Monday, March 18, 2013

Is It Finally Time to Kill the Credit Hour? - Carol Geary Schneider, AAC&U

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has announced that it plans to reconsider the credit hour as it is currently being used in higher education and, at least potentially, propose a new alternative unit of measure to replace it. This is a welcome development and one that AAC&U has urged for some time, both through the Liberal Education and America’s Promise initiative and through our recent work on the Degree Qualifications Profile. But having worked for several years to shift the focus from credit hours to competency—that is, from simply measuring the expected amount of time students spend in class (“seat time”) and out of class on course-related work to measuring what students know and are able to do as a result of their coursework—we are keenly aware of not only the need for change but also the many difficulties that lie ahead. http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa12/president.cfm