Transcript The Search for Quality and the Case of the DQP

The World of Short-Cycle
Degrees
Clifford Adelman
Michigan Community Colleges
21 July, 2011
Not a new story, but one we
don’t hear much about
• Short chapter in The Bologna Process for
U.S. Eyes (April 2009)
• ATLANTIS program and its Toledo (US)
conference (October 2009)
• Special issue of The Community College
Review (October 2010)
• Occasional AACC Convention sessions.
The U.S. audience has been limited.
What are we going to do today?
• Look at the position and status of credentials analogous
to our associate’s degrees in other countries.
• Pay particular attention to those that are seen as part
of the 1st cycle (bachelor’s)
• Provide some examples of programs built around
specific competencies more than specific courses (or
credits)
• Propose what the U.S. has learned---and what it has yet
to learn---from these intermediate-level credentials.
• Tie our own emerging Degree Qualifications Profile--and the associate’s degree at its core---to a global trend
of stronger intermediate-level higher education degrees
Why are we taking this route?
• Despite the volume of awards, our associate’s
degree has limited imagibility, limited
currency, and limited appeal to students.
• To demonstrate how intermediate level
credentials can take a strong position in
national---and international---credentialing
systems.
• Adding to our epiphanies when we look at our
system through the eyes of others.
What do we need to know as
background, part 1?
• These are ISCED 5B degrees, i.e. they are included in
higher education. Our pre-baccalaureate certificates
are ISCED 4, and are NOT considered higher ed.
• These are nearly all based on 2-year (sometimes 3-year)
programs. In what others call “notional time,” they are
2 ½ year programs.
• All are considered the standard intermediate level
degree in their systems.
• The Bologna Process in Europe has strongly influenced
both the evolution and demise of short-cycle degrees
there.
Some Countries with Short-Cycle
Credentials: Old, New, Shaky, and Gone
Australia
Belgium
Canada
Croatia
Denmark
England
France
Ireland
Japan
Korea
Netherlands
Slovenia
Turkey
U.S.
Austria
Finland
(both gone!)
Portugal
(new)
Romania
Sweden
(shaky)
Proportion of Enrollments at
ISCED Level 5B
Country
Enrollment Ratio
Percent 5B Enroll Name of Degrees
Australia
75
16%
Associate
Japan
58
23
Associate
South Korea
95
36
Associate
Belgium
62
51
FR/FL Differences
Denmark
80
13
Academy Profess.
France
56
25
DUT, BTS
Ireland
61
29
Higher Certificate
Slovenia
48
42
Diploma “X”
UK (all)
59
22
Foundation, HNC
US
82
21
Associate
What do we need to know as
background, part 2?
• These degrees can be offered by many different kinds
of institutions, but some countries bind them to one
type of school, e.g. Korea, Netherlands
• A majority---if not all---short-cycle degrees are offered
by private institutions in systems such as Korea, Japan,
and those of Eastern Europe
• In most other countries, the position of short-cycle
credentials is determined by national qualification
frameworks (something like what is proposed in the
DQP in the U.S.).
• Some are stand-alone and terminal; others are part of
the bachelor’s degree.
What do we need to know as
background, part 3?
• Where new, introduced with specific
access policy goals, e.g. Portugal in 2006
• Where established, adjusted with respect
to Bologna cycles, e.g. France (DUT)
• Some are high volume with dramatic
growth, e.g. Foundation Degree in
England, since 2000
• Some still low volume, despite high
profile, e.g. Netherlands, since 2006
What do we need to know as
background, part 4?
• Data are hard to come by, and often
contradictory, e.g. Canada
• Longitudinal studies, where they exist
(e.g., France, England, Netherlands) (a)
are too short and (b) do not pay attention
to the role of the short-cycle degree.
• For the most part, these are not openaccess degree programs.
What do they all do?
• Involve non-education partners
• Diversify the range of subjects and
pathways for postsecondary study
• Draw on a wider range of age groups
than traditional higher education
Sound familiar?
Yet there is nothing comparable to an A.A.
or an A.G.S.
Examples of those that are part
of the bachelor’s degree
• Swedish “Diploma,” basically a default or insurance
policy in bachelor’s study (the French DEUG functions
the same way).
• English Foundation degree, subject or occupationally
oriented, developed and delivered jointly by
universities and Further Education Colleges
• French occupationally-oriented DUTs, delivered by
IUTs across the street or on the same campus with
universities
• In both French and British cases, add a year and you
have a bachelor’s, but the rates of continuation are
very different: 25% for the French; 50+% for the Brits
Presentation of DUT, variant #1:
Gestion logistique et transport
• Profiles of what graduates do (manage physical
distribution, international transport, site procurement,
post-sales support)
• Competencies for each semester of study in English
(conversing with an interlocutor, reading professional
documents, drafting commercial correspondence),
economics, organizational behavior, commercial law,
etc.
• The competencies are not separate courses, rather
learning outcomes; and faculty have a variety of
options for eliciting those competencies.
Presentation of DUT, variant #2:
Information-Communication
• First year course modules in economics,
epistemology of information, integrated
soc/anthro/psych, and an open slot.
• Student workload time stamp for each module,
adding to 130 hours.
• Option tracks in journalism, public relations,
org. communication, and publishing come in
the 2nd year.
• Short list of competencies for each module.
Let’s try another one: “Economist”
from a private provider in Slovenia
• Like the DUT, admission is not open-door (e.g. 3 years
secondary school occupational program + 3 years work
experience + exam in Slovene lang & lit + exam in
either math or foreign language).
• 1st year: business terminology in foreign language,
business communication, informatics, business math
with statistics, economics, accounting, management.
