Hi everyone,
I came across an article focused on PLA - Prior Learning Assessment: where you get college credits for learning and work done outside the traditional classroom. The article appears in the online newsletter Inside Higher Ed and here's the url:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/12/lawmakers-and-foundations-push-prior-learning-assessment
The Obama administration has been a supporter of PLA, particularly in areas of job training. When I was doing my master's in the mid 80s, a dear friend/colleague was also completing his - but he had successfully lobbied the school administration for credits on his 'real world learning' so his degree was earned in less time.
This notion is not new but is having a comeback as we try to find ways to accelerate people getting their college degrees.
It's also a somewhat controversial practice: detractors say that it erodes the quality of the education and ultimately the degree awarded.
Thoughts?
Do you have experience with PLA - either with yourself, the institution you work for, or with adult students you work with?
Would you like to see more adoption of PLA? Why?
Which side of the debate are you on? PLA is a good thing, or ultimately not?; or is this a grey area question and not at all black and white?
Comments
Hi Marie,
I don't have any experience with PLA, but I think the concept/practice has a lot of potential for helping adult learners complete degrees, as do other non-traditional, beyond-the-credit-hour approaches to earning college credits. Just read this in Inside Higher Ed this morning, which seems an exciting possibility for motivated adult learners: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/04/free-online-course-providers-pair-credit-bearing-exams
I would love to see opportunities like PLA and CLEP explored and promoted further for adult learners.
Shawn Fisher
Pre-College Coach
Hi Shawn, thanks so much for sharing this article - I found it really informative and frankly exciting. The CLEP site is very well done - I tried out a few of the practice tests (didn't do so well on Algebra but aced Spanish!) - and they do indeed allow you to get a sense of the level of complexity and how the tests are structured. I'm impressed with the number of offerings - and there's even a college composition test although no practice test but that makes sense to me given that it's not multiple choice.
This is a perfect example of blending PLA into the higher ed experience - but in a nicely structured way - unlike my friend in grad school who was inventing how to lobby for PLA credits by himself. I assume many people (who are older; juggling work and family; looking for alternatives to the tradition classroom) shy away from degrees but this could really change that landscape.
I was especially struck by the person interviewed in the article who noted that while upper level classes probably are best to attend in a more traditional classroom setting, the CLEP design seems perfect for introductory courses - you know, those courses where there's 300 people in a lecture hall and it's really up to the individual to get as much out of that experience as possible. It almost sounds like the CLEP approach is better than that huge lecture hall - well, I guess for certain people it would be.
I am with you: I think these opportunities should be part of the discussion of how we reach and help adult students to learn and succeed. I get that our students might not be so adept at online learning, but then these programs are ways to also help them learn that as well as the content.
What do others think about this?
Does anyone have experience with CLEP (or PLA)?
Is this something Adult Education should pursue?