One Week MA---Two Week Ph.D. ???

Actually, I can spell--I can't type. Surry about the irrors up thire.
Craig

 

"The experience, over some reasonable span of time, of study under a competent, recognized mentor" is probably more important to the mentor than it is to the process of learning. Those who are able to test out in 4 weeks have accomplished new learning. The learning just didn't necessarily begin and end in a classroom.

Even in the traditional setting, The real learning isn't necessarily taking place during the hours of seat time in the classroom. It's taking place on the students' time when they are reading, writing, studying, and researching. And as far as a "capstone paper or project" goes, I can say that Charter Oak requires one, in the form of a degree proposal. The other RA assessement colleges probably require one as well. I am not sure that many traditional programs actually require a capstone project or paper before a degree is awarded at the undergraduate level.

What we're really talking about here is learning a specific amount of information to a standard assessment level. Should the time it took to attain that level be part of the assessment equation? I don't think so.

Tracy<><

 

Tracy - I think we may have uncovered a fundamental difference here. You say "time to train and not to standard". I'm talking about "education", not "training" and there is a big difference.

When it comes to Micrososft certification, for example, your point carries some real merit. There are lots of ways to prep for that certification - self study, formal courses, etc. The test is focused on a set of fairly well established skills. Either you know how to create a new user in Windows 2000 or you don't.

College education, however, is more than acquiring a specific and easlily tested set of skills and facts. Education is preparation for a lifetime of learning. The most important part isn't the specific facts and skills that you know - but rather your ability to apply concepts to new and different situations. I submit that there is no substitute for time to educate individuals.

Thanks - Andy

 

I should think that some one should know how and why to apply facts to new situations before they go to college. Any good high school will teach this.

Andy's argument about education is not about education--it is about indoctrination. College is not necessarily teaching how to learn--it is teaching how to think in a certain way. It is thinking the way a "college-educated" person is supposed to think.

When I was in law school, the technical things about research, arguing a case, etc., could be taught (and learned) in about six months--maybe three weeks. Law schools want you for three years so you can be indoctrinated with "thinking like a lawyer." Even that, as our torts professor said, amounted to three rules:

1) Get the money up front.
2) Get the money up front.
3) Get the money up front.

That's deep, isn't it? And another reason I am not a lawyer today.

Craig

 

But Andy, how do you know this "ability to apply concepts" is important, or exists at all, unless you have made some assessment of it? If you have in fact made some assessment of it, then it is an assessable skill or attribute, just the same as any other. If it is not amenable to assessment then it is meaningless to talk of enhancing it. How would you ever know you had ever succeeded? If you cannot assess it, you cannot measure its improvement can you? In that case "the process" cannot be demonstrated to imbue the student with this (unmeasurable) attribute. In that case, your rationale for insisting on the need of process in place of, or in concert with testing, is bankrupt. It is meaningless to talk of a desirable attribute that cannot be tested or assessed.

If you can in fact bring to bear some rational method of detection and assessment (examination or test of this as yet ill defined attribute), how then does it differ from any other skill that can be tested? And if it can be tested, and assessed for quality and range, what need is there for any particular process to the exclusion of other effective processes (self learning et al)? Surely the only point of interest is whether the attribute or skill it is present in the examinee or student, and the degree to which it is present?

If its presence can be detected, and changes in its quality and range measured (i.e., if it is assessable), then the particular process used to inculcate this attribute or skill (for that is what it is), is of no concern other than in terms of its measurable outcomes.

 

If an alleged inculcated "quality" that it is claimed, requires a particular process, cannot be measured by objective assessment, and apparently it cannot, since Craig cannot even define it as anything but "something", then to all intents and purposes it does not exist. If we cannot describe and examine this "quality" sufficiently well to assess a difference in it after completion of the process, then how can it be claimed the process has affected it? Yet Craig argues that even though a learner may pass all of the required assessments in a program, the fact that they have not undergone some particular additional educational experience or ritual, means they have not been "properly" or sufficiently educated, and do not deserve that their objectively assessed learning be validated by way of the award of a degree or other credential.

No, Craig. In general, and not personally directed . . .
Processes only exist to deliver outcomes, they have no other intrinsic value. The notion that a process may imbue learners with some vital yet unmeasurable and non assessable understanding, and that therefore learners who have not participated in the process, are unfit to receive due recognition of their demonstrated accomplishments, is pedagogical quackery.

.

 

Okay, than let's say that you should educate to standard and not to time. Eventually, educational outcomes will have to be tested in order for the student to prove that they have been attained (i.e., that the student has met the required learning objectives.)

If the most important part of education is "your ability to apply concepts to new and different situations," than there is no difference between education and training in many cases. Indeed, much of the focus of military training is to give soldiers the ability to apply doctrine to new and different situations.

I fail to see what magic time in the classroom brings to the process of education. Is it possible that the fundamental difference we have uncovered here is the difference between the needs of the professor (and/or the institution) and the needs of the student?


Tracy<><

 

Let me get this right:

1) If it cannot be measured, it does not exist. (God, love, compassion, beauty, virtue....)

