Prior Learning Assessment

1. Prior Learning Assessment Information and Request from CTCs for JAOG, May 19th, 2008

2. What Does PLA Do? • Creates pathways for adult learners to gain credit for learning from a variety of sources so that college level learning acquired prior to enrollment can be accepted towards institutional credentials and degrees. Serving Adult Learners in Higher Education Principles of Effectiveness, CAEL, page 7

3. What is PLA Assessment?CAEL Standards (3 slides) • Credit or its equivalent should be awarded only for learning, and not for experience. • Assessment should be based on standards and criteria for the level of acceptable learning that are both agreed upon and made public. • Assessment should be treated as an integral part of learning, not separate from it, and should be based on an understanding of the learning process. • The determination of credit awards and competence levels must be made by appropriate subject matter and academic credentialing experts.

4. What is PLA Assessment?CAEL Standards • Credits or other credentialing should be appropriate to the context in which it is awarded and accepted. • If awards are for credit, transcript entries should clearly describe what learning is being recognized and should be monitored to avoid giving credit twice for the same learning. • Policies, procedures, and criteria applied to assessment, including provision for appeal, should be fully disclosed and prominently available to all parties involved in the assessment process.

5. What is PLA Assessment?CAEL Standards • Fees charged for assessment should be based on the services performed in the process and not determined by the amount of credit awarded. • All personnel involved in the assessment of learning should pursue and receive adequate training and continuing professional development for the functions they perform. • Assessment programs should be regularly monitored, reviewed, evaluated, and revised as needed to reflect changes in the needs being served, the purposes being met, and the state of the assessment arts.

6. CTC Goals • Avoid requiring adult learners to take courseson that which they already know thus avoiding delay on the road tonew knowledge. • Speed progress toward degree by both acknowledging learning outside the institution and awarding credit where that learning is judged by faculty as comparable to specific courses. • Provide PLA where courses will transfer in the same manner as the comparable taught course transfers.

7. Current Washington Policy ICRC Guidelines • While accepting the Associate degree, receiving institutions shall grant credit for extra-institutional learning on the same basis for transfer students as for native students. • Community college representatives should be aware that credits granted for CLEP exams, military experience and training courses, life and work experience, and other nontraditional credits are restricted within the same 15-credit limit as the listed subjects.

8. NORTHWEST COMMISSION ON COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIESACCREDITATION HANDBOOK 2003 EDITION Policy 2.3 Credit for Prior Experiential Learning The NWCCU recognizes the validity of granting credit for prior experiential learning, provided the practice is carefully monitored and documented. Credit for PEL may be offered under the conditions stated below. Not designed to apply to CLEP, AP, or ACE-evaluated military credit. Credit for courses taken from non-accredited institutions must be addressed pursuant to Policy 2.5.

9. NWCCU II. • Policies and procedures for awarding experiential learning credit must be adopted, described in appropriate institutional publications, and reviewed at regular intervals. • Credit for PEL may be granted only at the undergraduate level. • Credit may be granted only upon recommendation of teaching faculty who are appropriately qualified and who are on a regular appointment with the college on a continuing basis.

10. NWCCU III. • Credit may be granted only for documented learning which ties the prior experience to the theories and data of the relevant academic fields. • Credit may be granted only for documented learning which falls within the regular curricular offerings of the institution. • An institution that uses documentation and interviews in lieu of examinations must demonstrate in its self-study that the documentation provides the academic assurances of equivalence to credit earned by traditional means. • Credit for PEL should not constitute more than 25% of the credits needed for a degree or certificate.

11. Summary of CTC PLA • CTC faculty evaluate prior learning evidence (3-5 colleges currently doing PLA – others interested in adding PLA if 15 credit restricted elective limit expands) • Credit granted only to enrolled students, for specific courses, identified on the student’s transcript as credit for PLA. • Can be graded if pass/fail is insufficient for transfer.

12. Implications for Transfer • Request expanding the limit of 15 restricted electives • Requesting change such that universities accept PLA exactly as the taught course – rather “than grant credit for extra-institutional learning on the same basis for transfer students as for native students.” • Clarify courses that cannot transfer as PLA, if any cannot, to the extent possible a statewide list - such that adult students would not seek assessment of prior learning in those subject areas.