AbilityBased Education at Alverno College

1

• Ability-Based Education at Alverno College

2
Student Body

• UG Women
• G Women and Men
• 70 First Generation College including 32
  Minority
• Fall 2008 Enrollment 2654
• 96 received Financial Aid
• 32 Catholic, 19 other denominations

3
Proposed Outcomes for Session

• to have a sense of each others educational
  principles both unique and shared
• to have enough of an initial understanding of
  Alvernos educational program to have a
  meaningful conversation about the design of a
  competency based HS program in Michigan

4
Three sets of key ideas

• Why people listen to Alverno College
• What are we doing that captures attention?
• Why people should listen to Alverno College
• Where does our practice fit with current
  cognitive and social psychology?
• Why people should apply what they hear when they
  listen to Alverno College
• What impact can we/are we having on critical
  issues for education in the US and abroad?

5
Why people listen to Alverno College

• Alverno is cited consistently as an example of
  effectiveness in higher education because of
• The eight abilities
• The assessment process
• The connections we make to contexts in which
  students practice what theyre learning
• Our use of the Diagnostic Digital Portfolio,
  which captures faculty feedback and student self
  assessment over time

6
The New York TimesJanuary 1, 2000

• As students, professors, and politicians seek
  clearer definitions of what a basic college
  education should include and how to measure the
  results, Alverno. . . offers a breathtakingly
  simple approach to both. . . Deceptively simple,
  but Alverno has won many awards and drawn a
  stream of corporate and educational visitors from
  as far away as Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi.

7
PRINCIPLE

• Educators are RESPONSIBLE for making learning
  more available
• by ARTICULATING OUTCOMES
• and making them PUBLIC

8
One of the Questions the President asked each
Department to Address

• What are you teaching that is so important that
  students cannot afford to pass up courses in your
  department?

Which led to questions like

• How do you want your students to be able to think
  as a result of studying your discipline?
• What do you want your students to be able to do
  as a result of studying your discipline?

9

• In 1973, new curriculum initiated based on eight
  institutional abilities or outcomes

• Graduation requirements based on demonstration of
  outcomes rather than distribution requirements.

10
PRINCIPLE
Education GOES BEYOND knowing to being able
to DO WHAT ONE KNOWS
11
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Writing
Speaking
12
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Reading
Listening
13
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Quantitative Literacy
Media Literacy
14
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Computer Literacy
15
ANALYTICAL CAPABILITY
16
PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY
17
VALUING IN DECISION MAKING CONTEXTS
18
EFFECTIVE SOCIAL INTERACTION
19
DEVELOPING A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
20
EFFECTIVE CITIZENSHIP
21
AESTHETIC ENGAGEMENT
22
Abilities that

• Involve the whole person
• Are teachable
• Can be assessed
• Transfer across settings
• Are continually re-evaluated and
• re-defined

23
PRINCIPLE
Abilities need to be defined in a way that our
teaching of them can be DEVELOPMENTAL
24

• Impact tape

25
Analysis

• Level 1 Show observational skills
• Level 2 Draw reasonable inferences
• Level 3 Perceive and make relationships
• Level 4 Analyze structure and organization
• Level 5 Employ frameworks from major and
  support disciplines in order to analyze
• Level 6 Independently employ frameworks

26
PRINCIPLE
Designing for learning involves INTEGRATING
abilities with disciplines and across disciplines
27
Examples from Sets of Outcomes for Chemistry

• Communicates effectively, using language,
  concepts, and models of chemistry
• Uses methodology of chemistry to define and solve
  problems individually and collaboratively

28
Examples from Sets of Outcomes for Business and
Management

• The student
• uses discipline models and theories to analyze
  interdependence among systems, organizations,
  individuals, and events (Systems Thinking and
  Analysis)
• applies business and management principles to
  develop and deliver quality products or services
  (Enterprising and Problem Solving)
• uses team and organizational skills to work
  effectively with diverse individuals, teams, and
  organizational units to meet stakeholder and
  organizational goals (Interacting and Leading)

29
(No Transcript)
30
PRINCIPLE
Abilities must be carefully IDENTIFIED and
COMPARED to what CONTEMPORARY LIFE requires
31
PRINCIPLE
INTEGRAL to LEARNING is ASSESSMENT
32
as . sess ( ses) v.t. late ME ltML ltL assess
(us) ptp. of assidere (ad sedere)to sit down
beside
e
e
33
Student Assessment-as-Learning

• Institutional and
• Program Assessment

34
Student Assessment-as-Learning

• A process in operation at Alverno College,
  integral to learning, that involves observation
  and judgment of each students performance on the
  basis of explicit criteria, with self assessment
  and resulting feedback to the student.

