, Dianne might be awarded credit in community service for her advocacy work.

4. Thomas

Thomas is 35 years of age, is married, and has three children. Since reading for and passing the appropriate state examinations, he has worked for seven years as a real estate salesman. He has also worked his way through a self-instructional textbook in salesmanship. He has participated in three on-the-job training workshops totaling 60 contact hours.

Thomas is a member of Toastmasters International and has given a number of speeches to service clubs. He is president of the local chapter of the Junior Chamber of Commerce and has served as president of the local chapter of the Lions Club. He also serves as an elected member of the City Council.

For nine years, Thomas has read and practiced widely in photography during his leisure time. He presently owns $2,500 worth of photography equipment. He has won several awards at amateur photography showings and he has had two solo exhibits in his home community. Over the past six years, he has had considerable experience in back packing and camping. He has read numerous books and articles about the subject. Two years ago he took a course in survival training. Once, he and two other men survived one week in a wooded, mountainous area living “off the land.” He and his wife have many friends in their home community and are considered by them to be excellent hosts when entertaining at home.

Thomas now wants to move up into a management position within his present real estate firm. Company policy requires that he have at least an Associate Degree in order to hold a management position. Ray wants to enter community college to pursue a degree and feels that his past experiences should count toward his degree.

Possible Evaluation: Thomas might be able to receive college credit in the area of real estate appraisal, sales, photography and public speaking. His knowledge of back packing and camping might be recognized as being comparable to a Physical Education or Wilderness Education course offered by some colleges. His skill as a good host is probably not a college-level competence.

5. Maria

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Maria is 53 years old. She took a non-accredited secretarial program in a business college immediately after graduating from high school. She worked as an administrative assistant for 18 years and then accepted a full-time position as an office manager. She had a drinking problem which began in high school and became increasingly worse during the time that she worked as an administrative assistant. The pressures of serving as an office manager greatly increased her drinking until the consumption of alcohol began to adversely affect her performance on the job. Finally, she took the advice of her doctor and was hospitalized for a brief time. She then joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has not had an alcoholic drink since. She feels that she learned a considerable amount about herself and human behavior as a result of her long bout with alcoholism. Following her hospitalization, she resumed working as an administrative assistant and also has worked for the past five years as a volunteer aide in the psychiatric ward of a general hospital. She has taken in-service courses and has worked closely with a psychiatric social worker.

Over a period of the last four years, Maria has served as a volunteer in the annual fund drive for the hospital. She rose from the level of aide to team captain in this annual fund drive. She helped to write a procedural manual for conducting the fund drive. She has read several standard textbooks and numerous articles and pamphlets on the general subject of abnormal psychology. Maria now wishes to prepare for graduate school in psychology. In order to be admitted to graduate school, she will need to obtain a bachelor’s degree. Maria feels that her experiences should help her receive credit that could be applied toward her degree.

Possible Evaluation: Maria may receive creditable recognition for the subject areas of psychology, administration and office management, and fund raising. Her experience in helping to write a procedural manual is likely too narrow and cannot be generalized, so she might not receive college credit for doing it. Her effort in overcoming alcoholism, while a significant experience, probably does not produce any learning outcomes for which credit will be granted given the subjective nature of the experience.

The Many Ways to Learn

People process information and learn in many different ways. For example, when assembling a child’s bicycle, some people start by carefully reading the directions, while other people consult the directions as a last resort. Some people need absolute quiet to study, while others study best with the radio playing. Some people need a neat, orderly space in which to study, while others learn best in more relaxed settings. Some people prefer teachers who set clear, specific expectations for classes and insist that students meet those expectations. Other people learn best from teachers with a collaborative approach to establishing expectations. Some people learn well by listening carefully, while others need to “get their hands on it”. Psychologists and educators refer to these individual differences as learning styles. A person’s learning style might include some or all of the following dimensions:

Time of Day: Do you learn best in the morning, afternoon, or evening?

Involvement: Do you prefer a hands-on, experiential approach, or a reflective, observational approach?

Structure: Do you prefer to learn in an orderly, structured setting, or in a more relaxed, loosely organized setting?

Direction: Do you prefer to have your learning directed by experts, or do you prefer to direct your own learning?

Sociability: Do you prefer to learn working in a group setting or working by yourself?

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Theory/Practice: Do you learn best by carefully reading a manual, or do you learn more deeply hands-on and by making mistakes?

There is no one best way for everyone to learn, but each person tends to have a preferred learning style. The educational assessment course tends to concentrate on what you have learned, but it is also valuable to assess your best learning experiences to become aware of your preferred learning style, or how you learn.

A good reason to be aware of your preferred learning style is that using it can make the assessment process easier. While some students start by writing learning components in neat orderly lists, others start by verbalizing their learning. Others start by drawing diagrams of areas of study because it helps them picture their learning. You may want to experiment with different ways of approaching the task of organizing your learning components into areas of study to find a way that fits your learning style.

It is important to note that a preferred learning style is not the only way a person can learn, but it is the way that feels easiest and most natural. As you go through the portfolio development process and articulate what you know, take some time to also assess how you learned what you know and how you prefer to learn. Writing the portfolio itself might be difficult for some students whose learning style does not relate well to a very specific, prescribed way of doing things. While content and writing styles vary with each student, everyone must produce a portfolio with the same format and layout. Your instructor will assist you through the process, so even if your learning style does not welcome this format, you will have support and guidance from both your instructor and your fellow students.

The Many Levels of Learning

College-level learning not only occurs in specific, unique areas, but also at different levels of complexity within each of these areas. You may, for example, know something about United States history. At a most basic level you may know the names of the Presidents, may be able to list the dates and locations of important battles, and may be able to recall parts of important speeches, like the Gettysburg Address. At a more complicated level, you may be able to isolate and interpret trends like frontierism and imperialism. At still a more complicated level, you may be able to evaluate social issues, like class conflict, or to compare the women’s rights movement in the 19th and 20th centuries.

As a general rule, the credit awarded to you in a given area is related to the complexity—depth and breadth—of your learning within that area. As you move from knowledge of simple facts and names to more complicated skills like analysis, evaluation, and comparison, you will generally increase your potential credit award.

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CHAPTER 4

Describing Learning

In the mid-1950’s (and recently updated), the educator Benjamin Bloom edited a book that catalogued the various levels of learning. These levels were published in a taxonomy of educational objectives (you will find a condensed list at the end of this chapter; much more comprehensive lists can be found in the internet). Verbs commonly used to express an individual’s depth of understanding appear for each level. In describing your learning, be certain to consider the full range of areas represented in the taxonomy, as you will find this information very useful as you work on your learning components.

Learning Components

The description of your learning derived from experience is the basis for developing your learning components. Learning components are concise phrases or groups of words which describe your learning in a particular area. They communicate information about the content of your learning as well as your approach to organizing that content. In one sense they are not unlike the ingredients in a recipe. If you are going to bake a chocolate cake, you need to know more than just what the ingredients are. You need to know how much of each ingredient to add and in what order. Your learning components communicate similar information about your knowledge. They tell the committee what you know and how much you know, and why that knowledge is important. By the way you organize your components, you also give the committee information on how this learning relates to your general understanding of a subject area. Later, your learning components can tell a college registrar or an advisor how your learning will transfer to a particular degree program.

Conveying the Depth and Breadth of Your Learning

Bloom’s taxonomy and the associated verb lists can be very helpful in generating effective learning components. Initially, these resources can assist you in clearly distinguishing your learning from the significant experiences which led to that learning, because Bloom’s taxonomy and the associated verbs describe levels of knowledge exclusively, not actions or experiences. Beginning each learning component with an appropriate verb from the Bloom-based list ensures that you are characterizing your learning, not your experience.

For instance, if in running your own small auto parts business you had learned much about inventory control, you might begin by articulating your experience and learning as “set up an automated inventory system.” This is an important accomplishment and may well have led to or been dependent upon some fairly sophisticated knowledge, but the phrase itself only implies your knowledge by describing an action or experience. Effective, useful learning components describe and demonstrate the knowledge itself. They do not simply suggest that knowledge accompanied or grew from an experience.

By scanning the taxonomy list for your highest and most appropriate level of knowledge and understanding in an area of learning, you can more easily and accurately convey the depth and breadth of your learning. For instance, from the experience of setting up the inventory system, you may have acquired a significant depth of understanding yet find it difficult to actually convey it. When you look over the verb list, however, you can determine your specific level of understanding of inventory control as well as the computer knowledge you had to have in order to set up the automated system. In this case, perhaps, the experience required that you recognized the need for such a system, that you evaluated the effectiveness of various inventory software, and that you designed an appropriate system for use in a small retail operation. Thus, by utilizing the Bloom model, you can create the beginnings of effective learning components in the area of Small Business Operations, Retail Management, or Inventory Control.

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Writing Learning Components: Three Sections 1. A description of your skills using verbs such as explain, calculate, create, etc.

2. A “learning statement” that describes what it is that you can explain or calculate.

3. The “condition,” which is used in most but not all learning components.

While the verb portion of the learning component expresses or describes your level of knowledge, and the learning statement portion describes content, the condition addresses why this knowledge is important. It is helpful to ask yourself the question, “Why would anyone want or need to know this?” Your answer to the question can then be rephrased to become the condition portion of the learning component. It is here where you can explain that the skill and knowledge you have learned by experience fits into a larger picture; that there is a theory or principle or reason behind what you did. Here are two examples:

• “Review and compare…… financial reports……. in order to track business growth”.

• “Differentiate…… between the needs for short-term or long-term counseling…… in order to determine an appropriate treatment plan.”

Evaluating the depth or breadth of learning is a difficult task for the Advanced Standing Committee unless you have articulated your learning clearly. That’s where Bloom’s taxonomy and the verb lists are most useful. They help you describe your learning in measurable, concrete terms. They also help you characterize the depth and breadth of the learning, and they assist you in outlining and organizing your learning within an area of study in a way that enables others to accurately and quickly assess the depth, breadth, and content of that learning.

Strategies for Organizing Components

There are two common strategies for developing learning components. The one you choose will be based on how you have initially described your learning. If you have organized your learning under general statements, you may need to increase the level of specificity of these statements when you develop your components. If, on the other hand, you have come up with detailed lists of the things you know, you may need to combine these into a more generalized format. The latter approach is the most commonly used.

From General to Specific

The statement, “I know the fundamental principles of accounting,” helps your advanced standing committee distinguish your learning from other areas, like carpentry or raising tropical fish. It does not, however, tell the committee which “fundamental principles” of accounting you do, in fact, know. The above statement, therefore, would make a poor learning component.

Students must provide the Advanced Standing Committee with enough specific information about their knowledge. Writing general statements like the one above can be useful in initially organizing your learning. The level of specificity of these statements must be increased, however, before you include them in your portfolio.

Good learning components in the area of accounting, for example, would allow the committee to distinguish your knowledge of accounting from basic bookkeeping. After reading your components, the committee would also know if you knew introductory level or advanced accounting, or if you had specialties within the area, like tax accounting or cost accounting. Here are three learning components that succeed in doing this:

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• Analyze, interpret, and prepare financial statements (for example, income statements and balance sheets) to inform business planning.

• Demonstrate the fundamental mechanics of double entry accounting, such as debits and credits, standard accounting formats, and trial balances in order to keep appropriate records.

• Explain the purpose of the general ledger and post a variety of transactions for accurate record keeping.

When you describe your learning, you will need to apply the same general principles to each area for which you request credit.

From Specific to General

It is possible, however, to err on the side of specificity. In preparing your initial descriptions of what you know,

you might list much more information than is necessary for the portfolio. This problem with listing is depicted

in the example below. It is a student’s initial description of their knowledge of fine cabinetry:

1. Purpose and use of the hammer

2. Purpose and use of the saw

3. Different types of saws: keyhole, coping, crosscut, rip saw

4. Care of saws

5. Care of hammers

6. Purpose and use of planer

7. Purpose and use of mitre box

8. Best uses of pine

9. Best uses of fir and cedar

10. Best uses of hardwood, such as maple

11. Butt joints

12. Mitre joints

13. Dovetail joints …etc.

These 13 items were eventually restated more concisely and effectively in the following three components:

1. Discuss the purpose, use, and care of the most common hand tools used in woodworking, including hammers, various saws, chisels, planers, and mitre box to choose the correct tool for the project.

2. Distinguish between soft and hard woods, in-order to handle each correctly.

3. Recognize and describe the uses of various types of joinery and demonstrate the following joints: butt-end, dovetail, mitre, rabbet, and dado.

One of the best ways to avoid too much listing is to remember that you are describing your learning to experts. As a general rule, you can describe about three credits worth of learning in 8 – 12 learning components.

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In Summary

In your portfolio you communicate what you know through your learning components. Each component is a phrase or sentence that conveys unique information about your knowledge. The two challenging tasks in preparing learning components are:

• grouping the appropriate components together, and

• striking a critical balance between generality and specificity in each component.

