The article reports that several law deans reported that they are too busy with budget cuts, tough job markets and soaring costs to be bothered with whether students learn. OK, they did not exactly say that last part, but that is still the message. What they did say is that they would likely have to “hire additional staff members to collect data and develop testing metrics, and some curriculum changes could be expensive.”

Excuse me?  What is it that you do in your law schools?

Some of the deans say that you cannot measure what will make a good lawyer through traditional assessment techniques. Now, that is a novel argument.  Well, not really. We hear that same lament from every profession. We are special. We cannot become, per a quote in the article, uniform and rigid.

And this is in the face of a job market where employers complain that they are hiring law school graduates who cannot do the job without extensive training after being hired.  Phillip A. Bradley is quoted as saying “many law firms are developing core competencies they expect of their lawyers, but many law schools aren’t delivering graduates who come close to meeting them.”  “Some law schools are of the view that delivering law graduates who have been ‘trained to think like a lawyer’ is sufficient.”

Seems like these law school deans need to wake up.

The idea of producing law graduates trained to think like lawyers reminds me of my experience attending orientation to law school some decades ago.  To get from the main campus to the law school meant walking through the campus of the art school, and we were told that “by god, when someone meets you on the path, you had damned well better look like a lawyer, and not some artist.”  Sort of reminds me of the way tobacco used to be sold—you, too, can be a Marlboro man.  It’s all in the attitude and the brand of cigarette you smoke – or the reputation of your law school.

I guess things haven’t changed all that much over the years. Apparently the law schools can still train ‘em to look and think like lawyers, and that should be good enough.  They don’t need any of this radical assessment of learning stuff.

Please let me know what you think with a comment.

Mike

But there is more to the story.  The decision in Maryland was a sensitive one because it was based on the desire to protect historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) from competition by nearby universities. I understand and support the desire to assure that these historically black institutions receive some protection from competition. I just don’t know how to protect a school in a situation like this. Perhaps it would make more sense to help Morgan State develop an online version of its program, so that the people of Maryland would be able to access a Maryland-based doctoral program.

Regardless, there is an element of absurdity here.

Your thoughts?  Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike

Mike

But, there is also a need to recognize the limitations of their data and their report card. Because education is the bailiwick of the states rather than the federal government, it is natural on one level to approach a report card on a state by state basis. But, this is also problematic because geography is no longer an important limiter in access to or provision of education. There are a number of national universities and many other universities that offer programs across state borders. Please note that, while cross-border is often used to describe the crossing of international borders, I am using that term to describe the crossing of state borders. In fact, the increasing number of online programs that are cross-border may confound the data used in Measuring Up and lead to inaccurate conclusions. And, the failure to consider the impact of these types of institutions, of which Capella University is one, by state policymakers continues to be a problem. The state policymakers fail to understand or leverage the advantages that these institutions offer in enhancing state higher education attainment rates and workforce development efforts.

Pat Callan acknowledges that the data available are problematic, and is quoted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, “the information the federal government does collect is about a diminishing part of the college population: first-time, full-time students who remain at the same institution throughout their college careers. We’re still dealing with a kind of 20th-century model.” Readers of this blog know that I wholeheartedly agree that we are still dealing with an old, outdated model of higher education that is focused on higher education students who go from high school to full-time, on-campus study and remain financially dependent on their parents. The basic premise of “the other 85 percent” is that the reality today is 85 percent of college enrollments are adults, part-time students, students who are financially independent, and are not like those from the old model. But, despite Callan’s recognition of limitations, I question the amount of effort that Measuring Up has devoted to fully understanding and/or dealing with change in American higher education like that of cross-border online higher education programs.

