Further to my last email a good recent paper on assessment in Higher Education is:
Assessment to improve learning in higher education: The BEAR
Assessment System
Higher Education (2006) 52: 635-663
MARK WILSON & KATHLEEN SCALISE
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Abstract. This paper discusses how assessment practices in higher education improve
or hinder learning. An example is given to illustrate some common educational
practices that may be contributing to under preparation and underperformance students.
Elements of effective learning environments that may better address underlying
metacognitive issues are discussed. The principles of the Berkeley Evaluation
Assessment Research Assessment (BEAR) System are introduced, and their
improve learning is described in the context of the UC Berkeley ChemQuery
project
Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
Director, Programmes and Curriculum, OU Business School
Director, Practice Based Professional Learning Centre
& Professor of Organisational Behaviour
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
e-mail:
m.p.fenton-ocreevy@open.ac.uk
(DL) +44 (0)1908-655804
Fax: +44 (0)1908-655898
________________________________
From: Management Education and Development Discussion on behalf of Julie-Anne Tooth
Sent: Sun 03/09/2006 13:45
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: References - New Approaches/Trends - Tertiary Student Assessment and Presentation
Hi
I am interested in references/material for use in developing a presentation for academics on the following areas:
* new approaches/trends/emerging developments in the area of tertiary student assessment. I am interested in the "next big thing" in terms of university student assessment.
* new approaches/trends etc in presentation/lecturing to university students.
If anyone can make any suggestions, I would be very grateful.
Cheers
Julie-Anne
________________________________
From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles Wankel
Sent: Sunday, 3 September 2006 9:34 PM
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: EXCERPT: Dean of the day and her cross-enterprise leadership concept
From:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157233849009
Dean of the big picture
MBA PROGRAMS | Act, think as panoramically as you can, the CEO of Ivey School of Business is urging tomorrow's leaders By Judy Steed
The Star, Sep. 3, 2006.
She sleeps well on planes.
That's the short answer to how Carol Stephenson does it all.
The dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario moved unflappably through a typical non-stop day recently that started with a 7:30 a.m. conference call, followed by a meeting with Ivey alumni and extended into a working dinner in Toronto that evening followed by a session for would-be MBAs at the National Club on Bay Street.
Stephenson knows her market. It might sound like a tough sell, to get people to line up to spend $56,000 for a 12-month MBA program, but the young women who flocked to the club in droves were enchanted. Not by a PowerPoint presentation but by the panel: recent female grads from the Ivey School, who glowed with confidence and did most of the talking, flanked by Stephenson and two senior female colleagues.
The format was Q & A, and one of the first questions was directed to Stephenson, about an Ivey banner behind her. "Ivey Introduces the Cross-Enterprise Advantage," it stated. "A Revolution in Business Education."
"What's the revolution?" Stephenson was asked.
The dean explained. "A year ago at the Ivey School, we looked at the curriculum and strategy of the school, and wondered, what do future business leaders need to know? What's missing from current business education? We came to the conclusion that companies need leaders who can lead across the entire enterprise. It's a revolution because not a lot of business schools teach the way we do."
In the old-style format, she said, an acquisition is taught as a finance case. "We do it differently. Yes, we look at the finance piece, but we analyze how all aspects of the company are linked, from marketing to operations and IT."
She cited the merger of Telus and Clearnet, in which Clearnet's brand died but two cultures had to blend and function. "How do you make that happen? What are the problems you face? I've seen people do an acquisition and think it's done when the deal is done. It can turn out to be a disaster because they don't do the rest."
The new approach at the Ivey - the result of Stephenson's initiatives since taking over as dean in 2003 - is to break down separate "silos" and turn the business model on its side, enabling students to see all parts of the enterprise functioning, or not, in relation to each other. It's the overview that's important, Stephenson said. "Issues cross functions."
[.... EXCERPTED TEXT ....]
Intake rates for women are going up, reaching 34 per cent of the MBA class this year, which delights Stephenson - and would have delighted her grandmother, who, with her grandfather, ran a business college in Windsor and Petrolia in the 1940s.