BLOOM'S TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

1. KNOWLEDGE o Knowledge of specifics ( terminology, specific facts) o Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics (conventions, trends and sequences,

classifications and categories, criteria, methodology) o Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field (principles and generalizations, theories

and structures) Verbs: know repeat recall list define record memorize relate 2. COMPREHENSION

o Translation, Interpretation, Extrapolation Verbs: restate explain report recognize locate discuss express review tell describe identify 3. APPLICATION Verbs: translate use illustrate shop interpret demonstrate operate apply dramatize schedule practice employ 4. ANALYSIS

o Analysis of elements, relationships, organizational principles Verbs: distinguish experiment diagram examine analyze test inspect solve differentiate compare debate relate appraise contract inventory calculate criticize question 5. SYNTHESIS

o Production of a unique communication, a plan, or proposed set of operations o Derivation of a set of abstract relations

Verbs: compose formulate construct set up manage plan arrange create prepare propose assemble design collect design 6. EVALUATION

o Judgments in terms of internal evidence or external criteria Verbs: judge compare select measure assess appraise value choose revise evaluate rate score estimate

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CHAPTER 5

Guidelines for Organizing, Crediting and Evaluating Prior Experiential Learning

In this chapter and the next, we will continue our discussion of learning. In presenting some guidelines on categorizing and titling your learning, we will suggest some standards by which you can evaluate its college-level quality and content. We will also present some rules for assigning credit requests to your areas of study. This process will culminate in the preparation of the areas of study, which is the focus of Chapter Five.

Organizing Prior Experiential Learning

An important point to remember in organizing your prior experiential learning is that you are making a proposal to your Advanced Standing Committee. The committee may agree, disagree, or partially agree with it. Faculty members may differ somewhat in their opinions as to what learning should occur in a particular course. Moreover, the learning outcomes of the same course can be different from institution to institution. This often works to your advantage. It allows you to organize your learning in a way that makes sense to you, without reference to a particular program or catalog. While the committee may agree or disagree with your approach, it cannot refuse to award you credit simply because your learning fails to exactly match a course at a particular college.

When you organize your components, examine them to identify how the content of each is similar to or different from that of others. Try to see trends and patterns (however subtle) which characterize your learning, and then group the components based on those patterns.

To do this, you may find it helpful to ask these questions:

• Does a particular component or set of components appear repeatedly through two or more experiences? If so, then group these components together.

• Can some general categories be used to divide up the learning you have described? These categories may be “people-related” or “data management” skills. If so, then use these categories as general headings for groups of components, without regard to their source.

• Can you isolate a general area, such as business, education or nursing, which seems to summarize many of your components? If you can, then use this area as a starting point for organizing.

The purpose of organizing your learning is threefold:

1. You want to combine similar learning components into groups based on their content.

2. You want each of these groups to have a unique set of learning components. The learning components in one group should be different from those in other groups if you have separate credit requests.

3. You want each of these groups to represent your current understanding of the content and organization of the subject matter for which you are requesting credit.

The two examples below may suggest a general approach to organizing your learning:

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Jason

By analyzing many years of employment with a number of firms, Jason was able to identify a broad range of skills he had developed. In the late 90’s, he had worked as a car salesman in Massachusetts. In this position he learned sales techniques and advertising. From 1998 to 2004, he worked for a large auto manufacturer as a customer service representative in the New England region. As a service representative, he expanded his knowledge of sales and advertising and added skills in marketing and management. In 2005, he moved to Vermont. He was offered and accepted the position of sales manager for a computer manufacturer in the Burlington area. In his new role, he was responsible for all sales of a product line. He enhanced his knowledge of sales, advertising, and marketing and learned new skills in the area of management and supervision. In 2012, Jason enrolled in assessment.

Jason’s Approach to Organizing His Learning

In analyzing his business knowledge, Jason looked for trends and patterns that characterized his learning. For example, he grouped his sales techniques from all three companies in one category. Likewise, his management and supervisory techniques from the auto manufacturer and the computer firm were also grouped. He felt, however, that the marketing knowledge he developed at his last job was distinct enough to be kept separate. After categorizing his learning, he analyzed these categories to determine the depth and complexity of the learning in each.

Mary

In 2013, Mary enrolled in APL after having worked as a legal secretary for the same law firm for 20 years. She had an in-depth understanding of the full range of secretarial/administrative skills including word processing, other computer skills, legal transcription, and office procedures. She first learned these skills in a one-year secretarial school she attended in the late 1980’s. Although this school provided her with excellent instruction, it did not offer college credits for the courses she completed.

Mary’s Approach to Organizing Her Learning

Both her job with the law firm and her attendance at the secretarial school contributed to her knowledge. She did not, however, earn credit directly for either experience. Using her school transcript as a guide, Mary developed general categories of skills needed by a legal secretary. She eventually grouped her learning under computer skills, office administration, legal terminology, paralegal procedures, and accounting. Both the secretarial school and her job at the firm were listed as the sources for all her learning except the legal terminology and the paralegal procedures, which she acquired at the law firm only.

Selecting Areas of Study

As you organize your learning into groups, you also will need to develop area of study titles. An area of study title is a phrase describing a group of related learning components. Areas of study are based on an examination of your components and may or may not correspond with college course titles. The range of acceptable areas of study is broader than the list of courses at any particular college. Generally, areas of study titles are:

1. Three to five words in length.

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2. Developed by you based on your learning components and comparing these to outcomes required in college courses.

3. Descriptive—the relationship between the title and its learning components should be direct and immediately evident.

4. Descriptions of learning as opposed to experience or job titles, e.g., “Principles of Accounting,” “Office Administration,” and “Methods of Teaching Reading” are acceptable areas of study titles while “Accountant,” “Administrative Assistant” and “Teacher’s Aide” are not.

5. Specific rather than general, e.g., “English Composition,” “Child Psychology,” and “Small Business Management” are acceptable while “English,” “Psychology” and “Business” are not.

6. Descriptions of about three credits worth of learning. While there are some exceptions to this guideline, you should be comfortable in requesting about three credits for each area of study in your portfolio. Avoid asking for six credits, for example, for an area that is clearly a three credit course in most colleges. Large groups of learning should be subdivided using more specific qualifiers like Theory vs. Practicum, Level I and Level II, Introductory vs. Advanced.

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CHAPTER 6

College-Level Learning

As you organize your learning into areas of study, you should examine your learning components to see if they meet standards for college-level quality. Setting college-level standards for learning is no easy matter. Many educators disagree on what makes a learning experience college level. Interestingly enough, others agree on general standards, but many disagree on how to apply these standards to a specific area.

For college-level learning to have any meaning, however, we must distinguish it from other types of learning. As noted earlier, not all learning is appropriate for college credit. Our approach to establishing standards is both historical and abstract. In defining college-level quality we look historically at what has been taught by colleges. In this way we are able to isolate bodies of knowledge (or disciplines) common to higher education. These disciplines (like psychology, criminal justice, and business) help set the range on the content of college-level learning.

In establishing standards, we also look at the content within these disciplines to find principles which seem to define college-level quality. These principles help establish how theoretical or applied and how specific or general college-level learning should be. They also help define the techniques necessary to measure college-level skills.

A summary of these standards is presented below. They are used by Advanced Standing Committees to assess portfolios. Use them, therefore, to make judgments about what to include and omit from your portfolio.

• The learning is describable.

As a general rule, college-level learning can be communicated to another person using written or verbal language. In fact, communicating learning through language is the basis of portfolio preparation. To earn credit for your learning, you must be able to describe it in words. This is especially true in skill areas like computer knowledge or auto mechanics, or in more affective areas like conflict management or interpersonal communication. Students often report “I know I can do it, I just never think about it much.” However, it is the “thinking about it” that helps to establish learning as college level.

• The learning has general applicability.

Your learning should be applicable outside of the situation in which it was acquired. For example, you may know the human resources procedures at the company at which you work. For you to earn credit for this knowledge, you would also need to know how those procedures would apply at other companies, or how they relate to the field of human resources administration in general.

• The learning fits into academic disciplines.

Your learning should relate in some way to the academic areas traditionally taught by colleges. By examining three or four college catalogs, you can get a general idea of what the traditional academic disciplines are. Your learning may be similar to or very different from the specific areas within a discipline. Nevertheless, establishing a relationship between your learning and these disciplines is an important dimension in preparing your portfolio.

• The learning includes both theories and applications.

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Your learning should include both theoretical and practical understanding of a subject area. If your learning is theoretical, you should be able to apply your knowledge in a practical context. If your learning is practical or applied, you should understand why and how you do something. You cannot receive college credit for the mere application of a manual skill or a narrowly prescribed routine.

• The learning is verifiable.

You must be able to verify and document your learning to receive credit for it. Verification is the process of assembling evidence that you know what you claim to know.

• The learning is more than “common to all.”

Some very common learning is not acceptable as college-level learning. Learning which results from marriage, parenting, and family living is usually not appropriate for the portfolio. Your learning in these areas may qualify for credit only if you have enriched it through:

1. Readings and research: For example, complementing your knowledge gained from child rearing by reading and researching in the area of child development or education;

2. Analytical thinking: For example, comparing the great variety of the American family with family units in other countries;

3. Communication: For example, teaching others, giving appropriate feedback to a supervisee, or writing newsletters/articles about events or ideas.

Credit Requests

The final step in preparing your learning for evaluation is assigning a credit value to each area of study. To do this you will need to have a frame of reference from which to make your judgments. You will need to measure your learning with the same “yardstick” that most colleges use. Without this frame of reference, your credit values may seem arbitrary.

Your Advanced Standing Committee will, of course, make the final judgment on the credit awarded to your areas of study. The committee does, however, expect you to make a reasonable and appropriate credit request. By doing this you are able to:

1. Positively influence the committee’s final decision;

2. Discriminate in-depth learning from superficial learning by varying the credit values and titles you assign;

3. Translate your prior experiential learning into the “currency” of higher education and begin planning a degree.

You may delay your final decision on credit requests until later in the course. You need an approximate idea of credit values early in assessment, however, to complete the organization of your learning and your degree plan.

Some Guidelines for Assigning Credit Values

You may find the following approaches helpful in assigning credit values to your areas of study:

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If you have taken courses at other colleges or universities, you may have some idea of the amount of credit required for a given amount of learning. You can use this estimate as a guideline in making your request. For example: Dianne is requesting credit for an area in her portfolio called “Principles of Banking”. In assigning credits, she can use the amount she learned in a previous college accounting course as an indicator of how much to request for the banking course.

The Three-Credit Formula

If you have previous experience with higher education, you will recognize that most courses in the college curriculum are offered for “three credits”. That is, upon successful completion of the course, the student is awarded three college credits. The credit is at this time the currency of higher education; it is the measurement of student progress through a college degree program.

Determination of what constitutes a college credit is referred to as the Carnegie Formula. Using this formula, every 15 hours of instruction and 30 hours of preparation are measured as one credit. Since a typical college course requires 45 hours of class time and 90 hours of out-of-class work, the most common credit designation is three.

Wherever appropriate, you should think of your learning outcomes in terms of three-credit blocks. This will assist faculty in equating your areas of study to equivalent college coursework using a measurement standard that is common throughout higher education. It may also help you determine how much learning to include in an area of study as you develop your portfolio.

Comparing the Areas of Study with College Courses

After you have organized your learning components into areas of study, you may want to compare these with equivalent college courses. Because there are differences among similar courses at different colleges, you should try to consult a number of college catalogs before making your decision. For example: In preparing his portfolio, Bill developed an area of study called “Principles of Management”. By reviewing course descriptions for several management courses, he learned how many credits generally are awarded in this area. He then made his decision to request three credits for this area of study.

The Competency Approach

One way to assign a credit value in your learning is to compare your general level of competency with that of others who have graduated in a related field, rather than comparing your learning with the courses that contributed to these competencies. Obviously, individual comparisons can be misleading. You should try, therefore, to compare yourself with several people in your field before making a judgment. For example: Meta has worked as a theater actress for many years, working with lots of people with theater or literature degrees. Her directors and fellow actors regularly comment that her skills in theater are equivalent to those of individuals with bachelor’s degrees. Since a major in this field requires approximately 48 credits in a variety of theater arts courses, she used this number as a basis for her credit request.

General Guidelines on Credit

In addition to these four approaches, there are some general guidelines to consider when requesting credit:

1. Life experience is rarely a direct equivalent to traditional curricula; therefore, the learning components and credits assigned to the areas of study do not always need to match precisely titles or the usual credits for a course.

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2. Large blocks of credit are difficult to analyze and to substantiate. Colleges and Advanced Standing Committees most commonly award credit in units of three, sometimes four. If you are requesting more credits for any specific area of study, you must break the learning into smaller, identifiable and documented units. (An exception is a practicum or field experience, which can be awarded 6, 9 or even 12 credits.)

