Experiential education is a highly prized and effective interdisciplinary methodology to supplement classroom instruction and to improve student learning. Experiential theories have a wide reach, traceable to Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. John Dewey's pivotal work "Experience and Education," first published in 1938, is canonical in…

Engineering organizations are increasingly under pressure to perform more efficiently with fewer people. To manage this, organizations need to understand what skills, knowledge and behaviours they need from engineers who have to practise in a global information society. Engineering educators, in collaboration with employers, therefore now need to…

The author argues that the behaviorist approach to learning inherent in competency-based education is inappropriate for teaching and learning at the higher education level, because it both prescribes and restricts content, methodology, and learning options. Discussion is in the context of a current British postsecondary education policy…

Two baccalaureate-level programs that sought to make their educational outcomes explicit within competency-based education (CBE) are compared. The CBE programs in social work, the learning contracts involved, and assessment techniques are described for programs at the University of Montana and the University of Georgia.

Transferring credit for experiential (as well as classroom) learning could be improved if institutions defined more clearly the expected outcomes of student learning. In basing program articulation and work transfer on such definitions, faculty assume responsibility and authority for carrying out their traditional assigned role of establishing…

PROMIS (Problem Oriented/Medical Information System), a performance-based system of medical education, is described and suggestions for its application to other educational settings are discussed. PROMIS emphasizes the clarification of educational goals and the evaluation of students doing real work in real settings. (JMD)

A framework for the education, training, and accreditation of engineering personnel in England, particularly those at the craft/technician level, is proposed. The competence-based core for engineering education and training is endorsed by the Basic Engineering Study Group, and is the result of a 2-year project to address problems of overlap,…

CPCS at the University of Massachusetts-Boston meets the needs of the emerging professions in a competency-based program. Objectives and innovations at CPCS are described and guidelines for developing similar programs are offered. (LBH)

This handbook is designed for college faculty concerned with developing effective off-campus experiential learning programs, and with assessing the outcomes of these programs. The theoretical background of experiential learning is discussed, and the practical and implementation issues are emphasized: definition of educational objectives,…

Evaluation of prior learning for the External Degree Program at Florida International University is described. Efforts in the following areas are presented: (1) implementation and evaluation of the competency-based assessment tool, (2) integration of the assessment process with other processes of the External Degree Program and the entire…

Metropolitan State University, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, is a competence-based, baccalaureate-degree-granting institution created in 1971 to serve adults. The Operational Models Project was designed to improve the university's program for assessing experiential learning. Specific purposes of the project were: (1) to describe a program for…

The formation, organization, philosophy, and structure of Delaware County Community College's program for assessing prior experiential learning are described. The financial model requires the student, the state, and the local sponsor to share in the cost of this evaluation, in the same proportion as they do for traditional college programs.…

The Community College of Vermont holds the position that the highest purpose of education is to foster self-reliance, in both the community and the individual. This college awards the associate degree upon the completion of individual, student-written, competence-based degree contracts. Areas of competence which are evaluated include self…

Research on how the brain works has resulted in wider-scale adoption of the principles of problem-based learning (PBL) in many areas of education, including technology education. The PBL approach is attractive to curriculum developers because it is based on interdisciplinary learning, results in multiple outcomes, is integrated and…

This book examines the rhetoric surrounding the notion of informal learning in order to expand debate about the uses of informal learning in workplaces and about attempts to "recognize" it through competency-based standards. The following topics are among those discussed in the book's eight chapters: (1) the nature of informal learning…