Hello everyone,
In today's Boston Globe there is an article on the front page about this new program: College for America. Here's an excerpt:
"(This program) demolishes one of the most fundamental building bocks of college: course credit. Instead of requiring a graduate to complete a set number of courses, it asks students to master - at any pace - 120 'completencies'."
The article describes the program and interviews some people involved (both students and staff members) - I'm sorry I can't send you a link, you must be subscribed to The Globe to read it online, and I tried to find info on the web but there does not appear to be any at the Southern NHU website. But this sounds very interesting to me - students pay a flat fee of $1,250 every six months until they finish, there are no classes or teachers, just academic coaches. When I first started to read this, I was extremely wary. But it turns out that this institution has become a leader in innovative learning and has attracted the attention of Bill and Melinda Gates to the tune of $1 million (in addition to the other $2 million the university has invested in the last few years).
And College for America is not alone: Western Governor's University (created in 1997) offers a competency-based online BA. It says that in 2012, their seniors scored better on a national exam (it does not say which exam) than students at 78% of participating schools. Ok, I'm paying attention. http://www.wgu.edu/
Does anyone have knowledge or experience at either of these programs? Can you share with us?
We already have programs and assessments based on competencies. But these higher ed programs ask people to apply work and lifeskills toward earning their degrees. How different or similar is ABE to these HE programs?
Should adult ed programs prepare students for this type of higher education opportunity? Is anyone already doing that? What might be some +s and/or -s of preparing adult ed students for this type of program?
What can we learn from these two programs, that appear to provide quality, successful experiences to their students?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Comments
Hi again,
The second hour of WBUR's On Point is broadcasting a related news story about cost of higher education degrees, online learning, and using past experience toward credits. At the heart of the story is Rick Perry's initiative to offer a $10k undergrad degree, which would cover every cost including books. Guests have mentioned competency-based programs as well as the fact that the Gates foundation is getting involved. You may want to listen in now or to the podcast later:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/04/29/texas-education
Still want to hear what your thoughts are re: competency-based degree programs.
Thanks, marie
Hi Marie and others,
I wrote a September 2012 Adult Literacy Education blog article on competency-based education, to be found at http://davidjrosen.wordpress.com/ It was inspired by a Huffington Post piece whose focus was competency-based higher education. You'll find that at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-robert-mendenhall/competency-based-learning-_b_1855374.html
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
I love this. It's the final break from the old Carnegie unit/seat time that's been needed ever since the standards movement got rolling. Here in Pennsylvania, though, we are still struggling with a Dept. of Ed that demands outcomes at the same time as they insist on maintaining seat time. They even want seat time equivalents for distance learning credits. N.H.U. has done an end-run around the seat time issue by simply ignoring the credits. So the real question is, what happens when the accreditors come calling? Fascinating.