3. Your credit request should be made in consultation with your advisor, instructor, or others familiar with academic crediting. Regardless of your approach, try to be consistent.

4. Your prior experiential learning must be college level and its quality must be equivalent to at least a satisfactory or passing level of performance.

5. Credit for learning can be granted only once. Learning already credited by an accredited college via a transcript from that institution cannot be again granted credit through your portfolio. In cases where your credit requests are similar to previously earned credits, you must demonstrate that your experiential learning is new and different. Note: There is one exception to this rule. If you took computer courses ten or more years ago, you may ask for these credits again through your portfolio if you have upgraded and are still using these skills. Many colleges do not accept older computer credits for transfer, therefore we let you ask for the course again so you updated computer learning can be used for your degree.

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CHAPTER 7

The Areas of Study

The final step in describing your college-level learning is organizing it into areas of study. For each of your credit requests, you’ll create an area of study that describes your learning. It is the part of your portfolio which provides the most detailed information on the content and organization of your knowledge.

Each area of study appears on a separate page and should follow the standard format illustrated in the sample portfolio. Notice how each page is divided into three columns, which are headed: source of learning, learning components, and documentation. You cross-reference your sources of learning and documentation to the areas of study and use learning components to elaborate on their content.

The first areas of study to appear in your portfolio should be those in your concentration, the discipline in which the majority of your prior experiential learning has occurred. Examples of concentrations would be areas such as business, education or computer studies.

Because your learning must be presented in this format, you may find it helpful to organize your early drafts of areas of study and learning components like this. When you prepare your final version of the area of study, use the following guidelines:

Title

The title of your area of study serves as a focal point for the Advanced Standing Committee. It should be short and descriptive, similar to titles in college catalogs.

Credit Requests

When deciding on the numbers of credits to request for your area of study, remember:

1. Credit requests refer to areas of study. If you have 11 areas of study, you will have 11 separate credit requests.

2. Most college courses are 3 credits, so it’s recommended to assign 3 credits to your areas of study. However, some computer courses and lab science courses usually carry 4 credits, and there are also some 1-credit courses, such as “Conflict Management” or “Effective Presentations”. Your instructor can help you to decide how many credits to ask for if you are unsure.

3. Areas of study with large credit requests are difficult or impossible to evaluate. It is best to separate your learning into 3-credit units, similar to standard courses.

4. Practicum credits requests are usually for 3-6 credits. Occasionally, students may be awarded 9 credits.

5. Credit awards in an area of study are based on the complexity and depth of your learning.

6. Credits are requested in semester hours.

Learning Components

Learning components describe the content of the area of study. Together they are equivalent to, but not necessarily the same as, the content of a traditional college course. Each area of study should have a unique

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set of learning components. Most importantly, each learning component should be logically related to the area of study under which it is included.

The Source of Learning Column

After creating your learning components, examine these components to determine the source of the learning: experiences that have brought about or contributed to your knowledge of the area. A good way to determine your sources is by examining your original experience list. Each item on the original list is a potential source of learning for your portfolio. The most common sources include jobs, training programs, volunteer work and independent reading and studying.

For each source of learning, you will need to provide two pieces of information in the left column: source of the learning and the approximate dates when your learning occurred. By giving dates, you help the committee understand the order, progression and development of your knowledge. Dates also help explain why certain items may be included in or omitted from your components. This is especially true in areas like computer science, where the content changes drastically every few years.

Each area of study must have at least one source of learning and may have more. It is usually helpful to your committee if you list all sources of learning for an area of study, even if you do not plan to request documentation from those sources. Also, you may list the same source of learning for a number of areas of study. This, in fact, may be quite common. When using the same source for more than one area of study, you should repeat all of the information outlined above for each.

Forms for your use are available in your courses electronic site. You can also design your own form, as long as it looks similar to the ones provided in the examples.

The Documentation Column

The documentation column is used to cross-reference your portfolio documentation with your areas of study. While you will not be able to fill in this column until you have requested and received most of your documentation, please be aware of the following points:

1. The numbers shown in the documentation column refer to actual page numbers, which you will assign as you complete your portfolio.

2. One letter of documentation may support several areas of study, so it can be referred to in different areas of study.

3. We recommended that each area of study has three to four pieces of documentation.

More specific information on documentation is provided in the next chapter.

Review: Examine the components in the sample Areas of Study below. Consider the following questions:

• Are any of the components repeated?

• Do all the components describe learning, or do some of them refer to experience?

• Is it reasonable and appropriate to include these components under these areas of study?

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• Are any of the components too specific or too vague?

• Might there be a better way to organize the components?

The Advanced Standing Committee will ask questions similar to these in determining how much credit to award you.

Name: Alice Kramden Area of Study Credit Request: 3

OFFICE MANAGEMENT

Source of Learning Learning Components Documentation

Vermont Agency of Transportation

2001-2007

Vermont Learning Center

208 - present

Review and revise office policies and procedures as requested by supervisor. Monitor and evaluate employees’ job performance for feedback and review. (Assess and review to determine future goals.) Manage staff tasks and time to ensure office coverage. Determine cross-training schedules for employees’ professional development. Review and revise position descriptions as job responsibilities change for employees. Recruit and interview qualified candidates for vacant positions within each office unit. Train and support employees in computer applications as necessary for their work stations. Implement appropriate filing systems for office coordination and ease of work flow. Compose and coordinate standard forms and letters for Chief Executive Officers. Maintain inventory of office equipment and determine replacement and repairs as necessary.

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22-23

26

32-33

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Name: Trixie Norton AREA OF STUDY Credit Request: 3

BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

Source of Learning Learning Components Documentation

Virginia Dept. of Corrections 1994 – 2004 SafeLife Insurance Co. 2004 – 2007 The Rock of Gibraltar Group 2007 - Present

Demonstrate professional office rapport such as appropriately answering telephones, greeting prospective clients, responding to supervisor’s requests, etc. Recognize different leadership and personality styles to better communicate within and outside of the office/unit. Apply proofreading and writing skills to create professional business documents. Demonstrate ability to deliver quality customer services such as forwarding forms, interpreting legal documents, following up on complaints, etc. Review office problems and determine appropriate solutions. Present monthly reports, both verbal and written, to Chief Executive Officer. Communicate, in writing, individual employee’s and teams’ yearly performance evaluation and set goals for the next year during a supervisory meeting. Employ good interpersonal communication skills to enhance inter-team communication and to aid work flow. Employ telephone etiquette techniques to maintain customer satisfaction. Demonstrate skills in public relations, planning and organizing to coordinate meeting and travel arrangements.

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36,36

39

40-44

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CHAPTER 8

Documentation – Evidence That You Know What You Know

Documentation is the key to receiving credit through the APL process. You must document the learning in your portfolio to receive credit for it. Credit will not be awarded for undocumented learning even though it is adequately, and even brilliantly, described on your area of study, or credibly referred to in the essay. The rule is simple: NO PRIMARY DOCUMENTATION — NO CREDIT. Therefore, begin thinking about documentation early in the semester and have a strategy ready to implement by the sixth class. You cannot begin requesting documentation, however, until you describe your learning and organize it into the areas of study format.

As you prepare for documentation, you should keep in mind the distinction between the following terms: verification, measurement, and evaluation.

• Verification is the process by which you provide written materials (usually letters) that substantiate your claimed learning.

• Measurement is the process by which someone determines how much and how well you have learned from previous experience.

• Evaluation is the process of relating the measurement of learning to standards in order to determine how much college credit can be awarded to you. The people who will document your learning will verify and measure it. The Advanced Standing Committee, however, will evaluate this evidence to determine how much credit you should receive.

Good documentation proves that your statements about your learning are reliable and valid. Your Advanced Standing Committee will examine your documentation very carefully. In order to get good documentation, follow the steps below. Keep in mind that the quality of your documentation is often more important than the quantity.

The Steps to Documentation

In one sense documenting your learning is easier, and in another sense more difficult, than describing your learning. Documenting is easier because it requires less painstaking introspection and detail. Documenting is more difficult because you must rely on other people for it. Most portfolio documentation consists of letters written on your behalf by qualified individuals. All of the learning in your portfolio must be addressed in these letters. In most cases this means you must obtain letters from a number of people to adequately document your described learning. One letter may address a single learning component or many areas of study. It is important, therefore, for you to determine who will document what before you begin the process. You must also clearly understand what is required of documenters, and what makes for good documentation. The following steps will help you in this process.

1. Know What You Know.

You, or anyone else, cannot begin documenting your learning until you have completely named it. You cannot ask someone to document something until you know exactly what it is and have described it. Before requesting any documentation, you should completely organize your knowledge into learning components and areas of study.

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2. Make a List of Possible Documenters.

Once you have decided on your areas of study and learning components, make a list of all people who could potentially document them. Be thorough. If you operated a small business, you might initially think only of your business partner. Other sources of documentation, however, might include your lawyer, your tax accountant, a satisfied customer, and even competitors. Often two or three letters (from different sources) for the same prior learning prove complementary to each other. One writer may emphasize in a paragraph what another glosses over in a sentence.

Common sources of good documentation include:

• Employers and supervisors • Co-workers • Business partners • Business consultants • Members of your community • Educators Weak sources of documentation (which should be avoided because they might have a conflict of interest or cannot be objective) are:

• Your family members • Your students or clients • Your employees • Your counselor or therapist • 3. Develop a Matrix

After you have described your learning and listed your documenters, relate the two in a matrix of documentation. One documenter may address more than one area of study. Conversely, one area of study usually has two or more documenters. This matrix will guide you in planning your strategy and be a handy place to record your letters once you begin receiving them. A sample matrix for documentation is provided in your electronic resources. Notice that the columns list areas of study and the rows potential documenters. You use the matrix to record when you send requests for documentation and when you receive them by making entries in the space where the two intersect.

By scanning down any vertical column of the matrix you get a quick list of all the documenters for an area of study. By scanning horizontally, you have a list of all the areas of study that a single documenter should address. This is important when a single documenter will address more than one area of study. One single letter might be documenting the student’s learning in accounting and small business operations.

4. Contact Your Documenters

Request documentation by contacting each documenter twice—first by phone or in person, and then in writing. Be certain to explain why you need documentation, mention the assessment program by name, and discuss how documentation will help you.

5. Use the Correct Format to Request Documentation.

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Be sure you give the documenter:

• A personal cover letter with a deadline date. • The current “Dear Friend” letter written by PLA. • Copies of the areas of study and learning components you want the documenter to evaluate. • Sample letter of documentation provided by PLA. • PLA e-mail address priorlearning@ccv.edu OR an envelope, pre-addressed to PLA, with plenty of postage.

You will give a copy of your learning components to documenters to help them focus their remarks. Stress to your documenters that they are verifying learning, as opposed to writing letters of recommendation. (It is very important to explain the difference as this is a distinction most documenters are not familiar with).

Only documentation that verifies learning will be acceptable documentation for the award of credit. In the examples at the end of this chapter, see how a good letter of documentation is different from a letter of recommendation. Notice how the letter of documentation addresses a student’s learning in business, while the letter of recommendation evaluates the employee as punctual and trustworthy. While the letter of recommendation might help the student obtain a job, it would do little to help the student earn credit.

In addition to supplying your documenters with areas of study and learning components, also give them a copy of the “Dear Friend” letter. The “Dear Friend” letter is a form letter written to your documenter by the Prior Learning Assessment Office. In this letter, PLA covers all the detailed information the documenter should have in order to write a good letter. The “Dear Friend” letter instructs your documenters to do things like using letterhead stationery, where available, and to evaluate your knowledge as average or above average. It also informs your documenters that you will have access to the letters they write.

6. Request Documentation Early

You should request documentation soon after you complete your areas of study. When you make the request, you should also give documenters a deadline seven to ten days ahead of when you actually want it. Our experience indicates it takes three to five weeks to obtain documentation from the time it is requested. Because it is important to review documentation before beginning the final draft of your portfolio, you should try to receive most of your documentation by the 12th class.

7. Have Documenters Send Letters to the Prior Learning Assessment Office

Documenters must send their letters directly to PLA. Documentation sent to you first cannot be included in the portfolio. All documentation received by PLA will be placed in your student file for safe keeping, and copies will be sent or scanned to you. Use these copies as your originals in preparing your portfolio.

8. Conduct Regular Follow-Up.

You should call documenters about two weeks after your initial request to ask if they need any assistance. Most people are willing and happy to provide documentation, but that does not make the task an easy one. For most people, writing a good letter of documentation requires considerable effort. Your well-timed call is usually an important reminder or an opportunity for them to ask questions or clarify your request.

9. Select Documentation for Your Portfolio

After you have received all of your documentation, you should decide which letters will become part of your final portfolio. You are not required to include all documentation you receive, even though the originals

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remain in your student file. You will make the choice of letters to include. The Advanced Standing Committee will review your portfolio as you submit it; it does not have access to your file. While you will probably want to include most of the letters you receive, you may want to exclude one or two for any of the following reasons:

• Eliminated Areas of Study: Occasionally you may eliminate an area of study after you request documentation. You may decide the area is not college-level or is part of another area. If you delete an area of study, you should exclude documentation referring to it, as this might cause confusion for the reader.

