Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) is a broad phrase describing a methodology of enabling a learner to assemble evidence of learning, events and credentials as a reflective excess. CollegeTransfer.Net and the Student Passport are tools to employ early on with prospective students. As you develop a unified and cohesive academic and enrollment strategy for non-traditional learners, especially adults who have through life experiences or self learning developed knowledge and skills that may be college level, AcademyOne can offers more advanced tools such as the AcademicPAD, which utilizes the National Course Atlas and Student Passport framework.
The AcademicPAD incorporates an expanded resume and inventory built upon HR_XML and CAEL (Council for Adult Experiential Learning) best practices. For more information on the AcademicPAD, please contact AcademyOne.
When we use the term non-traditional learners, we just don't mean students coming to your side door with special needs and circumstances. 21st Century learners are more computer literate, exposed to more information than previous generations, grew up with the internet explosion and have assembled skills far faster than previous generations. They have learned to multi-task and schedule 30 hours of work in a 24 hour day balancing life, work and educational aspirations. The framework of traditional learning environments is not for everyone. People like Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard because he felt it was a waste of his time, would still not fit into Harvard if he enrolled today.
CollegeTransfer.Net is a side door. We are building tools and support systems to enable institutions, states and groups of institutions to work together and leverage a common platform to assess learning, programs and courses. In doing so, we passionately believe the reflective and proactive effort of PLA is an alternative path for many. It has been troubling to provide adequate tracking tools to reinforce links with faculty because of the labor intensive dedication it requires to serve each learner. AcademyOne, who has developed and powers CollegeTransfer.Net, has also developed enhanced and compatible tools to support PLA virtually. Learners coming to your side door should be served from a holistic perspective. Not all institutions are designed to serve PLA. That is okay. For those that are, CollegeTransfer.Net and AcademyOne offer an integrated set of tools that will help automate what many do on paper.
If you are interested in assessing all prior learning including credit by examinations, you can begin by simply publishing what courses are mapped to AP, CLEP, DSST and Excelsior.
If you are interested in assessing training and informal learning, you can begin by simply publishing what courses align with ACE credit recommendations for corporate and military training.
If you are interested in streamlining your back office process, then the award of credit and transcribing process allows department and faculty to review and post awards to the transcript system within your student information system streamlining the process with administrative oversight.
In the end, PLA is a proactive and targeted effort for transfer and experiential learning review, where there is more to be gained by respecting a prospective learner's prior experience(and investment) than penalizing them by ignoring what they have learned prior to coming to your side door. PLA reveals a learner's background, motivations, aptitudes, past performance, mistakes and takes a great deal of effort to complete. This alone shows the commitment and perseverance that can predict better student outcomes. It is a method of helping learners understand where they are, how they can apply themselves and be advised better than other assessment techniques that average and block people based upon characteristics and discrete survey-like applications which are inaccurate and incomplete tools because prior learning is not just classroom based.
Contact AcademyOne for a private and consultative conversation with our Chief Academic Officer.