Transcript Document

January 2011
Degree Profile
Bringing new currency to the
meaning of U.S. degrees
Holiday Hart McKiernan
Lumina Foundation for Education
Vice President, Operations / General Counsel
Peter Ewell
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems
Vice President
Carol Geary Schneider
Association of American Colleges and Universities
President
Tim Birtwistle
Leeds Law School - Leeds Metropolitan University
Jean Monnet Chair
Professor Emeritus, Law and Policy of Higher Education
The Degree Profile will
shift the national
conversation from what
is taught to what is
learned.
Why Do We Need a Degree Profile?
First and foremost: because quality
matters.
And quality is about learning.
To increase the proportion of
Americans with high-quality
degrees and credentials to
60 percent by 2025.
How does quality factor into Goal 2025?
•Increasing the number of degrees requires
attention to quality and transparency
•Learning is valued by employers
•High-quality degrees are essential element
to a knowledge economy
•.
Why Do We Need a Degree Profile?
• Quality is about learning
• U.S. higher education lacks a clear
definition of the learning that degrees
represent
• Stakeholders are demanding transparency
and architecture for facing challenges
In order to meet the U.S. needs
• All of higher education needs to produce
quality degrees
• Higher education must meet the needs of
the 21st century student
• Innovation and new deliver models must
be grounded in quality – a shared
understanding of what at a degree
represents
Why Now?
National and state attainment goals like Goal
2025.
Timely lessons from international work such as
the Bologna Process.
By 2018 63% of jobs in the U.S. will require
postsecondary education.
• Now more than ever we need a common
understanding of the learning and skills
represented by a degree.
The Journey
• Reflecting on the clear need, we convened
a team of stakeholders and thought
leaders.
• It was time, not just to commit, but to
commit it to paper.
January 2011
Degree Profile
Bringing new currency to the
meaning of U.S. degrees
Background
• Qualifications Frameworks in Many Other Countries
• Bologna Process Common Outcomes Benchmarks
(e.g. “Dublin Descriptors”)
• AAC&U LEAP Outcomes Statements and Rubrics
• State-Level Outcomes Frameworks in U.S. (e.g. UT,
WI, CSU, ND, VA)
• Some Alignment of Cross-Cutting Abilities Statements
Among Institutional Accreditors
Alignment of Expected General Learning Outcomes
Statements Across Regional Accreditors
• General Education Knowledge (4)
• Language and Communications Skills (4)
• Information Literacy (4)
• Scientific/Quantitative Literacy (4)
• Life-long Learning (4)
• Ethics (4)
AAC&U LEAP Outcomes and Rubrics
• Statements of What Students Should Know and Be Able to
Do, Successively Developed Over Time
• Address Broad and Integrated Content Knowledge,
Intellectual Skills, Personal and Social Responsibility, and
Applied/Integrative Learning
• Developed Through Employer Feedback as Well as the
Higher Education Community
• Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education
(VALUE) Rubrics Being Tested Nationwide
Lumina Degree Profile
• Three Degree Levels: Associate, Bachelor’s, and Master’s
• Five Learning Areas: Specialized Knowledge,
Broad/Integrative Knowledge, Intellectual Skills, Applied
Learning, and Civic Learning
• Framed as Successively Inclusive Hierarchies of “Action
Verbs” to Describe Outcomes at Each Degree Level
• Intended as a “Beta” Version, for Testing, Experimentation,
and Further Development Beginning this Year
How the Panel Approached Its Work
• Wide Literature Review (Other National QFs and International
Writings on Outcomes Statements and How to Frame Them)
• Review of Outcomes Adopted by U.S. Colleges and Universities
(Hart Research, 2009)
• Emphasis on Application and Integration (as Distinctively
“American” Undergraduate Attributes)
• But Confined to Things that Institutions Actively Teach (Therefore
Few Values or Attitudes Included)
• Emphasized Civic Learning as an area where the U.S. already is
an international leader
An Example: Communication Skills
Associate Level: The student presents substantially
error-free prose in both argumentative and narrative forms
to general and specialized audiences
Bachelor’s Level: The student constructs sustained,
coherent arguments and/or narratives and/or explications
of technical issues and processes, in two media, to
general and specialized audiences
Master’s Level: The student creates sustained, coherent
arguments or explanations and reflections on his or her
work or that of collaborators (if applicable) in two or more
media or languages, to both general and specialized
audiences
An Example: Engaging Diverse Perspectives
Associate Level: Describes how different
cultural perspectives would affect his or her
interpretations of prominent problems in politics,
society, the arts, and/or global relations
An Example: Engaging Diverse Perspectives
Bachelor’s Level: Constructs a cultural,
political, or technological alternative vision of
either the natural or human world, embodied in a
written project, laboratory report, exhibit,
performance, or community service design;
defines the distinct patterns in this alternative
vision; and explains how they differ from current
realities
An Example: Engaging Diverse Perspectives
Master’s Level: Addresses a core issue in
his/her field of study from the perspective of
either a different point in time, or a different
culture, political order, or technological context,
and explains how the alternative perspective
contributes to results that depart from current
norms, dominant cultural assumptions, or
technologies—all demonstrated through a
project, paper, or performance
Potential Applications of the Draft
To guide
• Quality reviews of institutions
• Development of new assessments
• Faculty in curricular development
• Development of outcomes-based state articulation and
transfer standards
Potential Applications of the Draft
To provide
• Common template for accreditation reporting
• Basis for establishing “learning contracts” between
entering students and institutions
January 2011
Degree Profile
Bringing new currency to the
meaning of U.S. degrees
Where We Are Now
 Near-Consensus on Essential
Competencies
 Strong Empirical Evidence that Engaged,
High Effort Practices Result in Learning
Outcomes Gains AND in Greater
Likelihood of Completion. - High Impact
Practices (Kuh 2008; Swaner and Brownell, 2010)
Where We Are Now
In short, we know “what works” – to foster both
learning gains and greater completion…
…but many students aren’t
doing “what works.”