• Redundant Letters: Sometimes letters of documentation duplicate each other. If three or more letters clearly cover the same material, the least effective may be eliminated in the interest of conciseness.

• Negative Documentation: On rare occasions, you may receive a negative or incomplete letter. If the letter is negative, you may choose to discard it and make no reference to it in the portfolio. If the letter is incomplete, you may wish to have the documenter rewrite it. This approach is acceptable as long as the documenter forwards the revision directly to PLA. If the letter has been completely revised, include only that version in the portfolio. If the documenter writes an addendum to the first letter, insert it in the appropriate place behind the first letter.

Again, here are the steps in the documentation process:

1. Student sends request for documentation to documenter, including the area(s) of study.

2. Documenter sends letter to PLA, directly (via e-mail or US Mail).

3. PLA staff logs in, dates, and verifies (if necessary) the documentation and places the original letter in the student’s file.

4. PLA sends/scans a copy to the student.

5. Student places the letter in their portfolio in the documentation section, after numbering the page(s) appropriately.

Types of Documentation

There are two types of documentation:

Primary documentation includes: a) transcripts from any previous accredited colleges you attended, and b) letters of documentation and special evaluations written specifically for your portfolio. People writing primary documentation must send it directly to PLA before it can become part of your portfolio. Your Advanced Standing Committee will award credit for prior experiential learning only in areas with adequate primary documentation. The exceptions to this rule are noted later in this chapter. Transcripts must come first, before your letters and possible special evaluations.

There are three forms of primary documentation:

1. Transcripts from any previous colleges you have attended. You will need to request that the colleges send an official transcript directly to CCV or another member of the VSCS (Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, or Vermont Technical College).

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2. Letters of Documentation. The most common approach for a letter of documentation/ verification is when someone who has directly observed your learning and skills writes the letter. Common sources of letters of documentation include employers, co-workers, colleagues, supervisors and members of your local community.

When you request letters of verification, be certain that the people who write them have had the opportunity to directly observe you demonstrating your learning. Also, be certain that the credentials of these individuals match the experiential learning they will address. If, for example, you worked in an elementary school, you might choose the third grade teacher, the principal, or the head custodian to write you a letter, depending on whether you wanted to verify your skills in language arts, administration, or carpentry. The best letters of verification are from individuals who have had direct occasion to observe your experiential learning and who are qualified and credentialed in the areas they are addressing.

Make sure the letters of documentation include the following:

• Who the documenter is and how they know you, their credentials, their professional background or other important information, and why they are qualified to document your learning.

• Which area(s) of study they are documenting.

• Whether they recommend credit or not.

3. Special Evaluations. Special evaluations can be arranged for any area of study, not just areas of study with tangible “products” such as artwork or buildings. Special evaluators can evaluate your knowledge of a foreign language, history, child development, etc., as well. If you cannot find a person who knows you to verify your learning, you can locate a local expert. The best special evaluators are faculty members who teach in the area you are asking for credit in. Ask this person if she or he is willing to spend time with you evaluating your knowledge and skills. You cannot pay this evaluator since that would be a conflict of interest. Be sure to mention this when you contact the potential special evaluator. Make sure you give this person the “Dear Special Evaluator” letter provided by PLA as soon as possible. This letter explains the APL program and the process. Also, when the documenter has agreed to evaluate your learning, submit all the materials that you would give a ‘regular’ documenter. If the documenter needs more guidance, they may call PLA.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you have an unexpired certificate in EMT, EMT/B, EMT/A or Paramedic, please alert the PLA Office, if you did not already make a notation on your Student Information Form in the first week of class.

Secondary documentation refers to materials you include directly in your portfolio to supplement or support primary documentation, which is always required. The most common examples include certificates, licenses, job descriptions, in-service training reports, records of successfully completed courses or workshops for which college credit was not awarded, newspaper articles written about you or by you, your real estate license (if applicable), pictures of artwork, samples of your writing, awards you have received, etc. Secondary documentation is an important part of the portfolio, but is never sufficient by itself for the award of credit.

Common sources of secondary documentation include:

1. Certificates and licenses (for example, real estate and communications licenses, Child Development Associate certifications)

2. Diplomas, transcripts and continuing education/adult education courses for which credit has not been awarded.

3. In-service training records from employers.

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4. Newspaper articles written by or about you.

5. Old letters of recommendation and/or performance evaluations.

6. Subject bibliographies of selected books you have read.

Be judicious in your selection of secondary documentation. One or two or your best newspaper articles in your portfolio can reinforce your primary documentation of news writing. Ten such articles, however, do not provide any additional information.

Editing the Areas of Study Based on Documentation

As we stated earlier, only documented learning will be considered for the award of credit. When preparing the final draft of the portfolio, you should eliminate areas of study and learning components for which primary documentation is clearly not anticipated. If primary documentation has not arrived before class ends but is anticipated, you must include a brightly colored slip sheet to mark its place in the portfolio. The slip sheet must have the subject title and expected documenter’s name written on it. You put it in the exact place the letter of documentation will eventually go, and assign a page number. Please assign only one page number per missing letter, even though the letter that arrives late may have more than one page! You also note this information on your Index to Documentation; and then add the page number for the letter in the Documentation column of your Area of Study.

PLA will remove the slip sheet and insert the late documentation for you when it arrives. While this procedure helps you to get late documentation into your portfolio, you should try to keep late documentation to a minimum. When documentation is late, you do not have the opportunity to correct or modify the area of study to match the letters received. Your portfolio will be evaluated on the basis of the documentation that is there at the time of the review.

While you are expected to hand in your portfolio, completed, at the last class session, PLA understands that sometimes documentation might be late due to unforeseen circumstances. We will allow some extra time after the end of the semester to still accept documentation letters. For fall semester APL classes, the absolute deadline is February 1. For spring semester APL classes, the absolute deadline is July 1. PLA will not accept any documentation after these deadlines. Portfolios will be sent to readers as they are after these deadlines.

The Bibliography

The bibliography is used to indicate books, articles, manuals or other important sources of learning for you. It is considered optional, but highly recommended in the portfolio process. It is a powerful source of secondary documentation if you have done a significant amount of reading in your field of study. The bibliography is strongly suggested if you have listed “‘Independent Study” or “Self-Taught” as sources of learning in your Area of Study.

The bibliography itself is an alphabetical listing containing the following information: author, title, place of publication, publisher, and date of publication. Group this information by subject area. You may use a standard bibliographical form found in any style manual. We recommend that you do go a step further and prepare what is called an “annotated” bibliography, which contains all of the above information as well as a brief summary of the contents of each book. This gives the committee not only a list of your pertinent readings, but also your comments on and reactions to the information. Provide enough information in about three sentences to convey a clear statement of the book’s purpose, content and special value to you.

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Committee members again and again state how useful an annotated bibliography is when considering credit awards.

Credit for Evaluated Training Programs

In certain instances, you may have earned college credit directly for non-collegiate sponsored training programs. These are educational programs offered by institutions whose primary mission is other than education. Courses offered by corporations to improve or upgrade the skills of employees are examples of non-collegiate sponsored instruction. You may have earned credit for these programs if they have been formally evaluated by one of the agencies or colleges that evaluate such trainings, e.g. the American Council on Education (ACE), Excelsior College, and the Vermont State Colleges System via our Education and Training Evaluation Service (ETES). A list of ETES-evaluated training is included in your student packet. Transcripts from these sources and from accredited military service schools and military training evaluated by ACE should be included as primary documentation.

If you believe you might be eligible for this type of credit, contact your training instructor, the director of your training pro-gram(s), your Human resources office that might have scheduled the training, the evaluation organizations or schools listed above (ACE, Excelsior), or call PLA in the case of E.T.E.S. credit.

How much is enough? Evaluating and Critiquing Documentation

Documentation is the ultimate basis for establishing the validity of your credit requests. The Advanced Standing Committee will award credit only for learning that has primary documentation. As a result, students commonly ask, “How much documentation is enough?” While there is no simple answer to this question, use the following guidelines to review your documentation, and to determine if you have sufficiently covered all of your credit requests.

1. Quality over Quantity: Once your documentation is assembled, you should review it thoroughly and delete items that do not contribute specifically to your credit request. Remember, one or two good letters of documentation from a qualified documenter are better evidence than three or four letters from unqualified individuals who have not directly observed your skills.

2. Pick and choose: Each piece of documentation should provide the Advanced Standing Committee with some new information about your learning. Two to four letters of documentation from separate documenters for the same area often complement and confirm each other. Five or six such letters, however, may detract from the overall effectiveness of your portfolio by being redundant. The Advanced Standing Committee will be influenced not only by the content of your learning, but by your approach to organizing and verifying it as well.

3. Other Voices: The best documentation restates a student’s learning in the words of the documenter. A good letter of documentation like the one below supports and enhances the student’s original learning components. As a general rule, documenters should address your learning in short paragraphs, which may address one or more learning components. Avoid using checklists or a mere repetition of your learning components with checkmarks on them.

4. Cover All Components: All of the learning components in your areas of study should be mentioned, restated or implied in your primary documentation. You know you have complete documentation when you have accomplished this result.

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A Final Word

Because of the importance of documentation, PLA does everything possible to support you in obtaining it. PLA will forward all your documentation to you and will assist documenters who have difficulty composing their letters or who have any questions about the process.

Before completing this chapter on documentation, review the terms listed below. If you are not familiar with all of them, reread the appropriate sections of this chapter or consult with your instructor.

Verification

Evaluation

Accredited college or university

Primary documentation

Secondary documentation

College transcript

Letter of documentation

Special evaluation

Non-collegiate sponsored education

Documentation instruction

“Dear Friend” letter

“Dear Special Evaluator” letter

The American Council on Education (ACE)

Documentation strategy

Slip sheet

Absolute documentation deadlines

And just because documentation is such an important part of your portfolio, let’s review these points:

• No documentation, no credit.

• Start early with getting documentation, and follow up with your documenters in a timely fashion if your letters have not come in.

• Documentation letters must be sent directly to PLA.

• Primary documentation includes: college transcripts, letters from documenters, and special evaluators’ letters.

• Secondary documentation includes everything else that supports your requests.

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• If you have any specific documentation questions, ask your instructor, who may refer you to PLA.

• If your documenters have any questions, refer them to PLA.

Documentation Grid

Name, Documentation Source

Financial Accounting

Marketing Small Business Management

Public Speaking Tennis

Sent Rec’d

Sent Rec’d

Sent Rec’d

Sent Rec’d

Sent Rec’d

Mr. John Miller Auditing, Inc.

X 3/12

X 3/12

Linda Green Martin Real Estate

X X 3/10 3/18

X X 3/10 3/18

Bjorn Borg X 3/16

Professor William Williams J.S.C.

X 3/12

X 3/12

Minna Miller Star Health Club

X X 3/14 3/25

Dr. Andrea O’Toole C.C.V.

X 3/13

X 3/13

X 3/13

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Sample Letters of Documentation

This documentation letter effectively relates the documenter’s feedback to the student’s learning components: Director, Vermont State Colleges System Prior Learning Assessment Office P.O. Box 489 Montpelier, VT 05601 Dear PLA Director, I am writing on behalf of Josephine Baker in evidence of learning she has acquired during her work experience. Specifically, I am writing to document her learning in the area of “Conflict Management”. My name is Elmer Stendahl and for the past nine years, I have been the executive director of “Helping Hands”, a center for adults with developmental disabilities. Previous to my position at “Helping Hands”, I started, in 1998, as a case worker with the Vermont Agency on Aging, eventually supervising a group of sixteen case workers around my region. I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Vermont, as well as a Master of Social Work degree from Trinity College. During the past 10 years, I have taught courses in Social Work, Conflict Management, and Communications at the Community College of Vermont. I have known Josie since the Spring of 1996, when I assumed my position at our center. Josie is in charge of supervising our day staff. Due to her extraordinary knowledge and skills, she also fulfills our training and human resources function at the agency. Josie reports directly to me; I have been her supervisor for nine years. For the above reasons, I feel qualified to document Josie’s learning in the area of “Conflict Management”. Josie knows and can illustrate conflict management theory and applies this knowledge on a daily basis here at work. She has an excellent sense of how to identify conflict and how to avoid it. She is able to employ useful and appropriate techniques to diffuse conflict situations. She can identify and knowledgeably describe the various steps it takes to resolve conflict, and has demonstrated time and again how well she uses these steps to de-escalate a problem situation; she uses her conflict management skills to prevent escalation of a potentially difficult interpersonal or group situation. She clearly knows the difference between conflict management and conflict resolution, and her skills are evident in both areas. Josie has taken the training to administer the Myers-Briggs tests here at the agency and often uses this instrument when integrating new staff. Josie runs a weekly staff meeting with her group as well as short daily “check-in” meetings. Twice a year, Josie takes her own group of employees to a retreat to deal with long-term

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issues related to operations, planning, patient feedback, etc., and it is at those retreats that her conflict management skills shine. Needless to say, Josie uses her conflict management skills also when she works with our clients. She is excellent at calming potentially volatile situations. Josie is aware that any good supervisor needs to have conflict management skills, and trains and mentors the night shift, weekend shift, respite, and business office supervisors at the agency. It is due to Josie’s presence, planning, and special interest in this area that over the past nine years I had to deal with very few situations that needed to be handled by myself as the program director. I am confident that Josie has the professional and working knowledge in the area of conflict management that would meet or exceed the requirements for credits in this area. She would pass my class with an “A”! I highly recommend that she receives credit. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions about Josie Baker’s knowledge and abilities. Sincerely, Elmer Standahl Executive Director “The Helping Hand, Inc.” Mountain Falls, VT. 05888 802-765-4321 Compare the information about the student’s learning provided in the letter of documentation with the information in the learning components. Notice how the documentation expands, supplements and confirms these components.

