FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR HIGHER FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM EDUCATION REFORM Teaching and Learning: Quality, Teaching and Learning: Quality, Transparency, Efficiency and ProductivityTransparency, Efficiency and Productivity

Global HR Forum Session A-3 Seoul, Korea

November 6, 2008

Marshall S. SmithEducation Program Director

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

OverviewOverview

§ Introduction: Changing world of tertiary education: Accountability for teaching and learning critical.

§ Three disruptive interventions for teaching and learning§ OpenCourseWare: Transparency and accountability.§ Open Learning Initiative: Efficiency and effectiveness.

§ OECD assessment. Effectiveness and productivity.

§ Observations.

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Indicators of Teaching and LearningIndicators of Teaching and Learning§ Tertiary education critical to economic and social capital

of a nation. § Huge growth in demand. § Investment in needs growing.

§ Changing economies create new goals and opportunities§ 21st century skills.§ Web–based teaching and learning opportunities and

environments.

§ Typical measures of inputs (books, college admission scores) and outputs (research, graduation rates).

§ Few measures of added value of institution to student learning.

§ Investors inspire growing need for assurances of effectiveness of teaching and learning.

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OpenCourseWareOpenCourseWare (OCW)(OCW)

§ OCW is open, free, on the web 24/7

§ OCW is course materials, syllabi, lecture notes and guides, reading lists, assessments, simulations, video, etc.

§ MIT started in 2001: now 1,800 courses

§ OCW Consortium: now 200 members: 6,000 total courses

§ 10 languages: many translations

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48Dalian 2008 OCWC Conference

Universities working together to advance education and empower people

OCWC Live Sites—January 2007

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• 75 live OCW sites• 6000 + published courses

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122Dalian 2008 OCWC Conference

Universities working together to advance education and empower people

Monthly Visits: April 2007

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OCW: Quality, Transparency and OCW: Quality, Transparency and AccountabilityAccountability§ Professors value respect of peers and

students.§ An OCW course is open for all peers,

students, parents, administrators around the world to review.

§ Powerful incentive to motivate high-quality work by faculty posting their work.

§ The transparency helps inspire other faculty to meet quality standards.

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Open Learning Initiative (OLI)Open Learning Initiative (OLI)

§ Carnegie Mellon University open (web-based, 24/7) full college courses.

§ Based on cognitive and computer science. Content exactly what corresponding lecture course has.

§ “Cognitive tutors” have:§ very high-quality content§ feedback loops to personalize instruction– individual tutors§ courses under student control and motivating.

§ Experiments indicate as effective or more so –randomized design experiment shows more effective in one-half the time.

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Open Learning InitiativeOpen Learning InitiativePossible implications§ Supports learners in regular and supplemental

fashion. § May replace need for lecturers in many courses.§ Challenges structure of instruction and role of

professors.§ Challenges conventional thinking about semesters.§ Probably more effective than many teachers. § Powerful implications for efficiency. § Open creates diverse opportunities for learning.

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OECD Learning AssessmentOECD Learning Assessment§ At meeting in 2007 OECD Ministers of

Education interested in assessing impact of tertiary institutions on student learning.

§ Motivated by OECD Programme in Student Assessment: 21st century skills assessment for 15-year-olds. Powerful policy implications.

§ Planning group recommended a trial tertiary assessment.

§ Main purpose being formative, used for improvement: Ministers approved.

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OECD Institutional AssessmentOECD Institutional Assessment§ Trial Assessment: 3-4 countries, 3-4

institutions per country.§ Two possible assessments:

1. Based on Collegiate Learning Assessment in U.S. to assess general problem-solving, analysis, creative writing skills to sample of overall graduating class.

2. Assess widely used and relatively common content discipline area: sample of discipline area graduates.

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OECD Learning AssessmentOECD Learning Assessment§ If works, by 2013 available to all OECD and

possibly other countries.

§ Institutional scores.

§ Perhaps pre-assessment in future to capture value-added by the institution.

§ Measure to be interpreted with other quality and effectiveness institutional measures.

§ Focus on effectiveness and productivity.

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ObservationsObservations§ Each approach: Open CourseWare, open

courses, institutional assessment—affects different aspects of institution’s quality and effectiveness.

§ Each challenges conventional practice.

§ Each is entirely plausible. The implementation challenge, however, is adaptive and requires§ expertise and organizational skills§ great political will

§ The payoff is potentially substantial.

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