Where We Are Now
Abundant evidence that too many
students do not benefit from “what works”
and make very limited gains in college.
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Arum/Roksa study: Academically Adrift
Blaich/Wabash Longitudinal Studies
ACT/ETS Studies
Employer Reports
Faculty Members’ Own Reports
Why AAC&U Welcomes the Degree Profile
• Access to excellence remains
exclusionary – and that has become an
unaffordable luxury.
• Making excellence inclusive is our
most important educational priority.
The Opportunity Before Us
For faculty, it underscores a shift from
“my work to our work.”
Faculty invited to ensure programs
feature purposeful research and
assignments the build competence,
teaching students to apply knowledge to
unscripted problems.
The Opportunity Before Us
For students, it provides a roadmap they
really need and moves students’ own
work to the center of assessment and
accountability.
Students are invited to share responsibility
for learning and work needed in order to
progress, accomplish, and achieve
graduation level competence.
January 2011
Degree Profile
Bringing new currency to the
meaning of U.S. degrees
Lessons to date?
What we can learn from the
experiences of other countries
Higher education as a ‘supertanker’
What type is it?
• Generally 3 types* of Qualification
Framework recognised as being used:
• Communications
• Reforming
• Transformational
• There is no ‘one size fits all’
• Each must be assessed against its own
objectives and context (scope being
important)
* Allais S (2007) The rise and fall of the NQF: A critical analysis of the South African NQF, PhD
thesis, University of Witwatersrand
Where might we look?
• Europe
 overarching frameworks (EHEA and EQF)
 national frameworks like Denmark, Ireland,
Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Scotland,
England, Wales, Northern Ireland
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Australia
New Zealand
South Africa
Canada
India, China, Japan
Why a supertanker?
• “Many countries are developing ….
frameworks ……….. there is limited evidence.
more to say about purpose … than ..
achieve(ment)..” - Raffe D. 2009, ILO Paper 48
• Higher education cycles are medium term
• Recruit a student1/2011
• She starts 8/2011
• She graduates 6/2015 (possibly) or 2017 (likely)
• Where is the data? What data? When?
So what do we look for?
#1 England
• “impact and effectiveness” - Evaluation of the Academic
Infrastructure: final report August 2010 (QAA) London
• “Overall the evaluation has demonstrated ..
over the past decade … providers have
engaged with and embedded …. within their
own .. policies and procedures.” - SUPRA
• “… the recently revised framework ….. useful
for programme and module development ….
assessment criteria …. descriptors useful…” Submissions to inform preparation of the Final Report, August 2010
#2 Ireland
• “Tensions between an outcomes-based
approach …. [and one based on] … inputs”
• “Framework is beginning to impact …. learners
… choices, …. teaching and learning, ….
progression.”
• “…. the nature of the Framework as a longterm, dynamic process.”
-NQAI (2009) Framework Implementation and Impact Study, Dublin
-2010 Study Report.
#3 Australia
• “AQF proposed reforms unnecessarily rigid.”
– Go8 17th, October 2010
• “Strengthened AQF approved.” – AQF Newsletter,
November 2010
• “Australia. One country. One qualification
system.” – Study In Australia, January 2011
• “Universities are supportive of a strong and
widely utilised qualifications framework for
Australia, …… to bring Australian
arrangements into line with international best
practice.” – Universities Australia, 2010
Conclusions
• Making the implicit explicit helps:
− Students/learners
− Stakeholders:
• Faculty
• Funders
• Employers
•
Making sense of diversity helps
•
If the sector engages with the profile it is an
enabling mechanism
•
It is a living tool not an ossified representation of
higher education
What Happens Next?
• The national conversation begins today
• Testing in a variety of settings with a
variety of partners
• Future feedback forums and national
conversation
• Opportunity for U.S. higher education
The Degree Profile will
shift the national
conversation from what
is taught to what is
learned.
Questions?