And here are Josie’s learning components:

Area of Study:

Conflict Management Define conflict management and conflict resolution in order to compare and contrast the difference. Identify a variety of conflict management styles that address interpersonal, group, and organizational conflict in order to identify the best approach. Describe the structure of conflict escalation and de-escalation in order to apply methods of resolution. Identify steps of resolution of conflict situations to use in conflict situations. Apply conflict management strategies in order to avoid the escalation of conflict

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Explain and use instruments such as the Meyers-Briggs Indicator of Personal Preferences in order to define personality types, interpersonal attitudes, and group issues that might arise. Describe the role of good supervision in the avoidance and management of conflict situations in professional settings.

A Letter of Recommendation Compared to a Letter of Documentation Director, Prior Learning Assessment Office Vermont State Colleges System P.O. Box 489 Montpelier, VT 05601 Dear Director: I am writing this letter on behalf of Phoebe Henderson who worked for the town of West Snowsleet as the town accountant for the past six years. I have been town manager for the past 26 years here. Mrs. Henderson reported directly to me during the years she worked for the town. Mrs. Henderson performed her work as an accountant in a timely and thorough manner. She was prompt in completing assignments and was willing to take on extra assignments when necessary. One example of this was the financial work she took on for the town elementary school. Mrs. Henderson was always very pleasant and professional. I am certain that she will succeed in whatever work she attempts. If she weren’t moving to Florida, we would certainly have kept her on with the town. In my opinion, the town of West Snowsleet lost a valuable asset when Phoebe left. Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any further questions about Mrs. Henderson. Sincerely, Ash Alder, Town Manager West Snowsleet, VT. 05999 802-789-1011 Note: While this is a nice letter of recommendation, it will do nothing for Phoebe in terms of documentation of specific learning. It is not sufficient for the awarding of credit. As such, this letter is ineffective and of no use to her in the portfolio process. The letter on the next page, however, is helpful.

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Prior Learning Assessment Office Vermont State Colleges System P.O. Box 489 Montpelier, Vt. 05601 Dear Director: I am writing you in response to a request I received from Phoebe Henderson. She has asked me to provide evidence of her computerized accounting skills. I worked with Phoebe several years ago (in 2011) when I was performing an audit of the town of West Snowsleet, Vermont. At the time, I was an audit manager with the firm of Pickle & Salt in Montpelier and I was responsible for the field work on the West Snowsleet audit. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, my CPA license, and have fourteen years of experience in the accounting field. Phoebe, at the time, was the accountant for the town. In that capacity, she performed essentially the entire accounting function there. Her responsibilities included: Complete responsibility for all municipal accounting functions and tasks as well as financial management. Complete responsibility for maintaining the computerized records of the town. Managing the town’s financial database and all computerized accounting functions. Solving any technical and software issues. Coordinating the audit I performed, preparing all accounting schedules, bank statements and reconciliations, schedules, and all other accounting documents necessary for this type of task. Creating and using a variety of computer generated materials. In summary, it was obvious to me that Phoebe performed all of the responsibilities of her position as town accountant exceptionally well. She was very competent in her position and clearly had the accounting and computer skills necessary for the job. I believe that Phoebe has demonstrated skills in the computerized accounting area which are far beyond those expected of someone with no college background. They are skills more comparable to that of a person with an Associate Degree in Accounting. I recommend credit in the area of computerized accounting. Please do not hesitate to call me for further information. Joseph Taxerman, C.P.A. 114 Easy Street Montpelier, Vt. 05602

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CHAPTER 9

Integrating APL Credit into a Degree Plan

Now that you have described and documented your prior experiential learning, consider how this learning will contribute to a college degree. By preparing a degree plan, you will integrate the areas of study in your portfolio with the courses necessary to complete your degree.

Many colleges require students to prepare a degree plan. Usually these plans are lists of courses that fulfill the requirements for a particular program. At some colleges, the degree plan includes a goal statement and an explanation why and how your plan will contribute to these goals.

Degree plans and requirements vary among colleges. A general framework for degree planning is presented in this chapter.

An Unofficial Plan

The degree plan you include in your portfolio is a draft of what your final degree plan might look like. In your plan, you’ll describe as accurately as possible the college program you want to complete. Preparing a draft degree plan does not mean you are committed to attend a particular college with a specific program - it is an experimental one. In this plan, you combine the areas of study from your portfolio with courses you plan to take or have already taken. It will be a very helpful exercise for you to see how the areas of study will fit into it. Also, by demonstrating how your areas of study will contribute to a degree, you provide the Advanced Standing Committee with an additional perspective on your prior experiential learning.

In preparing your plan, assume you will earn credit for all the areas of study in your portfolio. While the committee will not base its credit award on your plan, it will help in the review process. By gaining insight into your goals, the committee will be better able to award you the maximum appropriate credit.

The Benefits of Degree Planning

There are many benefits to preparing a degree plan. Foremost, is an important preparation for the more formal degree planning you will do when you transfer your APL credit to the college of your choice. As you research your plan, you will also become familiar with the educational options open to adult students in Vermont. Preparing your draft degree plan will help you understand the language and structure of higher education, learn to use college catalogs and web sites, and establish contacts at one or more colleges of interest to you.

Through degree planning you will specify the steps necessary to realize your educational goals. Clarifying your goals and working out the steps to realize them can be very reassuring.

The College Framework

In order to prepare a useful degree plan, you will learn the general framework in which a degree is organized. Typically, courses in a degree contribute to a major area of learning (sometimes called a “Concentration” or a “Major”), satisfy general education requirements, or are selected by you as electives. The amount of credit required/allowed in these categories varies among colleges.

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Courses in your major provide you with an in-depth, working knowledge of a particular field or discipline. When students say, “I’m getting a degree in business,” this usually means the major of their degree is in business.

Colleges often determine the courses in a major and state the sequence in which you take them to ensure that all students with the same major acquire a similar set of skills. As a result, you may find the applicability of prior experiential learning more restricted in your major than in other parts of your degree, especially if you transfer to a program where most of the courses in the major area are specified in advance.

General Education Requirements

Some of the courses in your degree must satisfy general education requirements. Colleges may have general education requirements in areas such as social sciences, the humanities or the arts. They may also require that you demonstrate competency in English or mathematics by successfully completing one or more courses in these areas.

Courses such as English Composition, Finite Mathematics, Introduction to Sociology or Oil Painting commonly fit in the area of general education requirements. When students prepare their APL portfolios, they sometimes overlook prior learning that could satisfy these requirements; you may have learning which could potentially meet the requirements for these courses. Both PLA and your APL instructor encourage you to be comprehensive in preparing your portfolio. You should try to include all areas in which you have college-level learning, even if you do not think that there’s immediate application for your degree; there might be!

Electives

Courses in your degree that are not part of your major, and which do not specifically satisfy general education requirements, are called electives. The elective category allows you to choose from a number of areas of personal interest to complete your degree. In choosing electives you usually can select from the full range of courses offered by an institution. Often transfer credit and credit earned through your portfolio fit into the elective category.

You may use electives to explore areas of interest to you, such as philosophy or art, or you may use electives to develop one or more specializations in addition to your major. For example, one student who recently graduated with a major in accounting also had a special interest in French culture. She used her electives to take courses in the French language and the History of France. You may have learning in such other areas and be able to use them as electives.

Additional Requirements

In addition to the three categories listed above, colleges also classify courses in other ways. One common distinction colleges make is between courses in a bachelor’s degree which are lower division as opposed to upper division. Lower division courses are usually introductory or survey courses like Principles of Accounting, Introduction to Psychology, or Survey of Western History and often have course numbers on the 100/1000 or 200/2000 level (first year, second year). The content of these courses is usually geared toward students who are becoming newly acquainted with these subjects.

Upper division courses, on the other hand (300/3000 to 400/4000 numbers indicating third year/ fourth year), are more advanced, and often require prerequisite college-level learning. Courses with the qualifying titles “Advanced,” “Special Topic,” and “Seminar” are generally considered upper division.

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Your Advanced Standing Committee does not classify your areas of study as upper or lower division. You will negotiate your APL credits with the college to which you transfer. That said, ”advanced” or “intermediate” in the title of a course might suggest to a registrar that the learning is upper-level. On the other hand, a committee might change your area of study title from “advanced” to “introductory” if it decides that the learning is not upper-level – or the other way around!

Registrars use the committee’s notes as part of their transfer evaluation, which is another reason to store the results of your assessment in a safe place.

Methods for Writing a Degree Plan

Once you recognize how colleges structure degrees, you will begin writing your own draft of a degree plan to include in your portfolio. The most common approach to this is simply a list of all the courses you need to take to earn a degree, sorted into categories similar to those outlined above. In the example below, the student has integrated the hoped-for APL credits with the courses already taken and those still needed to earn a degree.

Degree Plan for an Associate Degree

1. Make a list of all the credits/courses you have earned already.

2. Make a list of credits/courses you hope to receive through the APL portfolio process.

3. Distribute these courses to meet the categories of the school you will attend. Usually this means listing courses in the major, general education and elective areas.

4. Make sure you have the appropriate number of credits in each category.

5. Include extra areas of study and courses in the elective category or under the heading “Other Educational Experiences.”

5. Check that your credits total equals the total required for a degree (usually 60 - 65).

Degree Plan for a Bachelor’s Degree

The format is similar to that for an associate degree, with these exceptions:

1. Enough of your credits will be “upper” division if you are planning a bachelor’s degree.

2. The total amount of credit required for a bachelor’s degree is 120+.

Summary

The ultimate purpose of portfolio degree planning is to develop a link between what you already know and what you need to know to reach your educational goals. Preparing a degree plan will help you use prior experiential learning to your best advantage.

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Please note that although PLA awards you prior experiential learning credit, we do not determine its applicability to a degree. That is negotiated by you and the college you attend. A good first step in this negotiation process is meeting with a representative of the college(s) of your choice. APL instructors often invite representatives of local or statewide colleges in your area to explain their programs to you and to discuss how your PLA credit might fit into their program’s requirements.

Because negotiating your degree plan is such an important step, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the terminology used by colleges. Appendix D contains a glossary of terminology common to higher education. The glossary will be helpful when you begin collecting information to select a college and plan a program.

SAMPLE DEGREE PLAN

Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration

General Education Requirements:

English Composition 3 Taken at Blue Lake College

Business and Professional Writing 3 Request from PLA

Introduction to Literature 3 To be taken

Effective Workplace Communication 3 To be taken

U.S. History 1865 – Present 3 CLEP Exam to be taken

Western Civilization I 3 To be taken

Microcomputer Applications 3 Request from PLA

Database Management 3 Request from PLA

Introduction to Philosophy 3 To be taken

Statistics 3 Request from PLA

Ornithology 3 To be taken

Finite Mathematics 3 Taken at CSC

Total: 36

Concentration Requirements:

Introduction to Business 3 Request from PLA

Small Business Management 3 Request from PLA

Business Law I 4 To be taken

Business Law II 4 To be taken

Microeconomics 3 To be taken

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Macroeconomics 3 To be taken

Financial Accounting 4 Taken at Greenfield College

Managerial Accounting 4 Taken at Greenfield College

Principles of Marketing 3 Request from PLA

Principles of Sales 3 Request from PLA

Principles of Management 3 Request from PLA

Human Resources Management 3 To be taken

Supervision 3 To be taken

Principles of Finance 3 Request from PLA

Quantitative Decision Making 3 To be taken

Practicum in Business Administration 6 Request from PLA

Managerial Economics 3 To be taken

Total: 58

Electives:

Digital Photography I 3 Taken at Blue Lake College

Digital Photography II 3 To be taken

Graphic Design 3 Request from PLA

Physical Education: Skiing 1 Request from PLA

Equestrian Management 3 Request from PLA

CISCO Programming 4 Request from PLA

The History of Mexico 4 Request from PLA

Spanish I 3 CLEP Examination

Spanish II 3 CLEP Examination

Total: 26

General Education 36

Concentration 58

Electives 26

Total: 120

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CHAPTER 10

Writing the Essay

Purpose and Importance

The essay is the one place in your portfolio where you have the opportunity to present your learning as a whole, in the context of your life experiences since high school. In it, you communicate to the Advanced Standing Committee your own assessment of the extent and value of your learning. You tell them the relevant stories behind what you learned: why you made the choices you did, significant events, decisions you made, and how you reacted to the new situations you found yourself in or created for yourself. The essay gives you a chance to introduce yourself to your readers. Essays should be eight to twelve pages long and double-spaced. You can reasonably assume that if your essay is shorter than eight pages you have not adequately described your learning, and if it is longer you are in danger of wearying your reader.