It serves to confirm student achievement and
provide feedback to the student for the
improvement of learning and to the instructor for
the improvement of teaching.
35
Institutional and Program Assessment

• Processes that yield patterns of student and
  alumna learning, development, and performance on
  a range of educational outcomes. They provide
  meaningful feedback to faculty, staff, and
  various publics for improvement, shared learning,
  and demonstrated effectiveness.

These processes ensure comparisons to standards
(faculty, disciplinary, professional,
accrediting, certifying), and enable
evidence-based judgments of how students and
alumnae benefit from the curriculum and college
culture.
36
PRINCIPLE

• Essential to learning and assessment are
• Public, Expected Outcomes/Criteria
• Performance
• Feedback
• Self Assessment

37
PRINCIPLE
The effectiveness of assessment for everyone
involved depends on the existence of a total
dynamic system that contributes to the coherence
and continuous improvement of the curriculum
38
MISSION
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
INSTITUTIONAL/PROGRAM ASSESSMENT
STUDENT LEARNING
(INSTITUTION PROGRAM COURSE)
ASSESSMENT
TEACHING
EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES
39
Teacher Education Recognition and Award

• Alverno is one of two teacher preparation
  institutions with a faculty member who has
  received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in
  Education. Mary Diez received the prize in 1995.
• Alverno is one of seven institutions featured in
  the 1999 Studies of Excellence in Teacher
  Education produced by the National Commission on
  Teaching and Americas Future.

40
More on Teacher Education

• Alverno was one of four teacher education
  programs honored by Secretary of Education Riley
  in 1999 in a competition held by the Department
  of Education.
• Alverno was one of four teacher education
  programs cited as exceptionally effective in
  Arthur Levines study in 2006.
• Alverno was one of ten innovative teacher
  education programs identified by Edutopia in 2007.

41
Why People Should Listen to Alverno College

• Alverno stands as one of the few institutions
  that offers an existence proof regarding the
  principles and theories being proposed as
  cutting edge for the 21st century.
• For example, Chickering and Gamson (1987) mapped
  out some fundamental principles, including this
  The more students actively engage with subject
  matter, the better they master materials and
  develop critical skills.

42
Why people should apply what they hear when they
listen to Alverno

• Were in desperate need, world-wide, of more
  effective education, focused on the development
  of learners
• K-12 schools and undergraduate college programs
  alike are not as successful in developing
  learners as they need to be
• Professional schools, as well, increasingly need
  to be clear about their outcomes and document
  that students are meeting them

43
21st Century Learning

• "If America is to meet the needs of 21st century
  learners, we must move away from the norms that
  governed factory-era schools.... Transforming
  schools into 21st century learning communities
  means recognizing that teachers must become
  members of a growing network of shared
  expertise.
• National Commission on Teaching and Americas
  Future

44
21st Century Skills

• The often touted 21st Century Learning Skills map
  onto the 8 abilities and the Alverno learning and
  assessment process
• Life and Career Skills
  Alverno
• Flexibility Adaptability Dispositions
• Initiative Self-Direction Self Assessment
• Social Cross-Cultural Skills Social
  Interaction
• Productivity Accountability Self Assessment
• Leadership Responsibility Social Interaction/
  Valuing/Effective
  
  Citizenship

45
Different World

• Industrial workers were measured by their
  efficiency
• Knowledge workers are
• measured by their effectiveness

46
21st Century Skills

• Learning and Innovation Skills/ Information,
  Media and Technology Skills

• Alverno Abilities/Processes

• Problem Solving
• Analysis
• Problem Solving
• Communication
• Social Interaction
• Communication - IL
• Communication - ML
• Communication - Technology

• Creativity and Innovation Skills
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
• Communication and Collaboration Skills
• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• ICT Literacy

47
Black and William (1998)

• Black and Wiliam did a comprehensive
  meta-analysis of research on the impact of
  feedback on learning. They found that giving
  learners effective descriptive feedback rivals
  one-on-one tutoring in the impact on growth, as
  measured by standardized tests2-4 years of
  growth in one year, in some instances.