Give Students a Compass: Educational Quality, Innovation, and the Leadership We Need Now

2. Give Students a Compass: Educational Quality, Innovation, and the Leadership We Need Now Carol Geary SchneiderAssociation of American Colleges and Universities

3. Overview • The Consensus on Quality and the Learning Students Need • Practices that Foster Learning—and Completion as well • The Digital Revolution and Key Choices Facing Educators (and Innovators Too) • Leadership for Deeper Learning—Fostered, Integrated, Demonstrated

4. Context Matching Goals for Access and Completion with Clarity about Quality and the Goals of Innovation;Acknowledging FIPSE as an Incubator for High Quality, High Impact Leaning

5. 1973-2013 An Era of Widespread Initiative, Experimentation, and Evidence, That Has Identified….

6. Key Elements in a 21st Century Vision for High-Quality Learning • Clarity about Essential Learning Outcomes • Practices that Foster Achievement AND Completion • Evidence on “What Works” for Underserved Students • Assessments that Deepen—and Demonstrate—the Level of Learning

7. Aims and Outcomes 80% of colleges, universities and community colleges have articulated intended learning outcomes

8. Consensus Aims and Outcomes There is very broad agreement cross all parts of higher education – 2 year, 4 year, public and private – on the learning and skills students need most

9. The LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes Frame the Consensus: • Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World • Intellectual and Practical Skills • Personal and Social Responsibility • Integrative and Applied Learning

10. See Learning and Assessment: Trends in Undergraduate Education—A Survey Among Members of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U and Hart Research Associates, 2009) for more information. www.aacu.org/leap

11. But What About Employers?

12. Employers Strongly Endorse the Aims and Outcomes Educators Prize And They Urge New Effort to Help All Students Achieve Them

13. See Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn (AAC&U and Hart Research Associates, 2010) for more information. www.aacu.org/leap

14. The LEAP Outcomes Build Knowledge and Capacities Necessary to an Innovation-Fueled Economy—and to the Global Commons as Well

15. Note: FIPSE support helped AAC&U identify and frame the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes

16. If These Are the Goals, How Do We Help Students Achieve the Expected Learning?

17. The Key Elements in a 21st Century Vision for High-Quality Learning • The Consensus on Aims and Learning Outcomes • Practices that Foster Achievement AND Completion • Evidence on “What Works” for Underserved Students • Assessments that Deepen—and Demonstrate—the Level of Learning

19. Who Were the DQP Drafters? Every one of us benefited from FIPSE support – over the past three decades.

20. The Proposed Degree Profile Builds From the Vision for Quality that Higher Education Already Has Created—and That Employers Endorse

21. The Degree Profile Shifts Our Collective Attention to What Students Actually Do: Research, Projects, Papers, Performances, Creative Work…Applied Learning!

22. The Central Role of High Impact Practices (HIPs) • First-Year Seminars and Experiences • Common Intellectual Experiences • Learning Communities • Writing-Intensive Courses • Collaborative Assignments and Projects • Undergraduate Research • Diversity/Global Learning • Service Learning, Community-Based Learning • Internships • Capstone Courses and Projects

23. Note: FIPSE has been a catalyst and supporter for all of these reform movements – movements that helped educators test and implement the “high impact practices”

24. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter, by George D. Kuh (AAC&U, 2008)

25. When Students are Engaged in High Impact Practices, They Are • More likely to complete • More likely to achieve intended outcomes • With particular benefit for underserved students

26. Impact of Educationally Purposeful Practices on the Probability of Returning for the Second Year of College by Race **From Kuh, High Impact Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (AAC&U, 2008)

27. Impact of Educationally Purposeful Practices on First Academic Year GPA by Pre-College Achievement Level *From Kuh, High Impact Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (AAC&U, 2008)

28. Impact of Multiple HIPs on Percentage of Senior NSSE Respondents Graduating on Time by Racial & Ethnic Background Source: Does Participation in Multiple High Impact Practices Affect Student Success at Cal State Northridge? by Bettina Huber (unpublished paper on California State University, Northridge students, 2010).