How important is the essay as part of your portfolio? The essay will not guide the Advanced Standing Committee in the same way the documentation section does. Many people who have served on these committees, however, report that they read the essay first so they can quickly get a sense of “who the person is.” The essay communicates your personality, competence, and credibility. Although this first impression is necessarily subjective and its influence cannot be measured, it is undoubtedly a factor in decisions. There are several steps you can take to ensure that this impression is positive. Please make sure that your essay is free of grammatical errors, typing mistakes, and run-on sentences. Remember that it is often the first impression you give, and you want it to be positive!

Suggestions for Developing the Essay

1. Begin in a straightforward manner, with either: (a) a goal statement which will help your readers understand why you put the portfolio together; or (b) a brief description of what you did in the years immediately following high school, including, perhaps, some mention of why you did not go on to college or dropped out of college then. The following is a clear example of a goal statement beginning:

“Earning a college degree has always been a dream of mine. Now that the busiest years of my life are behind me, I welcome the chance to go back to school. When I learned of the portfolio for the Assessment of Prior Learning, I realized it was the ideal way to start. I hope with the credits awarded me for prior learning, will enable me to graduate with a B.A. in Business in two years.”

The next opening, on the other hand, stresses past uncertainties rather than goals:

“I went off to college with some vague ideas about more learning and meeting new people. I had decided to enroll mostly from a sense of obligation to my supposed academic potential rather than from any ideas I had about my future. I left college after little more than a year because I could not say, to my own satisfaction, what it meant to be there or what good it was doing anyone ... I thought that somehow I would find or make the opportunity to study further when the need and desire appeared more clearly.”

And this one plunges right into the narrative proper:

“While I was in high school, I was never asked whether or not college was in my plans. Well, at the time I knew that furthering my education in a formal way was not an immediate goal. I saw plenty of opportunity in the

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working world and was eager to participate in it. I spent the first few years after high school working in odd jobs around Brattleboro, Vermont.”

Whichever approach you choose, the beginning should be clear and definite, so that the committee members will immediately begin to get a sense of the person whose portfolio they hold in their hands, and so that you, the writer, will feel confident about proceeding with the rest of your narrative.

2. Use a tone which is self-confident and assertive, though not inflated. Your essay is the appropriate place to make strong, positive statements about what you have learned. You should not be modest or shrink from using first-person pronouns. You will necessarily be the star of this narrative. Try to present your learning and accomplishments as direct and convincing as possible. Notice how this student stresses his self-motivation in a way that is entirely believable:

“When I started the True Colors Photo Shop, I had no formal photographic education, nor had I ever seen a professional photographer work. I spent many hours reading about and practicing technique. When I encountered a problem that was not covered in my personal photographic library, I would consult technical representatives, colleagues or anyone I thought could help. I learned a lot because I have never been ashamed to admit that I didn’t understand a certain procedure”.

3. Use an overall organization for your essay which feels comfortable and sensible to you. Chronological or modified chronological organizations have been most frequently chosen by past assessment students. Typically, their narratives have begun with graduation from high school and followed the course of their learning experiences through the years—sometimes jumping ahead in order to consolidate, for example, business skills acquired right out of high school with business expertise picked up many years later. Once you have begun describing the learning in your area of concentration, you may well want to describe all that learning before again picking up the chronological thread.

A less frequently chosen, but still workable, plan for overall organization is to follow the order of your areas of study. If you do this, however, keep in mind that the essay should be more than just an annotation of your areas of study. It should also present a context: your personal journey during which your learning occurred.

4. Make sure that you cover every important learning experience in your essay. You do not, however, need to cover every individual learning component because you should be able to depend on your documentation to do this.

It makes sense to pick and choose which experiences you want to amplify in your essay. If your concentration is in special education, you have worked for several years as a para-educator with special needs students, and you are requesting the majority of your credits for that on-the-job learning, you should describe it quite thoroughly.

You might want to describe learning in areas such as sports or hobbies adequately in a short paragraph or a couple of sentences. After you have decided which experiences you want to amplify, the following questions will help you check whether your descriptions are on target.

1. Have you indicated the various learning activities that have contributed to this particular knowledge, skill/competency?

2. When and where did this experience take place?

3. How long were you involved in this activity?

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4. How were you involved in the experience?

5. What was your relationship to others and others to you?

6. Were you responsible for others? How many?

7. What was the title of the person who supervised you?

8. Have you shown that you learned and changed from the past experience?

9. Have you described what you learned—the learning outcome of your experience?

10. Have you used specific examples to illustrate what you have learned?

11. Have you indicated how and where you can or did apply what you know?

Using some or all of these questions as guidelines, write descriptions of one or two of your major learning experiences and show this work to your instructor and/or other students in your class. If your writing seems clear and complete to them, you can be confident about proceeding with the rest of the essay.

5. The conclusion of your essay should seem to grow naturally out of the style and content which preceded it. If your style has been factual and business-like, you might conclude with a brief statement about how you intend to use your credits and an acknowledgment to the committee that will grant those credits. If you used your essay as a forum to present some of your views as well as your learning, you might conclude in a manner similar to this:

“When good friends hear of my intention to go to law school, they greet the idea with skepticism: for them, law, photography and printing are unrelated. Yet in the larger scheme of things, my life experience thus far and law are complementary: freedom of the press and the traditions of common law have gone hand in hand for centuries. I know a good deal about the press, and when I combine that with my future education, I will have an interesting career. Any credits I receive through this course will make the long but exciting road ahead a bit shorter. Thank you for reviewing my request.”

There is no formula for the perfect conclusion. But an ending which is consistent with the rest of your essay, and which contains some reflection about the worth and purpose of the self-evaluation process you have gone through in order to produce the portfolio, will certainly be appropriate.

6. Proofread, proofread, proofread. There is no surer way to cause the Advanced Standing Committee to be skeptical about your competence than to hand in a portfolio containing an essay full of mechanical and grammatical errors. Simply put, such an essay reflects badly on you. It diminishes your effort in putting together the entire portfolio, and makes you look less professional and serious in the eyes of a reader.

As you know, good writing skills are a prerequisite for taking the APL class. One of the reasons for this prerequisite is the need for you to be able to write a good essay.

Especially if you are asking for writing credits for courses such as Business and Professional Writing or Journalism, the essay will give the committee a much clearer indication of your skills than your letters of documentation. As a matter of fact, if your essay has many writing problems, and your documenters say that you are a good writer, it makes your documentation questionable.

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Please take the time to proofread your essay very, very carefully. If you are unsure, seek help at your CCV academic center, where all students have access to learning lab assistance and even online help with writing. And ask one or two friends who have writing experience to proofread your essay as a second or third reader.

The best time to proofread is several hours or days after you have completed your writing; at that time you should feel detached enough from your work to recognize the errors. If you feel unsure about your proofreading skills, discuss this matter with your instructor.

The Writing Itself

If you have not done any formal writing for a long time, constructing the essay may seem like a tall order. Keep in mind that you have weeks to do it, and that writing is a process with many steps. No one expects you to master all the steps at once. When you pick up a magazine, you may be amazed at the authority and smoothness with which the articles seem to be written. Yet if you had seen those same articles in rough draft, they might have seemed like your own rough beginnings. The “perfection” of published work is usually the result of several drafts.

There are several things you can do to build up your fluency and skill as a writer. First, get in the habit of writing. The weekly writing exercises in the first half of your APL class are designed to help you to do this. At home, you can keep a journal which you write in daily, or practice “free writing” daily. Free writing is non-stop, non-censored writing, done during a short, strictly-timed period. (Ten minutes is about right.) The only rule is: don’t lift your pen from the page. Write whatever comes to your mind, and if nothing comes to mind, write “nothing comes to mind”-- by the end of the sentence something probably will. Nature abhors a vacuum. Since there is no way to fail at free writing, it is a valuable tool for overcoming blocks and fears. Practicing it daily also strengthens concentration and verbal facility, so that if you assign yourself a focus or topic for the 10 minutes, you will eventually be able to write about it spontaneously.

Secondly, seek out audiences for early versions or portions of your essay. Because writing is communication, it doesn’t take on its full reality until it is read. And you will probably feel more secure about your work once you go public with it. You have a ready-made audience in your APL classmates and instructor; family and friends can also serve well. They will be able to tell you if your writing is: clear/muddy, interesting/boring, too personal/not personal enough, satisfying/incomplete. Their critical response will give you guidelines for revision.

Perhaps you will know that your next draft sounds right, or perhaps you will again need an audience. The process is individual; there is no one prescribed way to do this. It is very important, however, to allow yourself sufficient time to go through the steps of the writing process. By the eighth or ninth week of the course, you should be well into your essay.

“The Assessment of Prior Learning course was wonderful. It was a tremendous amount of work; however, what I learned is priceless. Translating experience into learning enabled me to perform my duties at school far more effectively. Throughout this course I realized my main goal: to complete my education. The amount of writing I did would definitely help with future courses I may take through the EDP program at Johnson State College. Taking life experiences and translating them into areas of study helped me to realize that I am a well-rounded person and this has given me the confidence to continue my education.”

Essays which convey weak or unfavorable impressions of their writers tend to miss the mark in certain standard ways. Sometimes, students are not assertive enough; they hesitate to use “I”, thinking such emphasis on self is in bad taste. Instead of writing: “I acquired knowledge of a specific acting technique,” they might use

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sentences such as: “Knowledge of a specific acting technique was acquired.” Notice how the verb has changed from active to passive. Over-reliance on passive verb constructions can very quickly drain the life out of your writing and confuse your reader about who was responsible for the learning you are describing. (Of course, once in a while passive verbs are perfectly natural and acceptable.) Using them frequently, however, will seriously weaken the tone of your essay. You can guard against this overuse by reminding yourself that in an assessment portfolio essay “I” is never in bad taste. The essay is all about you, and the reader knows this.

Another common fault is vagueness. Students sometimes just don’t bother to provide the detail or facts that will back up their generalizations. Perhaps they take such details for granted, or think that they will bore the reader. The truth, though, is that detail convinces. For instance—instead of just saying “During my second year in New York I learned a great deal from the experience of acting in a play”—the student spells out what she learned:

“The second year I studied with Uta Hagen brought an experience that felt equivalent to an extra year of study. I was chosen from her class to be one of two women in a play called “Shadberry,” written by a woman about her summer as a counselor at a camp for disabled children. My director, Herbert Berghof, made sure that every artist who was involved with the production contributed fully to meet the demands of the play ... I learned that producing a play must be an unpretentious endeavor. The emphasis is not “to impress,” but to deliver a message as simply and directly as possible. It is essential to make the set available to the actors from the beginning of rehearsals, so that it is lived in. The props must be available from the beginning, and the ensemble feeling must never die. Each rehearsal was information that fed into the technique I was learning from Uta Hagen. I learned how to translate what my director’s demands were from his objective viewpoint, to my character’s needs inside the circumstances.”

Because she is able to articulate this complex learning fully, in a way that is not simply a dry restatement of the learning components in her area of study, she persuades the reader that it really did occur.

There are, of course, many pitfalls in writing. Some APL instructors ask students to buy a good text on writing mechanics to use as a reference for clarifying the many writing questions that come up during the writing of an essay. Your local library and the CCV library system will also be able to suggest useful and straightforward writing handbooks to you. Please take advantage of these offers.

Suggestions for Making a Good Essay Better

The most impressive portfolio essays communicate a sense of excitement and involvement in learning. They contain anecdotes and visual details that put the reader there. In the following passage, a student describes his involvement with the local Youth Hockey Association:

“I spend most of my time coaching the kids, which I enjoy most. I get along well with kids and have fun working with them. I get such a feeling of accomplishment when I watch their progress. We teach the youngest age group (4–7 year olds) skating by having them push chairs around the ice. Last year one little boy was having an awful time. The chair acted as added stability with most kids, but this particular boy had such difficulty keeping his balance on skates that he not only fell down, but also dragged the chair down on top of him. I rushed over thinking “Boy, this kid is going to call it quits,” but he didn’t; now he cruises around the rink like all the other kids. It’s amazing how much one can learn from children.”

