UC system student learning and equity

Editor's Notes

• #7: That design question—what would it look like if we were designing higher education at this moment in history—is one of the questions that we ask in a piece we just published with AACU. Perhaps the most important version of that design question is how do we make a whole person education equitably available to everyone? To do that we have to shift the conversation from unbundling to rebundling. So we’ll explain what we mean by both of these things in the current context. And then we’ll address what we see as eP’s role in the rebundling of higher education. So first, what is the context and the conversation that we are hoping to reframe?
• #18: We could be writing a different narrative. There is sufficient capacities in the emerging ecosystem to support a robust vision of liberal education.
• #23: How to guide how they combine? Core elements
• #26: How do we think about digital tools and environments, and their surrounding practices, as ways of maximizing the distinctive value of institutions: C & U’s are “learner-centered” in a very particular way. The first principle is learner-centered. Are your environments not only helping students to learn knowledge and skills but are they designed to help empower in the broadest ways that universities strive to do? >A key part of that empowerment is that we don’t just educate individuals isolation but as members of communities, through social learning, and with the support of mentors. The second principles is that we think in networks, maximizing opportunities for community inside the institution and between the institution and beyond. Supporting learning that is at core not an individual model, either of learning or of teaching. third, Universities and colleges are distinctive because they are complex and diverse. They have a density of talent and myriad connections that hold them together. Are your systems and practices maximizing that through giving students the opportunities to make connections and for them to create coherence? Finally the great advantage of institutions is their critical capacities that they turn on everything but not always themselves. The fourth is that institutions need to be adaptive
• #29: How do we think about digital tools and environments, and their surrounding practices, as ways of maximizing the distinctive value of institutions: C & U’s are “learner-centered” in a very particular way. The first principle is learner-centered. Are your environments not only helping students to learn knowledge and skills but are they designed to help empower in the broadest ways that universities strive to do? >A key part of that empowerment is that we don’t just educate individuals isolation but as members of communities, through social learning, and with the support of mentors. The second principles is that we think in networks, maximizing opportunities for community inside the institution and between the institution and beyond. Supporting learning that is at core not an individual model, either of learning or of teaching. third, Universities and colleges are distinctive because they are complex and diverse. They have a density of talent and myriad connections that hold them together. Are your systems and practices maximizing that through giving students the opportunities to make connections and for them to create coherence? Finally the great advantage of institutions is their critical capacities that they turn on everything but not always themselves. The fourth is that institutions need to be adaptive
• #30: Whole person learning and the year of “open”? Open up understanding of what we mean by human development? Both what we understand to be the purposes and goals of higher education? And where we begin with our designs?
• #31: How do we think about digital tools and environments, and their surrounding practices, as ways of maximizing the distinctive value of institutions: C & U’s are “learner-centered” in a very particular way. The first principle is learner-centered. Are your environments not only helping students to learn knowledge and skills but are they designed to help empower in the broadest ways that universities strive to do? >A key part of that empowerment is that we don’t just educate individuals isolation but as members of communities, through social learning, and with the support of mentors. The second principles is that we think in networks, maximizing opportunities for community inside the institution and between the institution and beyond. Supporting learning that is at core not an individual model, either of learning or of teaching. third, Universities and colleges are distinctive because they are complex and diverse. They have a density of talent and myriad connections that hold them together. Are your systems and practices maximizing that through giving students the opportunities to make connections and for them to create coherence? Finally the great advantage of institutions is their critical capacities that they turn on everything but not always themselves. The fourth is that institutions need to be adaptive
• #34: How do we think about digital tools and environments, and their surrounding practices, as ways of maximizing the distinctive value of institutions: C & U’s are “learner-centered” in a very particular way. The first principle is learner-centered. Are your environments not only helping students to learn knowledge and skills but are they designed to help empower in the broadest ways that universities strive to do? >A key part of that empowerment is that we don’t just educate individuals isolation but as members of communities, through social learning, and with the support of mentors. The second principles is that we think in networks, maximizing opportunities for community inside the institution and between the institution and beyond. Supporting learning that is at core not an individual model, either of learning or of teaching. third, Universities and colleges are distinctive because they are complex and diverse. They have a density of talent and myriad connections that hold them together. Are your systems and practices maximizing that through giving students the opportunities to make connections and for them to create coherence? Finally the great advantage of institutions is their critical capacities that they turn on everything but not always themselves. The fourth is that institutions need to be adaptive
