GE Resources
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Click on the column headings to sort GE resources by subject, date, or file name. Send contributions to Ken O'Donnell.
| File | Description | Document Date | Subject |
| Harvesting Gradebook webinar | This is the PowerPoint file from the webinar the GE Affinity Group hosted on February 10, 2010. The Harvesting Gradebook is an on-line tool in development at the Office of Assessment and Innovation, at Washington State University. It facilitates assessment by multiple reviewers of student work, wherever it resides on the web. Related resources are at http://communitylearning.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/from-harvesting-to-learning-outcomes/. | 2010-02-10 | assessment |
| group roster | 2010-02-02 | group roster | |
| Raising the Bar: Employers' Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn | This is an updated survey of employers, conducted by Peter Hart and Associates at the request of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. It makes a good case for the practical value of liberal education learning outcomes. | 2010-01-20 | workforce |
| Webinar on Sustainability and GE | This is the webinar presented by Geoffrey Chase, Dean of Undergraduate Education at San Diego State University, on using the theme of sustainability to integrate and contextualize a general education curriculum. | 2009-11-18 | GE design |
| Measuring Student Learning as an Indicator of Institutional Effectiveness: Practices, Challenges, and Possibilities | Wendy Erisman of the Texas Higher Education Policy Institute surveys current assessment practice in various states to inform recommendations to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. This is readable and accessible, putting into a national context several of the initiatives underway in California, including the Voluntary System of Accountability and the AAC&U's VALUE rubrics. | 2009-11-10 | assessment |
| Mapping Outcomes by LEAPs and Bounds | This is the webinar presentation from Gail Evans, Dean of Undergraduate Education, and Maggie Beers, Director of Academic Technology, both of San Francisco State University. It shows how SFSU is using technology to harness course-level grading and assessment, repurposing it toward program review and accreditation. |
2009-10-29 | assessment |
| VALUE webinar | This is the PowerPoint used in the presentation we heard from Dr. Terrel Rhodes, Vice President in the Office of Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment at the Association of American Colleges and Universities. His presentation was on the national development of rubrics to describe learning in general education. The rubrics are available to the public at aacu.org/value. | 2009-09-29 | assessment |
| Crafting a Student-Centered Transfer Process in California: Lessons from Other States | From the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at Sacramento State: the authors survey policy options from around the country that could improve the portion of community college students who successfully transfer to California's public universities. |
2009-08-15 | student success |
| In Defense of a Liberal Education | Op-Ed piece in Forbes Magazine by Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges & Universities. It has some familiar arguments about the value of general education in the 21st century, sharply written and appropriate to lay audiences. Good quotes for web pages. | 2009-08-10 | workforce |
| New Center Aims To Close Achievement Gap In Schools | This article describes the new California State University Center to Close the Achievement Gap, a partnership between the state’s business community and the California Sate University system, created to "attack the problem of the achievement gap by focusing on preparation of administrators and teachers in the CSU system." It includes excellent data on shortcomings in the status quo, and the lost opportunities for students and the state alike. | 2009-07-30 | student success |
| Online-Education Study Reaffirms the Value of Good Teaching, Experts Say | David Glenn wrote this two-page article in the Chronicle of Higher Education summarizing a study from the DOE. From the article: "Last week . . . the U.S. Department of Education released a report that, at least at first glance, carries a strong message about the medium: Students learn more effectively in online settings. Most powerful of all appear to be “blended” courses that offer both face-to-face and online elements." | 2009-07-02 | on-line |
| Does California's Master Plan Still Work? | Pamela Burdman, formerly of the Hewlett Foundation and a reporter on higher education, writes very candidly in Change Magazine about how we got here, the problems we're facing, and the prospects for change. | 2009-07-01 | GE design |
| Competencies over Courses in Medical Education | Report by Ben Eisen writing in Inside Higher Education on developements in med school assessment. The article quotes Carol Aschenbrener, Executive Vice President at the Association of American Medical Colleges, describing their recent paper. "The report is trying to shift people away from focusing on courses and more on what to do with scientific information — what you want the entering student to be able to do. One can arrive at competencies in many ways through interdisciplinary approaches." |
2009-06-05 | assessment |
| Home Dissection Kits and More | David Moltz, writing in Inside Higher Ed on the growing use of mail-order kits that make at-home laboratory experiences possible for on-line science learning. | 2009-06-05 | on-line |
| Adopting Performance Based Funding | This is a pair of articles by David Moltz, writing in Inside Higher Ed, describing efforts underway in several states to key public funding for higher education to completion rather than enrollment. Most states (including ours) support their universities with marginal funding for each student enrolled a certain day into the term. Making a greater payment per student on completion of the course -- or even the degree -- would incentivize a focus on student success. | 2009-05-09 | GE design |
| Toward a 21st Century Renaissance | Robert Weisbuch, president of Drew University, argues for a deeper, more intentional interdisciplinarity. The essay is from Inside Higher Ed and adapted from a speech he gave to the 2009 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. It's conversational but includes good ideas for replacing cafeteria-style GE and creating an institutional learning community. | 2009-05-05 | GE design |
| Lumina's Leader Sets Lofty Goal for Fund's Role in Policy Debates | Sara Hebel, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, profiles Jamie Merisotis after his first year leading the Lumina Foundation for Education. This gives good insight into the foundations funding priorities, i.e. its agenda of access and a shift to outcomes-oriented education. | 2009-04-30 | student success |
| End the University As We Know It | Writing in the New York Times, Columbia University Chair of Religion Mark C. Taylor argues it's time to embrace interdisciplinary education with an outcomes focus. | 2009-04-27 | GE design |