Given my focus on adults and other part-time students, I am troubled by the findings in the report, as identified by Inside Higher Ed, that “increased enrollment among traditional college-age students (was) offset by declines in enrollments of adult students.” The report actually states that “most states declined in enrolling working age adults in college-level education or training.” This is identified as a trend dating back to the early 1990’s. This is most alarming at first read. But what Measuring Up seems to be measuring is whether a “state provides enough spaces and types of programs for its residents.” That would clearly miss enrollments in programs offered by colleges and universities other than that states’ public institutions. Given the significant growth of online enrollments in cross-border colleges and universities, particularly by adult students, and particularly since the 1990s, is it possible that what Measuring Up is reflecting is that adults are actually attending online colleges and universities other than their own state institutions? I think that is a distinct possibility.

And that is very troubling to me because Measuring Up is intended to shake up state policymakers. And it has in the past. But those same policymakers are facing demands to increase higher education attainment rates and develop their workforce while confronting huge budget challenges. But there is limited, if any, understanding of the current contributions made by online, cross-border programs and the even larger potential for states to work with these colleges and universities as they address attainment rates and workforce development issues. The opportunity exists to leverage these colleges and universities without having to invest state funds.

The work of Measuring Up is important – it does add value. I just hope that it does not add to the lack of visibility into the potential of online, cross-border institutions to help states to address their challenges. I fear that is exactly the impact it will have.

More to come on Measuring Up….

Please feel free to share your thoughts or questions in the comments section.

Mike

He then describes two consequences of an overreliance on faculty expertise that I consider unfortunate.  First, Ewell describes the “role of deference and reputation in determining quality” that results in a tendency not to look beyond faculty credentials in deciding if quality exists.  That is, faculty credentials can lead reviewers to assume that quality exists simply because the faculty have good credentials, even when there might be signs that quality is lacking.  There is sometimes a failure to develop concrete evidence of quality performance if faculty credentials are of an acceptable level.

Second, a “subtle consequence of valuing expertise is a tendency to privilege sound design over consistent execution in curricula and teaching practices.”  This means that if professionally trained faculty have designed and are delivering a curriculum, that is sufficient evidence of quality.  Ewell concludes that “the underlying culture of deference to expertise inherent in the academic culture sometimes blinds its members to the need to consider deeper curricular implementation issues like whether or not students are taking their courses in the right order or whether they are even completing their programs.”

Certainly it is important to assure that faculty have the right preparation to effectively teach the subject-matter at a level appropriate to the degree program in which they are involved.  However, Ewell points out the dangers of over-emphasis on credentials and the importance of concrete evidence of “consistent execution in curricula and teaching practices.”

Online programs tend to involve considerable advanced planning and development.  Increasingly, that development is focused at the curricular or program level.  In the early days of online education development, much emphasis was placed on developing courses.  But this approach suffered from the same problems that more traditional education approaches encountered in that a collection of courses do not necessarily make an effective curriculum.  As Ewell points out, there must be consideration of sequence and program outcomes achievement.  There are various ways being employed to assure a program level focus and to measure program learning outcomes.  Transparency by Design institutions are committed to measuring and reporting learning outcomes at the program level.

As an example of one way to deliver on this commitment, Capella University has made substantial efforts to expand the usual online development team of faculty subject-matter expert with an instructional designer to also include a curriculum specialist and an assessment specialist.  These added roles are intended to assure an end-to-end perspective on the program curriculum and to embed outcomes assessments throughout the courses that make up a program.  Each program then has a curriculum map that shows when and how desired learning outcomes are presented and measured and concludes with a capstone where a student is expected to demonstrate achievement of the program level outcomes.  We are assessing how well our students actually demonstrate achievement and will report these findings, along with the other Transparency by Design institutions, in early 2009.

Perhaps the next time a book like Peter Ewell’s is written, the value of identifying, measuring and reporting on learning outcomes will be included as part of what drives accreditation and the academy.  That learning outcomes assessment will be valued in a balanced way along with faculty preparation and expertise in a more holistic view of what constitutes quality.

Your thoughts? I look forward to seeing your comments.

Mike