• #43: How do we think about digital tools and environments, and their surrounding practices, as ways of maximizing the distinctive value of institutions: C & U’s are “learner-centered” in a very particular way. The first principle is learner-centered. Are your environments not only helping students to learn knowledge and skills but are they designed to help empower in the broadest ways that universities strive to do? >A key part of that empowerment is that we don’t just educate individuals isolation but as members of communities, through social learning, and with the support of mentors. The second principles is that we think in networks, maximizing opportunities for community inside the institution and between the institution and beyond. Supporting learning that is at core not an individual model, either of learning or of teaching. third, Universities and colleges are distinctive because they are complex and diverse. They have a density of talent and myriad connections that hold them together. Are your systems and practices maximizing that through giving students the opportunities to make connections and for them to create coherence? Finally the great advantage of institutions is their critical capacities that they turn on everything but not always themselves. The fourth is that institutions need to be adaptive
• #52: How might we think of this as a systems theory? And what is the role of ePortfoio in this? All of these design principles are about relationships and connections. Learner-centered expresses the relation of the learner to the material, and in many ways to learning itself. eP then is principally about engagement and empowering students to see their own learning and to own it. But learning, knowledge-creation and practice is ultimately about others. So the learner must always be learning about him or herself in relationship to others. So networked expresses this fundamentally relational nature of learning and the necessity to learn within a community. eP promote social pedagogies in this context and help students negotiate the porous boundaries esential to living in a networked world. Both “learner-centered” and “networked” are about the learning and the learner. The other two principles shift outward to the nature of the institution. The design principle of an integrative institution then carries the imperative to connect what has not been connected. And it implies the principle that we cannot provide an integrative education for our students if we are not ourselves developing more integrative institutions. Finally, the fourth principles ties all of the other three principles together, suggesting that unless we are taking advantage the capacities of the new ecosystem to enable us to see the evidence of learning and to make use of it in continuous improvement of our institutions, then we will likely not be able to achieve the first three principles with any kind of transformative success.
• #54: How might we think of this as a systems theory? And what is the role of ePortfoio in this? All of these design principles are about relationships and connections. Learner-centered expresses the relation of the learner to the material, and in many ways to learning itself. eP then is principally about engagement and empowering students to see their own learning and to own it. But learning, knowledge-creation and practice is ultimately about others. So the learner must always be learning about him or herself in relationship to others. So networked expresses this fundamentally relational nature of learning and the necessity to learn within a community. eP promote social pedagogies in this context and help students negotiate the porous boundaries esential to living in a networked world. Both “learner-centered” and “networked” are about the learning and the learner. The other two principles shift outward to the nature of the institution. The design principle of an integrative institution then carries the imperative to connect what has not been connected. And it implies the principle that we cannot provide an integrative education for our students if we are not ourselves developing more integrative institutions. Finally, the fourth principles ties all of the other three principles together, suggesting that unless we are taking advantage the capacities of the new ecosystem to enable us to see the evidence of learning and to make use of it in continuous improvement of our institutions, then we will likely not be able to achieve the first three principles with any kind of transformative success.
• #55: The concept of formation in the Jesuit tradition is at the heart of an education dedicated to shaping students to be fully human and to cultivate a sense of personal responsibility for improving the world. Formation is not just about those ancillary aspects of education that layer onto academic or cognitive development. Formation is fundamentally about the goal of integration, of striving to cultivate a balanced person, with intellectual, affective, creative and reflective capacities. Formation is also fundamentally a learner-centered concept; it is not only about transmission of knowledge but also what the student or learner makes of all the shaping influences that are provided as part of the environment. This is how, for example, formation is used in the context of professional or practitioner education, as the fullest sense of professional identity. In both the Jesuit tradition and practitioner education, formation is ultimately about how one embodies knowledge, traditions, and values—and expresses them through practice. See The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education in the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2008) and related Carnegie studies of the professions.
• #56: The concept of formation in the Jesuit tradition is at the heart of an education dedicated to shaping students to be fully human and to cultivate a sense of personal responsibility for improving the world. Formation is not just about those ancillary aspects of education that layer onto academic or cognitive development. Formation is fundamentally about the goal of integration, of striving to cultivate a balanced person, with intellectual, affective, creative and reflective capacities. Formation is also fundamentally a learner-centered concept; it is not only about transmission of knowledge but also what the student or learner makes of all the shaping influences that are provided as part of the environment. This is how, for example, formation is used in the context of professional or practitioner education, as the fullest sense of professional identity. In both the Jesuit tradition and practitioner education, formation is ultimately about how one embodies knowledge, traditions, and values—and expresses them through practice. See The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education in the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2008) and related Carnegie studies of the professions.