Liberal Education and the New Frontiers for Quality Assurance

1. Liberal Education and the New Frontiers for Quality Assurance 2016 Higher Learning Commission Annual Conference Presidents’ Program April 16, 2016 Carol Geary Schneider

2. Overview • The New Frontiers for Quality Assurance • Quality Learning and Liberal Education: Clarifying Confused Terms • The Good News: We Now Have a Shared 21st-Century Framework for Quality Learning • The Troubling News: Many Students Are Missing The Mark • How Accreditors and Presidents Can Lead—on Policy Priorities and Campus Practice

3. The New Frontiers for Quality Assurance • The Argument in Brief – Accreditation Has Helped Higher Education Create a Widely Shared 21st-Century Framework for Quality College Learning • The Challenge Now is to Connect that Framework with Policy, Public Understanding, Campus Practice, and Needed Improvement in Student Learning

4. So What is That Widely Shared Quality Learning Framework? And How Does it Relate to Liberal Education?

5. Liberal Education: Clarifying Confused Terms • In This Talk, I Will Use Quality Learning and Liberal Learning Interchangeably, Building the Argument that the Shared Framework for Quality Learning Updates the Core Aims of a Liberal Education AND That Liberal Education—Inclusively Redefined—IS the Most Student-Empowering Design for Quality Learning

6. However, Liberal Education, in these remarks, is NOT a synonym for “the Liberal Arts” or for “General Education” • Liberal Education, As I Will Describe It, is a Framework for All Undergraduate Study—Degrees, Credentials, Certificates—Encompassing All Majors, Liberal Arts and Career-Related Fields Alike (See Handout, Page 1, for Definitions of Commonly Confused Terms)

7. Liberal Arts Disciplines and General Education are Important Components of Quality Liberal Learning, Beyond Question! • But If We Want Students to Achieve the Aims and Outcomes of a Quality Liberal Education, General Education and All Majors—Liberal Arts and Career-Related Alike—Must Work Together To Foster the Intended Learning

8. The Quality Context: Connecting College Learning with the National Priorities for Student Success

9. The Multiple Meanings of College Student Success • Two Different Conversations About College Learning • Success Defined as Completion • Success Defined in Terms of the LearningNeeded for Work, Societal Participation, and Students’ Own Hopes for the Future

10. The Completion Conversation Dominates Policy—and Accreditation—Debates Indicators of Success Emphasize Persistence and Pocketbook

11. But the Quality Learning Agenda is Equally Important to Students’ Futures And to Society’s Hopes for a Better Tomorrow As Well. Accreditors Have a Key Role to Play in Helping Advance Transparent Indicators Both of Quality Learning and of Educators’ Capacity to Provide It

12. As Educators Well Know, Quality Learning Must Prepare Students Simultaneously for Success in the Economy, Their Roles in a Globally Engaged and Diverse Democracy, and for Lives of Meaning and Purpose

13. What Kinds of Learning Are Needed for Success in the Wider World?

14. Changing Priorities for Work in the 21st-Century Economy

15. The Long-Term Economic Trends Source: Dancing with Robots: Human Skills for Computerized Work, by Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane. Third Way, 2013.

16. What Economists Say “Human work will increasingly shift toward two kinds of tasks: solving problems for which standard operating procedures do not currently exist, and working with new information—acquiring it, making sense of it, communicating it to others…today, work that consists of following clearly specified directions is increasingly being carried out by computers and workers in lower-wage countries. The remaining jobs that pay enough to support families require a deeper level of knowledge and the skills to apply it.” Frank Levy and Richard Murname, “Dancing with Robots” (2013)

17. Employers Say Innovation, Critical Thinking, and a Broad Skill Set are Key for Meeting Challenges in the Workplace • 95% of employers report that their companies put a priority on hiring people with the intellectual and interpersonal skills to help them contribute to innovation in the workplace • 93% of employers say that candidates’ demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major • 91% of employers say that, whatever their major, all students should have experiences in solving problems with colleagues whose viewsare different from their own Source: “It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success” (AAC&U and Hart Research Associates, 2013).

18. In Their Own Words: Employers Want to Find Graduates With That “360° Perspective.” They Firmly Resist Narrow Training Alone. Hart Research Associates Focus Groups

19. Beyond the Economy • On the MULTIPLE Purposes of a College Education • Or, What the “Greatest Generation” Knew…and What We Must Reaffirm…

20. From the Truman Commission Report (1947)The Three Principal Purposes of College Learning

21. The Three Purposes • Education for a fuller realization of democracy in every phase of living • Education directly and explicitly for international understanding and cooperation • Education for the application of creative imagination and trained intelligence to the solution of social problems and to the administration of public affairs

22. Imagine This Set of Purposes Applied to Our Current Societal Context • Democracy Both Desired and Beset • Global Interdependence Now Reframing Every Aspect of Work, Community, and Life • Urgent Problems That Must Be Solved—Health, Education, Poverty, Racism, Climate…and More

23. Together, We Need to Reaffirm and Renew Our Social Compact with Democracy…In An Era When Even Larger Numbers of Students Go to College, It Cannot Be “Job Training” for Some—and a Big Picture, 360° Education for the Fortunate Few

