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Peer Review, Winter 2003
Reality Check
Ensuring Not Simply P-16 Alignment, but Truly Educated
Students for the Twenty-First Century
By Andrea Leskes, vice president for education
and quality initiatives, Association of American Colleges
and Universities |
Too many college graduates are found wanting in both their
knowledge and intellectual skills for the constantly changing
twenty-first-century world. In response, colleges and universities
across the country have begun redesigning curricula while
their faculty learn varied, effective new teaching strategies.
Such innovations are aimed at raising the level of student
achievement. So while P-12 struggles to prepare larger numbers
of more diverse students for college, the image of that college
study as held by pre-collegiate educators (and the relevant
policymakers) may soon be outdated. Factual knowledge in traditional
disciplines alone will not ready students for success if college
increasingly stresses integration and the ability to apply
knowledge to solving complex problems. As the expectations
of college study change in response to workplace and societal
demands, P-12 reform may be chasing a goal that is, in fact,
receding into the past.
For those students entering college directly from high school
(what has been considered the traditional-age college student),
readiness for rigorous college-level study will depend largely
on their primary and secondary education. It is this readiness
that all the various P-16 initiatives basically address. In
a comprehensive review of the situation, however, we must
be mindful that higher education also serves large numbers
of returning adult students; their readiness for college success
requires approaches and solutions that are not part of P-16
initiatives. The continuing opportunities they will need to
remedy educational gaps may make the goal of phasing out remedial
work in college unrealistic.
Alignment of standards, as a policy in and of itself, will
not necessarily raise expectations and accomplishment. It
could just as easily adjust them downward. To avoid this unfortunate
result, alignment would ideally work backwards from the highest
desired level of achievement--in this case the capacities,
abilities, and knowledge of a college graduate. In its new
report, Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning
as a Nation Goes to College, AAC&U defines this graduate
as intentional about his or her learning. Such an intentional
learner is empowered through the mastery of intellectual and
practical skills, informed by knowledge from many fields,
and responsible for personal and social values (see facing
page for more details). If the goal of producing such graduates
serves to guide P-16 alignment, it can create a powerful and
relevant educational system. If not, it may fall far short
of what individuals and the country really need.
The competence of college graduates directly impacts P-12
education; after all, tomorrow's schoolteachers are today's
college students. The better college study becomes for all
students--the more rigorous, coherent, integrated, and related
to the needs of contemporary society--the better it becomes,
too, for prospective teachers. Students of education who experience
varied and innovative teaching methods applied to many subjects
will be more likely to emulate these methods in their own
classrooms. Similarly, those who are often challenged through
cooperative work with diverse groups will be better prepared
for guiding diverse students toward success. Through repeated,
authentic assessment of their college work, prospective teachers
will internalize a commitment to continuous improvement that
will find its way into primary and secondary classes. Of course,
responsibility for such an enhanced undergraduate education
is not restricted to faculty members in schools or departments
of education--the responsibility resides in the entire university
faculty.
While standards are the centerpiece of much K-12 reform,
the word can connote a "one-size-fits-all" approach to learning
that fits poorly with U.S. diversity--diversity of individuals,
of aspirations, of school and college missions, of institutional
types. AAC&U urges high, clear, well-articulated, and
aligned standards throughout educational levels, but also
encourages multiple paths for their achievement. During the
college years, too, no one curricular design--no single pathway--will
suit all students and all disciplinary fields. However, agreed
upon outcomes for learning and rubrics that explain the levels
of expected accomplishment will enable students and teachers
alike to gauge their success.
It is important that neither standards nor achievement be
equated with courses completed or seat time. A focus on student
capacities and their demonstration in appropriate ways will
help shift education at all levels toward authentic assessment
of content and skills mastered. Herein lies the real power
of P-16 alignment for transformational change. Through P-16
projects, educators at all levels, together with external
constituency groups, can discuss and agree on benchmarks.
These benchmarks of achievement--knowledge, intellectual skills,
perspectives, practical skills, affective behaviors--derived
from and calibrated with the desired characteristics of a
college graduate, will create purposeful pathways of learning.
Such pathways will, in turn, assure individual students of
personal success, and society of the employees and citizens
needed for an increasingly complex, interdependent world.
The Learning Students Need for the Twenty-First Century
The highest level of student achievement for P-16 alignment--the
gold standard--is that of a college graduate prepared to continue
learning throughout a life lived now and in the future. Such
an individual will need to adapt to new environments and integrate
knowledge from various sources. But all parts of the educational
system, from pre-school through the undergraduate years, must
cooperate to develop such intentional learners. Sustained
opportunities to gain and apply knowledge at successively
more challenging levels will help ensure that education leads
to this ultimate goal.
To thrive in a complex, interdependent, diverse, and constantly
changing world, these intentional learners
must be:
Empowered through the mastery of intellectual
and practical skills
Informed by knowledge and forms of inquiry
basic to many fields
Responsible for their personal actions
and for civic values.
The intellectual and practical skills that students need
are extensive, sophisticated, and expanding with the explosion
of new technologies. Empowered learners excel
at:
- effectively communicating orally, visually, in writing,
and in a second language
- understanding and employing quantitative and qualitative
analysis to solve problems
- interpreting and evaluating information from a variety
of sources
- understanding and working within complex systems and
with diverse groups
- demonstrating intellectual agility and the ability to
manage change
- transforming information into knowledge and knowledge
into judgment and action.
While intellectual and practical skills are essential, so
is a comprehensive knowledge of the world students inherit,
as human beings and as citizens. Informed learners
understand well:
- the human imagination, expression, and the products of
many cultures
- the interrelations within and among global and cross-cultural
communities
- means of modeling the natural, social, and technical
worlds
- the values and histories underlying U.S. democracy.
The integrity of a democratic society depends on citizens'
sense of social responsibility and ethical judgment. Responsible
learners manifest competency in and commitment to:
- intellectual honesty
- responsibility for society's moral health and for social
justice
- active participation as a citizen of a diverse democracy
- discernment of the ethical consequences of decisions
and actions
- deep understanding of one's self and respect for the
complex identities of others, their histories, and their
cultures.
Source: Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning
as a Nation Goes to College (2002)
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