29. High Impact Practices ALSO Develop Expected Learning Outcomes

30. Five High-Impact Practices: Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion, and Quality Jayne E. Brownell and Lynn E. Swaner (AAC&U, 2010)

31. So Why – and How – Do High Impact Practices Support Higher Level Learning?

32. Why HIPs Work • Create Engaged and Supportive Community • Involve Students in Purposeful Learning • Connect Learning with Larger Questions and Real-World Settings • Require Higher Order Inquiry, Exploration, Analysis, and Problem-Solving • Engage Diversity and Collaboration as Resources for Learning

33. Why HIPs Work… They Foreground Students’ Own Effortful Practice and Accomplishment, and, They Put Active Learning Ahead of Lectures

34. The High Impact Practices Also Offer Rich Opportunities to Make Civic Inquiry and Engagement a Priority

35. Civic Learning • First Year Seminars Can Explore “Big Societal Questions” Like Hunger, or Waste, or Democratic Justice • Learning Communities – Can Explore “Big Questions” Across Multiple Disciplines • Service Learning Can Connect Courses to the Community • Undergraduate Research Can Be Linked to Civic and Societal Challenges

36. The Key Elements in a 21st Century Vision for High-Quality Learning • The Consensus on Aims and Learning Outcomes • Practices that Foster Achievement AND Completion • Evidence on “What Works” for Underserved Students • Assessments that Deepen—and Demonstrate—the Level of Learning

37. Authentic Assessments Students’ Actual Work is the Most Important Evidence We Have About Whether They Can Integrate and Apply Their Knowledge to New Contexts and New Challenges – Civic and Economic

38. When the Curriculum is Focused, Assessment Can Draw from High Impact Practices For example: papers, projects, exhibits, research, internships, service learning, global experience, capstones, and much more

39. This is the Core Point in AAC&U’s Work on Assessment: Purposeful, Guided Practice is the Key to Learning and Assessment

40. The Proof Will Be in the Portfolio – and Institutions That Are Rich in High Impact Practices Are Poised to Lead the Way in Showing What Students Can Really Do With Their Education

41. Note: FIPSE support helped advance this approach to assessment

42. The Digital Revolution and Key Choices for Educators and Innovators Will We Use Technology to “Flip the Classroom” – and Extend it As Well? e.g.: • More Time for Collaborative Projects, Inquiry, Research? • More Opportunities for Community-Based Learning? • More High Impact Practices for Underserved Students? • More Opportunity for Faculty Engagement and Feedback on Learning?

43. The Digital Revolution and Key Choices for Educators and Innovators Or Will We Use Technology to Further Fragment the Curriculum—With Courses Coming from Everywhere and Anywhere—and High Impact Practices Even Less Common Than They Are in Traditional Classrooms?

44. Let’s Keep Today’s New Majority Learner Centrally in View Today’s Students Need Guided Practice and “Intellectual Scaffolding” to Achieve the Intended Learning Outcomes

45. How We Can Use Generative Innovations to Help Students Deepen Their Learning and Demonstrate It As Well

46. E-Portfolios as a Framework for Intentional and Integrative Learning • Portfolios Emerged—in the 70s!—as a Strategy to Help Returning Adult Learners Organize, Document, and Demonstrate the Quality of their Learning • From Courses Taken at Different Institutions • From Experiential Learning at Work, in the Military, and in the Community

47. Today We Have E-Portfolios • Keyed to Expected Learning Outcomes • Keyed to National, Validated Rubrics for Essential Learning Outcomes—the VALUE Rubrics (developed with FIPSE support) • Ideal for Capturing Students’ Demonstrated Accomplishments and Competencies

48. We Can Use This Innovation to Help Students Organize, Integrate, Document, and Demonstrate Their Learning From Diverse Contexts and Situations: • The Skills They Possess • The Big Questions They Have Pursued • Their Signature Accomplishments— • Their Overall Readiness for Work, Civic Life, Global Community—and Further Learning as Well

49. The E-Portfolio, in Short, Can Be Designed to Give Students That Compass—and to Provide a Transferable Record of Their Roadmap, Their Journey and Their Learning Across the Way

50. What It Will Take: A Purpose-Driven Curriculum – Not a Hodge-Podge of Disparate Courses