24. The Key Point: A Quality Education Prepares Students to Grapple with Complexity—to Bring Trained Intelligence and Social Imagination to Complex Problems—Problems Where We Don’t Yet Know the Right Answer and/or Where There is Real Disagreement About the Best Approach

25. The Good News: Thanks to Accreditors, US Higher Education Has Already Reached Broad Agreement on the Key Components of Quality Learning for Work, Civil Society, and Life

26. The Quality Learning Outcomes Include: • Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World • The liberal arts and sciences, focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring • Intellectual and Practical Skills (such as inquiry, analysis, communication, problem-solving with diverse partners, etc.) • Practiced extensively, using evidence-based reasoning, across the curriculum

27. The Quality Learning Outcomes Include (cont.) • Personal and Social Responsibility (ethical, civic, intercultural, global) • Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges • Integrative and Applied Learning • Demonstrated through students’ completion of substantial projects keyed to their goals, and confirming their readiness to tackle complex challenges

28. More Good News: Employers Strongly Endorse These Quality Learning Outcomes—And Ask Mainly That We Ensure Students Have Acquired Them Hart Research Studies: “Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn” (2010) “It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning Student Success” (2013) “Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success” (2015) (www.aacu.org)

29. Means The Emerging Quality Framework Also Includes a Strong Emphasis on Engaged Learning: High Impact Practices and the Centrality of Student Work

30. When Students Participate Frequently in High Impact Practices, They Deepen Their Learning AND They Are More Likely to Complete In Other Words: High Impact Practices are a Crucial Key to BOTH Meanings of Student Success: Completion and Quality Learning

31. New Tools Educators Also Have New Tools or “Guiding Principles”for Applying the Quality Framework to The Design of Degree Programs—Major Programs and General Education Alike

32. New Tools • The LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes and GEMS Design Principles • The Degree Qualifications Profile and Models for “Tuning” Major Fields’ Curricula and Pedagogy These Tools Strongly Emphasize Students’ Active Practice in Integrating and Applying Their Learning—in Research, Experiential Learning, and Civic Contexts

33. But Not All the News is Good The Learning Revolution Has Begun, But It Still Has a Long Way to Go If We Want ALL Our Students To Benefit

34. Taken Together, Assessments of Many Different Kinds Show a Deep Disconnect Between the Learning We Say is Important to Students’ Futures and Their Demonstrated Achievement on Key Learning Outcomes

35. Documenting Underachievement • Employer Views • Students’ Own Self-Reports (HERI, NSSE, etc.) • Wabash Longitudinal Studies of Key Learning Outcomes • First Results from the VALUE/Multistate Study Using VALUE Rubrics and Samples of Student Work at the Second-Year and Final-Year Levels

36. Achieving Quality Learning How Educators and Accreditors Can Lead

37. Making Quality Learning a Policy and Equity Priority—What Presidents and Regional Accreditors Can Do Above and Beyond Your Leadership on Learning Outcomes and Assessment, • Expect Evidence that Program Pathways are Well-Designed to Successfully Foster the Intended Learning • Articulate—as a Community—the Key Components of a Quality College Education

38. Program Pathways Changing Our Programs into “Guided Learning Pathways” That Are Consciously And Collaboratively Designed to Help Students Practice, Achieve, and Demonstrate—Across Their Studies—That They Have Achieved the Essential Learning Outcomes, AND Are Prepared to Tackle Those Complex Problems That Are the Key—To Career, Community, and Personal “Success”

39. Program Pathways (Continued) • Mapping Guided Learning Pathways Will Require a Break with the Old Divisions Between Liberal Arts/Transfer vs. Career/Technical/Professional| • We Need Both the Imagination and the Systems Determination to Break with Outworn Verities and Create Vibrant Educational Contexts That BraidBroad Learning and Career Preparation Together

40. A Six-Part Framework for Guided Learning Pathways • Define and Map the Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) • Sequence Programs, Courses, and Assignments to Guide Persistence and Learning • High Touch/High Tech Supports, Onramps, and Systems • Build High Impact Practices Into the Pathways • Make Applied Learning Projects Expected • Authentic Assessments: Use Students’ Work as the Evidence of Their ELO Levels

41. Step Two: Sequence Courses, Learning Outcomes, and Well-Designed Assignments to Help Students Practice and Develop the Intended Learning Outcomes Faculty Engage in “Curriculum Mapping”—a Process of Intentional Planning that Connects Program Courses, ELOs, Student Assignments, and High Impact Practices in a SHARED PLAN to Foster Deep Learning and Demonstrated Student Accomplishment—of the ELOs—AND of Signature Work

43. Create a Quality Learning Compact—Making Visible, Across All Regions and All Kinds of Institutions—the Key Components of a Quality College Education See the Employer-Educator Compact (Handout) for a Possible Model

44. Educators Need to Lead Forward—Challenging Learning-Agnostic Metrics for Quality

45. Educators Need to Lead Forward— Banding Together To Advance Our Students’ Best Interests

46. Accreditors Were the Catalyst That Helped Create Our Shared Quality Framework

47. I Warmly Urge You Now to Take the Next Step and Make the Framework A Shared Commitment!