Getting Up to Speed On What’s Going On

Paul Gaston, Kent State University

Debra Humphries, AAC&U

Our Learning Objectives

• Become more familiar with current national initiatives that may bear on baccalaureate education in general and on general education in particular

• Understanding ways in which these initiatives may be related

• Gain practical experience in preparing a briefing on one of these initiatives

Later . . .

You will receive at your table a request from the president of your institution, “Elysium College.” Facing an imminent visit from his board chair, he will ask your faculty group, newly returned from Edmund, to provide a briefing. His specifications will be clear.

I hope that you enjoyed your visit to Edmund, OK, and that you found your time at the Institute on General Education and Assessment productive. I understand that you were able to participate in a session titled, “Getting Up to Speed,” and that as part of that session you were able to learn about . . . . I hope that you took good notes, because I now need you to provide me with a quick briefing. I am meeting with the chair of our Board of Trustees this afternoon, and she may well ask my opinion of this issue. I do not need an encyclopedia article—just an indication of what’s involved, what’s happening, and why I should be interested.

Later . . .

You will have 20 minutes in your faculty group to write the briefing for the president.

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What is it?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP 2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the

Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What is LEAP?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

ELO’s and DQP: “Kissing Cousins”

• A strong family resemblance—but distinct identities

• Two of the authors of the younger cousin (DQP) are connected to the parentage of the older cousin (ELOs)

Hence the DQP was conceived and nutured not as an alternative to the ELOs but as a complement.

Neither the ELOs nor the DQP is “about general education”—

but both address gen ed as a critical component of meaningful degrees, one in active relationship with the major and with high impact practices in the curriculum and co-curriculum.

GENERAL EDUCATION THE MAJOR

THE DEGREE

CAPSTONE COURSES SERVICE

LEARNING

WORK EXPERIENCES STUDENT LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCES

PRIOR LEARNING

ETC.

OTHER HIGH IMPACT PRACTICES

The ELO’s and the DQP raise the same question—but they ask it in different ways in pursuit of related

but different priorities.

The question: what should a 21st century college education signify in

terms of student learning?

The Essential Learning

Outcomes Are intended to

• Provide the academy with a conceptual frame for a cumulative liberal education

• Guide student and faculty understanding of essential outcomes for learning

• Create the base for a consensus on cross-curricular priorities

Are not intended to

• Define in detail what degrees (associate, bachelor’s, master’s) mean

• Offer an explicitly operational basis for assessing student performance

Hence the asking is different

ELO’s

What are the liberal learning objectives that represent broad requisites for effective degree programs—and that all students should be enabled to achieve?

DQP

What learning—specifically—should degree recipients be able to demonstrate? And how should they be able to demonstrate this learning?

and the tools are aligned

ELO’s

The VALUE rubrics “contain the most broadly shared criteria . . . Critical for judging the quality of student work in a particular outcome area

DQP

An “assignments library” now being developed by NILOA offers a resource to faculty members seeking to student accomplish-ment of DQP proficiencies

Both the ELOs and the DQP must guide the strengthening of higher

education—

closely focused on clearly expressed and broadly understood student learning outcomes achieved through intentional, innovative, flexible, collaborative pedagogy informed and improved by assessment

HAND IN HAND

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning 4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• How are the DQP and Tuning related?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

“It takes two . . . To make a thing go right” APOLOGIES TO MARVIN GAYE

The DQP

• Offers a degree qualifications profile—exclusive of discipline-by-discipline qualifications

• Describes a product (the degree) but implies a process (general educationa major)

• An institutional process across disciplines

Tuning

• Invites disciplinary qualifications profiles—consistent with degree-level qualifications

• Describes a process (general educationa major) but implies a product (the degree)

• A discipline-by discipline process across institutions

Different strokes for different folks APOLOGIES TO SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE

Begin with Tuning

Some institutions may find it more practical to ask disciplines to clarify their incremental outcomes—then derive institutional degree qualifications from the result

Begin with the DQP

Some institutions may find it more practical to define degree-level outcomes—then ask disciplines to frame incremental outcomes consistent with them

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs 5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What is GEMs?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards 6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What are the Common Core State Standards?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation 7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What are the current issues concerning accreditation?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What is competency-based education? And direct assessment?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

Getting up to speed with regard to . . .

1 LEAP

2 The Essential Learning Outcomes, the VALUE Rubrics, and the Degree Qualifications Profile

3 The DQP and Tuning

4 GEMs

5 The Common Core State Standards

6 Issues Concerning Accreditation

7 Competency-based education and direct assessment

8 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

Three Questions

• What is the Higher Education Act? Is there an issue about its reauthorization? What would happen it the HEA is not reauthorized?

• What’s going on?

• Why should I care?

What other issues or questions?

There’s a memo for you from President Spender

10 minutes remaining

5 minutes remaining

Sudden Change in Plans

Shortly before you send the president your letter, he calls: “Mildred is running early. No time to send a letter. Just come to my office and summarize for us what you’ve written.”

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

President Spender informs you that each member of your group

will receive a 10% raise, effective immediately!