"I guess I'm unusual - my mother worked and so did my grandmother," Stephenson said in an interview. Born in Petrolia in southwestern Ontario, an hour from London, Stephenson is the younger of two sisters. In the early 1970s, completing a degree at U of T to become a social worker, Stephenson started a summer job at Bell Canada. When she graduated in 1973, she found herself in an accelerated management program.
Sent by Bell to run the University Avenue plant that serviced hospitals, insurance companies and the stock exchange, she encountered a senior manager at the plant who refused to speak to her.
She went about the job, and finally he called her in to his office. "I don't think a woman should work in a plant," he said. "Of a bad lot, you're the best I've seen."
Groomed by Bell, she rose into the executive ranks in 1988 and four years later made the leap to Stentor Resource Centre, the national marketing and technology development organization set up by Canada's nine telecommunications firms. She gained experience dealing with governments and regulatory issues, and was Stentor's CEO from 1995 to 1998.
"The industry was going through tumultuous change. The long distance competition decision came down from the CRTC and overnight we had a competitive environment. There were pricing changes. Marketing came alive."
Stentor sent her to the Harvard Business School for its Advanced Management Program. She had already completed the executive program at the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of California at Berkeley.
Then Lucent Technologies Canada came calling and anointed her president and CEO in 1999. During her tenure, Lucent tripled its market share in Canada despite an industry downturn. "I went in (to Lucent) at the peak of the market, when the stock was going up $3 a day, and overnight everything changed. I was having dinner with a customer one night and got a call at the restaurant, that Lucent stock had dropped $30 in after-hours trading."
As the crash deepened, she had to lay off 150 people. "If you've been in business long enough, you've been through cycles." Communication was key, she says, to helping people through "a distressing time."
In 2003, at the age of 52, she was planning to leave Lucent and take a year off when she got a call from a recruiter. "Are you interested in being dean of the Ivey School of Business? The downside is that it doesn't pay compared to what you're earning and it's in London."
It was a Friday. Stephenson thought about the offer over the weekend and decided to go through the interview process. "I was interviewed by 70 people, some in groups - you'd never see that in business."
University people, she learned, "don't market themselves." As they interviewed her, they revealed their struggles with business education while she spotted exciting challenges. "They talked about what was wrong and I saw opportunities."
She took the job and dove in to academic life. While continuing her other commitments. She is a director of ING Canada and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, she is a trustee of Union Energy Waterheater Operating Trust (Union Energy has 40 per cent of Ontario's rental water heater business), and a member of the General Motors of Canada Advisory Board and of the Prime Minister's Advisory Council on Science and Technology. And chair of the federal government's advisory committee on "Senior Level Retention and Compensation." She has been named one of Canada's Top 100 Women, among other awards and citations. Back in not-so-sleepy London, Stephenson is admired for her ability to get things done without ruffling too many feathers - a huge accomplishment in academic circles where political strife and in-fighting have been known to paralyze entire departments.
"It's amazing how quickly Carol revamped the whole MBA program," says Ivey Professor Tima Bansal. The cross-enterprise leadership concept won wide backing from faculty, Bansal says. "It makes sense. We try to fix problems and deal with issues, using the case method, emphasizing real world experience, instead of just teaching specific disciplines such as marketing, finance and strategy."
Among other new initiatives, the Ivey has leased the conference centre at the Exchange Tower in downtown Toronto for its Executive MBA program. "Eighty per cent of our EMBAs come from Toronto," Stephenson says, "so it's logical for us to have a location that's easily accessible for them." It will be up and running by Jan. 2007.
Back at the National Club, the young female MBA grads on the panel talked about the lessons they'd learned from the Ivey program. "Don't be afraid of finance," was a major recommendation. Much as they'd dreaded it, finance turned out to be a favourite course.
"Young girls are better at math than boys until about Grade 3," Stephenson says. "Then something happens. If they can get past it, they discover they like finance, it's all very logical and makes sense. Don't assume there are things you can't do until you try them."