Of course, if the student had provided stories like this to back up every Area of Study, he would have ended up with an essay 50 pages long. But he didn’t need to do that. By choosing just a few, he was able to recreate the learning experiences which he most enjoyed.

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One of the most effective ways to convince your readers that your learning has been thorough is to show that you are able to make connections between different areas of learning. This carryover effect is beautifully illustrated in this student’s account of her involvement in two children’s theater troupes:

“Both these experiences provided an introduction for me to working with children. It is through children that developments of simple relationships are clearly visible. They need adults to help guide them how to function in society. Their behavior comes from what they want, without layers of complications that adults have. Elements of theater are unmistakably evident. Acting is an art form that presents human beings who have wants, desires, goals, and conflicts. Children learn to deal with their world through confrontation. This is how they grow.”

Not only does the student show the connection between children’s theater and childcare, but also the larger connection between drama and human growth. The passage manages to convey some of her considered beliefs in a tone that is straightforward and free of lecturing.

If you can see the connections between your various Areas of Study, you can often make use of them to provide transitions in your writing so that the essay flows smoothly. In the following passage, a student makes skillful use of a linkage she sees between being the mother of a hard-of-hearing child and being town librarian:

“I learned that there were many aspects to the effects of impaired hearing on my son. The information gave me a better understanding of how to help him and also how to explain his needs to others. He started pre-school in the fall of 2009 and his teachers were very helpful, becoming another source of information for me. Much of what I learned applies to other special needs. I have been able to draw on this knowledge in my work as village librarian.”

She then goes on to give a detailed account of her learning on the job. Her transition is a matter of thoughtful deliberation as well as wording. Excellent essays do not creak at the joints. They give a satisfying sense of the whole: both as pieces of writing smoothly connected and complete in themselves, and as portraits of people so involved in their learning that they take joy in seeing how its parts relate.

One Other Consideration

The essay is an opportunity as well as a necessity. It is the one place in the portfolio where you have a chance to present yourself directly, and it is up to you to decide how much you wish to present. There is considerable room for individual variation. Certainly an intimacy which feels awkward is ill-advised; however, if you wish to communicate your style and voice, the texture of your learning and life—and can do so clearly and comfortably—you will probably find a receptive audience in the committee. On the first page of her essay, one student describes unforgettably how it feels to be an ambitious woman juggling many different responsibilities:

“Concentrating on textbooks during the day is somewhat limited for me as I am a licensed day care provider. It’s difficult to be studious when you’re wearing chicken noodle soup, standing in egg salad, and watching carrot sticks being inserted into every open area above the neck except the mouth.”

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CHAPTER 11

Bringing It All Together

Portfolio preparation is a process of self-discovery. It is also a process that demands much personal sacrifice, time and energy. As you get ready to finish the course, it is common to feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment as you place the final touches on your portfolio. It is also common to feel exhausted and discouraged, wondering if portfolio preparation will ever end.

Throughout this handbook we have emphasized that the steps of portfolio preparation and earning a degree are part of the process of realizing much broader personal goals. In suggesting the necessary steps to pull together the final document, we want to stress this again. The final weeks of portfolio preparation will be hectic. You probably have many details to take care of to finish your portfolio, and you are probably ready to move on and resume some of the usual activities of your life.

However, the last phase of portfolio preparation is a very important one. Because you do not meet your Advanced Standing Committee in person, you should do everything to ensure the quality of the portfolio that represents you. Anything you can do to enhance this quality will give the Advanced Standing Committee a positive impression of you.

The Interrelationship of Portfolio Parts

Most students work on their port folios over a considerable period of time. They have created and tinkered with every page of their portfolio and thoroughly understand the interrelationships of its parts. Members of the Advanced Standing Committee and others who must read your portfolio do not know your portfolio as well as you do. It is important, therefore, that the portfolio be carefully organized so a reader may follow it easily.

“Every time I participate in the process, I am in awe of the richness of the students’ lives. A good portfolio with strong learning components and solid documentation of that learning is a remarkable achievement.” - APL Instructor

The completed portfolio must contain the following elements in this order:

• Committee Worksheet

• Title Page

• Table of Contents

• Areas of Study

• Degree Plan

• Essay

• Resume

• Index to Documentation

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• Documentation (first primary, then secondary)

• Bibliography

You must also number all the pages of your portfolio consecutively. Your first area of study is page 1, and if your portfolio has 98 pages, your last page number would be 98.

Checking the Various Items

Each item in your portfolio communicates specific, important information to your Advanced Standing Committee. Check to see that:

• The committee worksheet is completely filled out and is in exactly the order of the areas of study.

• The title page is filled in and signed.

• Each area of study lists your title, credit request, and learning components. It is thoroughly and correctly cross-referenced to documentation and sources of learning.

• The areas of study in your main concentration appear first, followed by more general requests.

• The degree plan integrates areas of study with college courses you have taken or plan to take.

• The essay provides insight into how your learning was acquired gives us a glimpse of “who you are.” It has been thoroughly proof read and is free of grammatical mistakes and typos.

• The resume provides a chronology of your professional life.

• The index to documentation lists all documents, both primary and then secondary, and provides the correct page number for each document.

• The documentation materials specifically address what you know, with all primary documentation placed ahead of secondary documentation.

• The appropriate (colored) slip sheets (one sheet for each expected letter) are included for any possible late documentation.

Submitting Your Portfolio

You must submit five copies of your completed portfolio to PLA on the last scheduled day of class. Specific details may vary depending on the location of your class (in-person vs. online).

Your instructor (or PLA staff) may return your portfolio to you for additional work if it is not organized correctly.

Students are able to submit a portfolio to PLA if they have passed the assessment course. You cannot submit a portfolio to PLA until you meet all the objectives of the course. Completing your portfolio is the main objective of this course, and if it is not completed, you will not receive a passing grade.

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Each of the five copies of your portfolio should be separately bound with a butterfly clip. Do not staple the portfolio.

Retain a sixth copy in your personal files (and on your computer) as a reference, and as a back-up in case something untoward happens to your portfolio during delivery.

How the Advanced Standing Committee Works

There are usually four people serving as portfolio evaluators on the committee that reviews your portfolio and credit requests. PLA will hire a group of reviewers that is qualified to evaluate your requests. Committees are usually composed of several faculty members from colleges around the state (or out-of-state, if a special expert is needed) and possibly a practitioner in your field of study. Occasionally, PLA hires an additional consultant to help review a specialized area/request in your portfolio.

The PLA director has read and researched your portfolio and serves as the facilitator of the meeting. They take notes for students when credit is denied or credit requests are changed, combined, etc. (Please keep these notes as they might come in handy if your future college requests more information). The PLA director does not vote on the credit request, as this would present a conflict of interest.

The committee must reach consensus regarding credit awards for each area of study. Committee members receive five to eight portfolios about three weeks before the review. They individually read and take notes before they come together for the meeting. In this four to five hour session, the group makes decisions regarding each student’s credit award.

Occasionally, due to emergency or illness, there will only be three evaluators. Also, if a group of portfolios covers a wide range of academic disciplines, there may be more than four committee members in attendance, or a special evaluator might be present for the discussion of one of the portfolios. Sometimes a portfolio will be sent to an evaluator who does not attend the meeting but submits written recommendations to the committee members who do meet.

PLA selects members of an Advanced Standing Committee based on the primary areas of request of that group of portfolios. Committee members are familiar with and supportive of the APL portfolio process.

A single committee reviews only one group of portfolios. When it meets, it deliberates specifically on these portfolios. The committee members will have read all portfolios prior to the meeting. During the actual review session, the members exchange views, negotiate, resolve differences and assign official credit awards. These deliberations may result in changes in area of study titles or credit amounts, and in the grouping of areas of study.

You will receive one copy of your areas of study back from the Advanced Standing Committee. On it will be the explanatory notes the PLA director kept for you during the committee meeting. The annotated areas of study are accompanied by an unofficial student copy of your official results (see Figure 9–1), an award letter, a form to request an official PLA transcript, and important instructions on the safekeeping of the contents of the award packet. It is very important that you keep a copy of your credit award and your areas of study in a safe place. Your prospective college or employer may request to see the marked up areas of study as well as your official transcript.

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PLA is unable to keep these records: More than 7,000 Vermonters have participated in the APL process and it is impossible for us to store your portfolio. PLA will only keep your portfolio for about four to six weeks after it is reviewed. This is why it is crucial that you keep the original of your portfolio in a safe place.

In the event you are dissatisfied with the award, or have specific questions, you may call the PLA office and speak with the director who facilitated your committee. The director will explain the process and parameters of the appeals process to you. If, after talking with the director, you are still dissatisfied with your award, you may appeal the committee’s decision. In that case, you need to notify PLA in writing within 30 days of receiving your results. If you decide to appeal, do not request that a transcript be sent to another college. Once mailed, a transcript and credit results are official and cannot be altered and you can no longer appeal.

It should be noted, however, that appeals are very rare. Most students are pleased with their awards and understand the rationale for changes made by the Advanced Standing Committee.

Finally, College Credit!

PLA will notify you of the final decision 10 - 15 days after your committee has concluded its deliberations. To have this credit considered toward a degree, you must transfer it from PLA to the college or colleges you wish to attend. Transcript requests must be made in writing directly to PLA We will include a transcript request form with your award package. It is a good idea to make a copy of the transcript request form for future use, but any written, signed request will be honored. PLA will then, as often as necessary, forward an official copy of your transcript to the appropriate institutions that you select. There is no fee for this service.

Congratulations! You are now ready to submit your portfolio and have it assessed.

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APPENDIX Sample Committee Worksheet

COMMITTEE WORKSHEET

Student’s Name: Gina Matthews

Primary Area of Request: Computers/Business

AREA OF STUDY CREDIT REQUESTED

CREDIT GRANTED

COMMENTS

Microcomputer Applications 3

Word Processing 3

Intermediate Database 3

Introduction to Business 3

Small Business Management 3

Small Business Marketing 3

Small Business Practicum 6

Financial Accounting 4

Managerial Accounting 4

Introduction to the Internet 1

Supervision 3

Ceramics I 3

Introduction to U.S. History 3

The Civil War 3

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Sample Cover Sheet

PORTFOLIO FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF PRIOR LEARNING

Name: Sidney Himmelblau

Address: 23 Clover Lane, Rivertown, Vt. 06832

Date of Birth: 12/03/1973

Phone Number and Email Address: 802-444-8888

Date of Portfolio Completion: December 15, 2013

Course Location: CCV Winooski

Signature: Sidney Himmelblau

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Sample Area of Study NAME: Shawn Potter AREA OF STUDY Effective Workplace Communication Credit Requested: 3

Source of Learning

Learning Components Documentation

State of Vermont Agency of Transportation 2004 – Present Ericsson Information Systems & Olivetti North America 1997 - 2004 National Life Insurance Co. 1990 - 1997

• Prepare Written and verbal instructions for users and

coworkers on applications and/or processes

• Delineate functions to prevent redundancy and promote efficiency

• Organize data to present concise information

• Develop and employ clear channels for problem

escalation

• Prioritize projects and assign functions for efficient use of time and resources

• Communicate with support structure to solve

problems and prevent unnecessary escalation

• Learn and understand personality types to avoid confrontation and to assist in assigning projects

• Utilize strengths of individuals to create effective

resource management

• Create confidence in individuals by publicly acknowledging contributions

• Practice techniques of emotion management to avoid

conflict

• Plan server and software migration steps to provide smooth transitions

44 - 45

46 – 47

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Sample Area of Study NAME: Dennis P. O’Neil AREA OF STUDY Microcomputer Applications Credit Requested: 3

Source of Learning

Learning Components Documentation

U.S. Army 8/96 – 8/99

Telesystems Source Inc. 10/99 – 10/2001

Tower Technologies, Inc. 10/2001 – 08/2003

EDP/TEMPS 9/2003 – 10/2004

Aerotek 10/2005 – 3/2007

Advanced Technology Systems 3/2007 – 6/2009

Dyncorp, Inc. 6/2009 - Present

.

Interpret microcomputer terminology to discuss and explain a computer to both computer users and non-users.

Evaluate the various input devices of a microcomputer to allow for the fastest gathering of information into an application.

Explain the operating system of a computer and how it controls the operation of the computer and programs running on the computer.

Use the Microsoft Windows environment to execute applications, manage files, and navigate networks.

Arrange shortcuts on the toolbar and desktop in windows for quicker access to most commonly used applications.

Set-up input and output devices on a microcomputer for proper functioning of the system hardware.

Describe computer programs to explain how to input and collect information into a system and then create output from the computer.

Use Microsoft Word and its features and functions to create quality documents.

Design documents, presentations and spreadsheets that integrate with other Microsoft applications to produce more accurate and higher quality output.

Produce files using Microsoft Paint to create needed graphics for use in other applications.

