Prior Learning, Credentialing and Badges

Take a look at this EDUCAUSE article "7 Things You Should Know About...Badges".

How does the concept of awarding badges fit with other work in the area of assessing and awarding credit for prior learning and the potential shift in emphasis at institutions of higher education toward more outcomes-based credentialing, rather than credit-hours-completed credentialing?

Khan Academy and OCL on Thumb Drive

Wondering how to have a math video for every level of math and 42 fully-developed courses with you (or your students) everywhere you go?

Watch this 43 second video 

The Khan Academy videos and Open Course Library materials are all available offline so you can download them to a Flash Drive.

More info here: http://www.khanacademy.org/downloads#offline and here: http://opencourselibrary.org

Roueche Leaves U. Texas for For-Profit Institution Role

From Inside Higher Ed

Texas Shake-Up

May 30, 2012 - 3:00am

Paul Fain

AUSTIN – John E. Roueche, the founder of the most established graduate program for aspiring community college leaders, located here at the University of Texas at Austin, is moving in July to National American University, a for-profit institution, where he will attempt to create a similar operation.
“We’ll be working with them to design and build a doctoral program,” said Roueche, who has led UT’s Community College Leadership Program for 41 years.

Read the full article...

Faculty Focus Newsletter

June 2012 issue of RTC’s Faculty Focus newsletter.

This issue will be posted online at http://www.rtc.edu/library/LibraryPublications.htm. Under the Faculty Focus heading, click on current issue as either a PDF file or a Word document. Links to back issues of Faculty Focus and Educational Media can also be found via the http://www.rtc.edu/library/LibraryPublications.htm page.

In the next few months, the Faculty Focus newsletters will feature info about master teaching tips and Constitution Day programming. So if you have any tips, websites or other info on these or other topics, please let us know. We hope to maintain a monthly publishing schedule for the Faculty Focus newsletter but can only do that if you help us by providing some content. Thanks in advance for all your help – we appreciate it!

Comments, suggestions, questions? Please let us know. Thanks!

--Debbie
dcrumb@RTC.edu

(on behalf of the Library’s publishing team of Eric Palo, Laura Staley and myself)

Progress: Prior Learning, Precollege, OCL

Summary of work that was done this year to meet requirements of HB 1795 and HB 1808 passed in 2011 and the efficiency study work.

HB 1795

· Washington 45 – list of courses that transfer to all public and most private BIs as general education requirements.  These will be posted on colleges' transfer web pages.

· List of courses that colleges offer that meet the distribution requirements of the Direct Transfer Agreement (DTA). These will be posted on colleges' transfer web pages.

· Credit for Prior Learning – we now have a single point of contact for each college, a tracking mechanism for coding, a reciprocity agreement for prior learning credit, and each college is working toward more transparency of credit for prior learning information available to students.  Details on assessing and awarding credit for prior learning are available on the statewide PLA work group wiki.

HB 1808

· List of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) test scores and general education equivalent courses. 

· Running Start 1.2 FTE – Colleges have done an incredible job of implementing this change.

Efficiency Study

· Single student identification number has been completed.

· Single location for third party funding information related to financial aid is available.

· Common priority financial aid application deadline is completed.

· Multiple measures used to determine student placement. Colleges are moving forward at a different pace.

· Adoption of one or more evidence-based instructional models for pre-college education. Colleges are implementing models that meet needs of their students.

· Pre-college pathway mapping was completed for ABE/ESL and developmental education.

· Pre-college placement reciprocity was adopted and will be implemented after a work group outlines process details.

· Open Course Library- first series of courses are available. Second series of courses are in development.

Online College Classes: A Resource for Students

About OnlineCollegeClasses.com, a site "envisioned to be an educational resource for students." (Abby Ledford)

Education is an undeniable human right that is often taken for granted. At Online College Classes you will find resources offered by some of the finest educational institutions in the world in an exceptionally large variety of academic disciplines and topics. We want to help people realize their potential through eye-opening lecture series, online college courses, open courseware, online university texts and a plethora of informative multimedia. We provide language learning materials, podcasts, and academic research. Truly a comprehensive survey of modern and historical thought, Online College Classes offers a wealth of information.

Tegrity Recordings: What Students Want Instructors to Know

According to Jeff Johnson of Athens State U. in Alabama, students say that "even a bad Tegrity session is better than no Tegrity session." Jeff gave a presentation at the recent Tegrity Users Conference and shared what students considered to be best practices for use of Tegrity, based on the 180 responses he received from a student survey. See what students suggest...

View recordings of sessions at the Tegrity Users Conference...