| The Core of Bologna: Its Arrival in the U.S. Is Inevitable | This is a PowerPoint presentation from Cliff Adelman to Academic Affairs staff in the CSU Office of the Chancellor. He reviews Europe's progress toward consistent, outcomes-based definitions of degrees by discipline, and anticipates implications for American higher education. | 2009-04-15 | Bologna |
| Education Tuning Shows What Students Learned | Transcript of an interview from NPR's Talk of the Nation, including a conversation between host Neal Conan and Phyllis Safman, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Affairs, Utah System of Higher Education. Utah is one of the states funded by Lumina to implement a Bologna-style "tuning" process to shift to outcomes-based education. | 2009-04-14 | Bologna |
| Creating the On-Ramp for the Baccalaureate Degree at Tidewater Community College | By Tidewater Community College President Deborah DiCroce, writing in AAC&U News. Describes how the college revised its curriculum around core competencies rather than distribution requirements, to improve major integration. |
2009-04-01 | major integration |
| The Bologna Process for U.S. Eyes: Re-learning Higher Education in the Age of Convergence | This is the definitive, 250-page account of the Bologna Process, by its main expert and advocate in the U.S., Clifford Adelman of the Institute for Higher Education Policy. From the preface: "Since May of 1999, 46 European countries have been engaged in reconstructing their higher education systems to bring about a greater degree of “convergence,” i.e. a move toward common reference points and operating procedures to create a European Higher Education Area . . . That means harmonization, not standardization. When these national higher education systems work with the same reference points they produce a “zone of mutual trust” that permits recognition of credentials across borders and significant international mobility for their students. Everyone is singing in the same key, though not necessarily with the same tune. In terms reaching across geography and languages, let alone in terms of turning ancient higher education systems on their heads, the Bologna Process is the most far reaching and ambitious reform of higher education ever undertaken." | 2009-04-01 | Bologna |
| Online Learning Set To Soar | Article in eSchool News summarizes a presentation by Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School to a meeting of the American Association of School Administrators. He argues that on-line learning is at a tipping point and will rise to 50% of seat time within ten years. From the article: "Until now, it has been very expensive to teach to students' individual needs, he said-and yet, research shows that's how students learn best. One reason online learning is attractive is because it allows for more of this cus tomized approach to instruction than can be found in many classrooms. But now, software that enables every child to learn at his or her own pace is becoming a scalable, modular way to deliver customized learning, Christensen said - and it's another economically important solution for schools." | 2009-04-01 | on-line |
| Closing the Gap: Meeting California's Need for College Graduates | By Hans Johnson and Ria Sengupta, writing for the Public Policy Institute of California. The authors use state demographic and educational trends to argue that in fifteen years we'll be a million graduates short of the number we need to maintain our economy. From the report: "As a pathway for increasing the number of bachelor degree graduates in California, the community college transfer function has much potential and also considerable room for improvement. With more than 70 percent of public higher education students in California in community colleges, the importance of the transfer function to increase bachelor degree production cannot be overstated." | 2009-04-01 | student success |
| The Information Super-Library | David Moltz, writing in Inside Higher Ed, describes the on-line "Great Books Program" at Monterey Peninsula College. From the article: "Next fall, Monterey Peninsula College in California will launch its Great Books Program. By completing an introductory course and any four related courses, students can earn a certificate recognizing them as a 'Great Books Scholar.' While many community colleges teach classic works of literature, full programs and online programs in the field are uncommon." |
2009-03-11 | on-line |
| Beyond the Bubble: Technology and the Future of Student Assessment | From Bill Tucker, writing in Education Sector Reports. Technology can give us more sophisticated evidence of learning: "Using multiple forms of media that allow for both visual and graphical representations, we can present complex, multi-step problems for students to solve, and we can collect detailed information about an individual student’s approach to problem solving." | 2009-02-01 | assessment |
| Community College Transfer and Articulation Policies: Looking Beneath the Surface | From Bethany Gross and Dan Goldhaber, writing for the Center on Reinventing Public Education. Authors look at statistically influential factors predicting success transfer from community colleges to four-year universities, and find that articulation policies make little difference. The only measurable boost comes from the presence of a tenured faculty at the community college. | 2009-01-30 | student success |
| It's Time To End Courseocentrism | Five-page article by Gerald Graff in Inside Higher Ed, arguing for more integrative curriculum and teaching. From the article: "Such [stand-alone] courses are at odds with the new forms of connectivity enabled by our new electronic technology. They are also at odds with the most sophisticated and original work in the humanities during the last generation, which has taught us that what seem to be free-standing identities—whether they be texts or selves — are produced by collective structures of discourse and representation. It seems we have deconstructed the autonomous, self-authorizing subject and the autonomous, self-authorizing literary work. It’s time we got around to deconstructing the autonomous, self-authorizing course." | 2009-01-13 | major integration |
| Hogan & Hartson LLP memo to General Counsel of University Clients | This is a five-page report by a consulting firm to its U.S. clients, on the progress and implications of Europe's outcomes-oriented Bologna "tuning" process. | 2009-01-12 | Bologna |
| The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age | Cathy Davidson and David Goldberg argue that higher end has been slow to recognize the changing, more open nature of learning. "Our institutions of learning have changed far more slowly than the modes of inventive, collaborative, participatory learning offered by the Internet and an array of contemporary mobile technologies. Part of the reason for the relatively slow change is that many of our traditional institutions have been tremendously successful, if measured in terms of endurance and stability." | 2009-01-01 | on-line |