Use text editors to read, modify, and save various text files.

Apply knowledge of common file extensions to know what applications are used to read or use the file.

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33

37

48,49

61

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Sample Resume

GEORGIA MOSELEY 14 Shadow Drive, Bridgeton, VT 05243 • 802-838-9425 gmoseley@gmail.com WORK EXPERIENCE: Assistant Director of Human Resources Knob Hill Manufacturing, Fairfield, Vermont -- January 2006 to Present Responsible for maintaining all personnel records and computerized payroll system. Knowledgeable about fair labor practices, hiring and dismissal procedures, and other legal issues pertaining to Human Resource Management. Trained in confidentiality issues and conflict resolution. Office and Computer Manager Granola Natural Foods, Burlington, Vermont -- October 1999 to December 2005

Responsible for office accounting and office management including business communication, graphics, newsletter production. Also responsible for maintaining personnel records, accounts payable files, accounts receivable and customer service. Typesetter and Graphic Artist The Acorn Press, Ridgefield, Connecticut -- July 1997 to October 1999

Responsible for typesetting copy for the Advertising Services Department and typesetting and layout of forms, editorial material and Weekend Magazine articles for other departments. Complete knowledge of the Display Make Up system from DTI and Aldus PageMaker, and experience with the MacDraw software program on Macintosh Se. Familiar with Itek Imagemaker 540 Camera. Graphic Designer Spectrum Graphics, Division of Economy Printing, Danbury, Connecticut -- February 1995 to July 1997

Responsible for creation and execution of a wide variety of communication material including resumes, business cards, stationery, brochures and ads. Experienced with A.M. Varityper Comp/Edit 58 10 Typesetter and Agfa-Gevaert Rapidoprint DD 5400 Processor as well as basic camera work. Manager Good Food Store, Ridgefield, Connecticut -- July 1990 to February 1995

Responsible for supervision of daily operations, merchandise buyer, personnel management, bookkeeping, payroll and customer service. Co-Owner of Sporting Goods Shop Recreation Unlimited, Ramsey, New Jersey -January 1980 to June 1990

Areas of responsibility included buying of all clothing and accessories, merchandising, budgeting, supervising sales staff, and customer service. EDUCATION: Burlington College, Burlington, Vermont — Business and Human Resources Major Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut — Graphic Design Certificate Program Ladycliff College, Highland Falls, New York — Art Major

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Sample Index to Documentation PRIMARY DOCUMENTATION Transcript — Nassau Community College .................................................................44 Transcript — Champlain College ................................................................................45 Transcript – Castleton State College ..........................................................................46 Transcript — Community College of Vermont ..........................................................47 Letter — Lionel C. Bachand, Det. Sgt. ..................................................................... 48-49

Vermont State Police Letter — Edward Farmer, Lt. .................................................................................. 50-52

Vermont State Police Letter — James Crucitti Esq. ................................................................................... 53-54

Legal Counsel, Vermont State Police Letter — Sten Lium, Esq. ......................................................................................... 55-56

Deputy Caledonia County States Attorney Letter — Clinton F. Gray, Lt..................................................................................... 57-58

Vermont State Police Letter — Gerard D. Murphy, Sgt. ............................................................................ 59-65

Massachusetts State Police SECONDARY DOCUMENTATION Certificate - D.W.I. Enforcement, Vermont State Police ...........................................66

Certificate - Introduction to Radiological Monitoring ...............................................67

Newspaper Article in the “Caledonian Record”, 4/5/2001 .......................................68

Certificate - Child Abuse and Neglect & Child Sexual Assault ...................................69

National Association of State Directors of Law Enforcement

Training – Special Commendation, 2001 ......................................................................70

Certificate — Promotion to Corporal, Vermont State Police ....................................71

Certificate — Promotion to Sergeant, Vermont State Police ....................................72

Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 73-76

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Sample Bibliography

Gardening Crockett, James Underwood and the Editors of Time-Life Books. The Encyclopedia of Gardening. New York: Time, Inc., 1971. Duke, Alfred Byrd. Mediterranian Plant Manual. East Rutherford, N.J.: Roehrs Co., 1998. Harding, Selma. Planting Small Gardens From Seeds. New York: Hawthorne Books, Inc., 1992. McSwenn, Rhonda. The Book of House Plants. New York: Popular Library, 2003. Annotated Bibliography Samples Blanchard, Kenneth & Johnson, Spencer. The One Minute Manager. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1981. This is a very easy to read and understand book. It takes the form of a discussion between two people, rather than the more typical essay form. It states the essentials of management clearly and simply. Drucker, Peter F. The Effective Executive. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Drucker analyzes the nature of effectiveness and concludes that it can be learned. As he defines effectiveness and how it is learned, it seems to be based on a variety of skills, such as time management and delegation. This is a “how to” book for managers. Peters, Thomas J. & Waterman Jr., Robert H. In Search of Excellence. New York: Harper and Row, 1982. This is a powerful book about the forces within organizations which encourage excellence. This book, unlike Drucker’s, emphasizes organizations rather than individuals. It made me think about what kind of organization I work for rather than how I can be more effective in my organization. McNeely, Jeffrey A. and Scherr, Sara J. Ecoagriculture Washington D.C.: Island Press 2003 Although not precisely related to the cultural study of food production on the level of individual societies, this book is a very informative piece pertaining to food production on a global scale in relation to preserving the world’s biodiversity, with individual case studies. Humann, Paul. Reef Creature Identification: Florida Caribbean Bahamas. Jacksonville: New World Publications, 2002. This book provides useful information on identification of reef creatures as well as information on their biological roles in a coral reef ecosystem.

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Glossary of Terms Used in Higher Education

Accreditation: The process by which an educational institution receives certification of meeting standards set by an association. Vermont colleges are accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC).

ACE – American Council On Education: Serves as an organizational leader on key educational military and civilian issues; acts as a spokesperson to influence educational public policy in the U.S. Programs and/or credits approved by ACE are often accepted at degree granting colleges and universities.

Admissions Policy: The official criteria used by a college to determine which students to accept into its degree program. Many schools base acceptance on former academic success. The Vermont State Colleges are open admissions schools. Usually, students must take assessments of academic skills prior to meeting with an academic advisor.

Advisor or Mentor: A designated instructor or other college employee responsible for assisting students with academic planning.

Associate of Arts or Associate of Science: A degree granted to students who have completed a two-year course of study (if they attend full-time) that includes a minimum of 60 credits, generally divided between one-half in a specific program of study and one-half in general education requirements and electives.

Associate of Applied Science: A degree granted to students who have completed a two-year course of study that includes a minimum of 60 credits, generally divided between two-thirds in a specific program of study and one-third in general education requirements.

Audit: To sit in on a course without receiving credit for it.

Basic Skills Programs: College assessment services and courses designed to identify and address student needs for basic academic skills.

Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science: A degree granted to students who have completed a four-year course of study that includes a minimum of 120 credits, generally divided between one-third in a specific major and two-thirds in general education requirements and electives. Specific majors can vary a great deal in their credit requirements.

Catalog: A college publication containing information on programs, policies, and personnel. Most college catalogs are now available online.

CLEP Test: College Level Examination Program. A series of examinations used to determine college-level knowledge in many common academic areas. Credit is awarded for successful completion of tests and can be transferred to many colleges.

Concentration: The field of study in which a student specializes. Also sometimes called a major. In the context of a portfolio, concentration also has a special use. A portfolio concentration is the general area in which the majority of a student’s prior experiential learning has occurred.

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Continuing Education: Term used to describe evening or weekend classes and other programs offered for non-degree (often adult) students by traditional, campus-based colleges.

Cooperative Education: Credit bearing on-the-job learning experiences sponsored by a college. Also called practicum, field experience or internship.

Course List: A schedule of courses offered during a semester. Usually available in print and online.

Course Challenge: A request for credit based on the demonstration of knowledge or learning equivalent to an existing course with a specific number of associated credits in a curriculum. Available at the Community College of Vermont.

Credit: As a common measurement of academic objectives met or knowledge attained, credits are the value an institution attaches to a formal course of instruction. In the U.S. one credit is usually defined as 15 hours (on a semester schedule) of contact time between faculty member and students; however the standards and definition may vary from college to college. Credit generally represents the academic legitimacy of assessed learning and contact time. Most college courses carry 3 credits.

Department: College faculty and administrators grouped according to an academic discipline.

DSST(formerly: DANTES): Department of Defense examinations used to determine college-level knowledge in many academic areas. Used by both civilians and military personnel, often in conjunction with CLEP. Approved by ACE and can be transferred to many colleges.

Experiential Learning: Learning that has been gained as a result of reflecting upon the events or experiences in one’s life in contrast to formal education.

Fees: Charges for services provided by a college. Fees commonly charged include application, graduation, and transcript fees.

Financial Aid Office: College office responsible for providing information about grants, loans and scholarships, and assisting in the application process.

Focused Portfolio Development: a 1-credit course similar to the Assessment of Prior Learning course. Portfolios created in this course are limited to requests of 16 credits and only one area of the curriculum.

General Education Requirements: Required liberal arts courses intended to provide a broad, general exposure to traditional academic disciplines.

Grade Point Average: A numerical average of course grades calculated each semester as a measure of academic accomplishment. For example, if A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, then a student who earned two As, two Cs, and one B would have a 3.0 G.P.A. (i.e., 4(A) + 4(A) + 2 (C) + 2 (C) + 3(B) divided by 5).

Graduate Study: College courses or degree programs beyond the bachelor’s level.

Grant: Money given to students with financial need to assist them in financing educational costs. Basic or Pell grants are given by the federal government; the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation awards grants locally. Grants do not have to be repaid.

Humanities: Academic disciplines concerned with human thought and interpretations of human behavior. Humanities studies include History, Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Religion.

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Independent Study: A credit bearing learning experience in which a student masters content similar to course content through home study and limited individual instruction.

Learning Lab: A place for students to receive additional academic help, at no cost, from faculty members or peer tutors.

Portfolio: A collection of evidence in support of a person’s claim for credit through a prior learning assessment process.

Prerequisite: A requirement – often a course or program (or its equivalent) – that must be successfully completed before participating or enrolling in an advanced course or program.

Registrar’s Office: College office responsible for maintaining student records and generating transcripts.

Residence Requirement: A minimum number of credits an institution requires of students to be awarded a credential, such as a degree, from that institution.

Scholarships: Money awarded to students to help finance educational costs. Awards may be based on need or academic achievement, and are often awarded by professional organizations and service clubs.

Semester: A block of time approximately four months in length; most colleges offer three semesters per year by adding a summer semester..

Social Science: Studies dealing with the organization, dynamics, and functions of groups of people. Social science studies include Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology.

Transcript: An official copy of student records. Includes titles and credit amounts for completed courses and other learning experiences. PLA-assessed credit will also be recorded in transcript form.

Transfer Credit: The recognition of credits earned in one institution by another institution.

Transferable Skills: Knowledge, capabilities, attitudes or values that are effective across multiple contexts, such as various courses, workplaces or organizations.

Tutor: An individual with expertise in a given academic area hired to assist students with their studies.

Tuition: Charges for courses, independent studies, and cooperative education experiences such as field placements, internships, and practicums. Often calculated by credit.

Veterans’ Educational Benefits: Funds available to veterans who were honorably discharged and meet certain criteria established by the Veterans Administration.

Withdraw: To officially drop from a course in a program.

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Sample Degree Plan

Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration General Education Requirements: English Composition Business and Professional Writing Introduction to Literature Interpersonal and Small Group Communication U.S. History 1865 – Present Western Civilization I Microcomputer Applications Database Management Introduction to Philosophy Statistics Ornithology Finite Mathematics Total:

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

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Taken at Blue Lake College Request from PLA To be taken To be taken CLEP Exam to be taken To be taken Request from PLA Request from PLA To be taken Request from PLA To be taken Taken at CSC

Concentration Requirements: Introduction to Business Small Business Management Business Law I Business Law II Microeconomics Macroeconomics Financial Accounting Managerial Accounting Principles of Marketing Principles of Sales Principles of Management Human Resources Management Supervision Principles of Finance Quantitative Decision Making Practicum in Business Administration Managerial Economics Total:

3 3 4 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 6 3

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Request from PLA Request from PLA To be taken To be taken To be taken To be taken Taken at Greenfield College Taken at Greenfield College Request from PLA Request from PLA Request from PLA To be taken To be taken Request from PLA To be taken Request from PLA To be taken

Electives: Digital Photography I Digital Photography II Graphic Design Physical Education: Skiing Equestrian Management Computer Programming: BASIC CPR and First Aid Spanish I Spanish II Total:

3 3 3 1 3 3 4 3 3 26

Taken at Blue Lake College To be taken Request from PLA Request from PLA Request from PLA Request from PLA Request from PLA CLEP Examination CLEP Examination

General Education 36 Concentration 58 Electives 26 Total 120