You can’t do this without a high level of literacy and a
decent math base. 2nd yr specialization, e.g.accountancy
• Learning outcomes divided among generic,
disciplinary, and soft skills, though sometimes with
mushy phrasing.
And another, but for different reasons:
Multimedia Designer in Denmark
• A 2-year program in which the student is allowed 4
years to finish, with formal application for stop out.
• Compulsory core of visual design theory, digital
communication, design of navigational and user
interfaces, and media sociology. Then specialization.
• All outcomes expressed as competencies (learning,
cognitive, innovation, relational [ in “networks,” not
“teamwork”], and communication).
• Project-based exams every semester; digital prototype
reports; student stands for an oral examination.
No one in a program such as this needs remediation.
The Irish Way: Competencies at Level
6 (out of 10 in the NQF)
•
•
•
•
•
Knowledge: breadth
Knowledge: kind (theory)
Know-how & skill: range
Know-how & skill: selectivity
Competencies: contexts in which knowledge & skills
are applied;
• Competencies: roles both autonomous and within
multiple and heterogeneous groups.
• “Insight,” i.e. requiring the student to express “an
internalised, personal world view.”
Why pound away at the
competency statements?
Because that’s the way these shortcycle degrees attain their legitimacy
and connection to larger degree
qualification frameworks, national
and European
It doesn’t happen everywhere, but
that’s the direction toward which we
have to move
• You don’t read statements like these
coming from Canada, Japan, Korea, or
the US.
• You will start reading them in former
colonies that seek to align their higher
education systems to the colonial powers,
e.g. Morocco to France, Indonesia to the
Netherlands
And we have already established a base in
the
Degree Qualifications Profile
• The DQP is a transformational document
in clarifying the meaning of our degrees
and guaranteeing their authenticity.
• It’s “transformational” because it is
grounded in explicit competency
statements, not credits.
• After all, it says “no competencies, no
degree,” no matter how many credits and
what GPA you have accumulated.
And we are doing this better
than other nations have done
• We start with a nested set of
competencies at the Associate’s,
Bachelor’s and Master’s levels.
• Our verbs describing what student’s do
to be certified for each competence are
snappy and clean.
• Each step up the degree ladder ratchets
up the challenge level.
And because the Associate’s degree (our
Short-Cycle) is the foundation for this
clarification and warranty. . .
• We’ve got to take up the DQP’s iterative
process, and
• (a) clarify, modify and shore-up its
student learning outcome statements;
• (b) demonstrate the process of matching
assignments and assessments to
competencies in both general studies and
occupational-specific program contexts.
All this is not exactly what the
Euros or Australians did, but
We had an epiphany simply by
watching them.
Mantra: nations that learn from
other nations grow; those that
don’t, don’t!
What do we mean by “snappy
and clean” language?
• No dead-end nouns such as “awareness,”
“appreciation,” “ability” (should be a red flag
anyway), and “critical thinking.”
• None of these is operational, i.e. none of them
leads directly to assignments or assessments of
any kind.
• Instead, try: describes, cites, assembles,
categorizes, illustrates, prioritizes, evaluates
All used at the Associate’s level in the DQP.
So how does one operationalize,
validate, document?
• Faculty look around at assignments and assessments
they currently use that match the learning outcome
statements.
• . . .and if they don’t exactly match, tweak them.
• And then, obviously, create some new ones.
• Every learning outcome statement is then illustrated
with a sample of such assignments and assessments.
• You don’t get a working DQP any other way.
Assessment is embedded in teaching, not post-hoc or
add-on.
What we can learn when the associate’s is
part of the 1st cycle, part 1
• For US transfer and articulation
programs, both DUT and Foundation
Degrees illustrate a cooperative
undertaking with clear boundaries
around which majors are in and which
are out, and
• Put a time bracket on both the transfer
window and post-transfer period!!!
Does this mean we get two
kinds of associate’s degrees?
Answer: we already have two
kinds, but not this way!
Enter “Tuning USA,” ally of the DQP,
and another Bologna import
• Except the Euros have yet to include their short-cycle
degree programs. For us, the associate’s is front and
center.
• Tuning does at the discipline-specific level what the
DQP does at the generic degree level, though the
process is different.
• So far, we have got Graphic Arts in Minnesota, and
Nursing, Social Work, and Business in Kentucky---all
cases where the degree is offered at both associate’s
and bachelor’s level.
• Tuning USA is a state system undertaking, and so far
we have 5 states and one interstate compact.
What we can learn, part 2
• In a truly cooperatively developed program,
the student will be taking classes with the same
faculty on both sides of the transfer line.
• Alliance models increase the quality of
advisement and counseling, hence the
likelihood of degree completion.
• Our current “alliance” models are neither
systematic nor have reached critical mass. We
have some work to do here.
We have a global labor market now, in
case you haven’t noticed, so
• Everybody is in the act of “convergence.”
• Does that mean copying? No. But it does
mean creating degree programs that are
analogous and transferable across
borders.
• And the line for doing that is through
reference points of coverage (e.g. tools,
software) and explicit learning outcomes
statements.
We’ve covered a lot of territory,
but need concluding advocacies
• A national community college consortium to take on
the DQP in the same way the Council of Independent
Colleges has done for their 4-year members.
• Regional community college involvement in the DQP
projects undertaken by WASC and the HLC of North
Central.
• Organized monitoring of Tuning USA projects by those
in non-Tuning states.
• Studies that match models and profiles of associate’s
degree programs across borders.
Isn’t that a lot of work?
Oh yeah! But we’re at tipping
points in this world where you
can’t run away from the tasks!