Week 3
While reading Tagg chapters 10-16, I was reminded of an
article posted last week in the Wall Street Journal website. The link is below:
The article describes a new program by the University of
Wisconsin that will grant degrees based solely on performance on assessment tasks (mainly online tests),
regardless of what courses students have taken. So, students never have to
enroll in a class, but can get degrees as long as they can pass the tests.
On the one hand, you can argue this kind of program focuses
on outcomes and performance and is a welcome change to the focus on credit
hours. UW claims that it decouples learning from assessment, and this could
then change the class focus from assessment to learning. It also gives students
more flexibility to progress through the program at their own pace. This seems
to agree with some the ideas and suggestions in Tagg.
But, at the same time, my
instincts as a teacher shout “No!” and here’s why. First, there seems to be a
lack of any effort to build communities of practice like the ones described in Tagg.
For some students this may not be necessary because they are already working in
professional communities and simply seeking to get higher credentials, but for
others the lack of a community of practice could be a really disadvantage.
Secondly, beyond the knowledge and skills typically tested on online tests,
there does not seem to be any effort to address skills like the ability “to
work in a collaborative team” (Tagg, p. 246). I find it funny that for some schools
the need to address these kinds of skills is so important that they start a
special program (i.e. Maryland’s Gemstone program described in Tagg, p. 246), but
then others like the University of Wisconsin are starting new programs that seem to
completely ignore them. Finally, I wonder to what extent students will be engaged
in a ‘hot cognitive economy’ in this kind of program. Will they really attend
classes and focus on learning? Or, will they still just be thinking, “Is this
going to be on the test?”
I’m curious to know what others think about this program.
Degrees granted solely on test performance reminds me of law and medical schools. I am also uncomfortable with that, and I do not personally see the point of investing so much time and intellectual energy to simply earn a piece of paper that tells everyone else I am suddenly smarter and worth more. I want to learn things and apply this knowledge to my experiences.
ReplyDeleteI truly believe that online learning can impede our ability to work together on projects, and this comment is specific to Hawaii since we prefer face-to-face, personal collaborations. For example, here we rely heavily on the smal talk— moments to make connections to each other, and the virtual does not always privilege this.
Thanks for bringing up the conversation!
I am worried about degree quality and that the online-test diploma will be indistinguishable from a regular classroom diploma. I would not do this online-test route, and if I were a regular UWis student, I would worry that the online-test diplomas would lessen the achievement of my diploma. The success or failure of this initiative will impact all UWis students.
ReplyDeleteLast semester, I wrote a paper on international branch campuses (IBCs) and one of the concerns was the quality of the degree. One of the attraction factors for students is that the diploma from the IBC is the same as the one from the home campus. For example, with a Northwestern degree, you will not be able to tell whether the degree was earned at Evanston, Chicago, or Qatar.