2) There is no intrinsic worth in process, that is, in becoming. (Life itself, maturity, experience, WISDOM...)

3) The lessons, the transmitted values, of a master teacher are entirely objective. (Jesus, Socrates, Mr. Miyagi...)

4) If it cannot be immediately constrained and defined, it is meaningless. (Truth, time, reality, intuition...)

5) All knowledge is subject to formal assessment. (A good vs. a lousy lawyer, surgeon, quaterback, teacher...)

6) All modes of traditional instruction are pedagogically vacuous. (Virtually every university in the world until a thirty years ago...)


If one really believes these premises, then perhaps that person is missing exactly that "something" I failed to define.

Perhaps in modern education in professing ourselves wise, we have made ourselves fools.
Craig

 

But why? Other than for reasons of custom and ritual, why should graduate degrees represent new learning? What is the imperative? Why should it not denote that the holder possesses some level of mastery in a discipline beyond that expected of an undergraduate?

And when you say, "new learning", what does that mean. I can say with certainty, that in my graduate studies in traditional and well as in competency based programs, prior learning has always been a significant factor. I'd say, about 80 to 85% of my level of performance in traditional graduate programs is attributable to prior learning.

Now, if that figure were to increase by another 15% or 20% to total 100% of learning, what is the material nature of the change that would or should bar my graduation? In what functional respect would my knowledge or level of competence change? You state that graduate degrees should represent (let me say, comprise) new learning. So:

1. What percentage of total credit should comprise new learning (100%, 80% . . .?

2. Why that figure and not some other?

3. My experience is that, while I am constantly learning new things, as I get older, the "new" represents a smaller and smaller fraction of the whole. Most of the learning I apply to new academic pursuits these days, is old. At what point is there too much old and not enough new?

Isn't it true, Andy, that there is no rational reason that graduate learning or any other learning be "new"? Isn't it the case that this practice like so many in academe is a matter of ritualistic mumbo jumbo?

 

Tracy - I agree that there is no "magic" in classroom time. If an instructor doesn't make good use of it - there is no point in demanding it. On the other hand, I have real doubts that people "magically" become educated to the point they can "earn" a masters degree in 7 weeks - it takes time and effort. The absence of class room time is hardly a virtue.

At my institution we recently considered a change from 3 to 4 credit courses without an increase in term length. I (and my peers) haven't insisted on a 33% increase in the number of minutes of lecture. Indeed, the mind can absorb only as much as the seat can endure. However, our faculty is asking hard questions about how we can expand learning and make it more "active" within the existing time frame. We're very aware that our student population, working adults, can only absorb so much material in a given amount of time.

What I'm very concerned about is the sort of compression many degree programs are undergoing these days. There is only so much we can stuff (and that students can absorb) in shorter terms. All to often faculty lower standards in the process to match the time available. I suspect that many institutions are "devaluing" the currency, so to say, in awarding degrees in shorter and shorter time periods. We need to focus on the journey, that is the learning and the resulting changes in one's views, more than the destination (i.e. the piece of paper at the end).

As for outcome assessment - this is certainly needed in all training and educational programs. But I have real doubts about the validity of many of the instruments being employed. Focusing on the test leads folks to learn only what they need to pass - not to truly master the field.

Regards - Andy

 

Yet for all the bluster and bombast, Craig, you still fail to explain how you manage to determine an improvement in that which you hold is not amenable to assessment (and thus demands and is somehow improved by process).

And no, Craig, that was "to all intents and purposes" as it relates to educational outcomes, it does not exist. If you cannot define "it" (which you could not do) or assess a change in "it" (which you claimed was the reason for need of a specific process), then how is in meaningful? We can certainly test knowledge of varying views, concepts, and definitions of love or God or compassion, and on. But you claimed there to be some indefinable and non assessable "something" that was enhanced and improved by certain processes. My question was, and remains:

1. what is that "something", and if it cannot be defined, how do you know about it? If you know about it, why can't you define it?

2. You say it cannot be assessed. How then do you know this "something" is improved or enhanced by the process when you cannot assess it?


Within the examples you offer, what is the inculcated knowledge that process imbues that is not amenable to testing in an educational context ? What is it that cannot be assessed yet you know is enhanced or improved by specific processes, and how do you know it is improved or enhanced, when you say it cannot be assessed?

In your own time, Craig.

.

 

This is really not that complicated...

1st: Academic degrees generally require a certain amount of memorization of terms, concepts, etc. They also require knowledge of theories. Finally, at the undergraduate level, they require a number of breadth courses. Bottom line, a whole bunch of knowledge you don't obtain in daily life.

2nd: Acadmic degrees require 50/hrs of work per credit hour for the average student (be in in class, out of class, listening to lectures, watching videos, reading books, writing papers, whatever).

Now it is bordering on suspending the laws of physics to suggests that a degree which has the rigor of these generally accepted academic standards can be completed in as little as 4 weeks.

 

And yet I recall a recent case of the guy who graduates from Sunday School, fails in the only MBA program on the planet that would take him, dies of embarrassment, yet is reincarnated to return to the same place as the dead guy but without all that embarrassing baggage and awkward questions.

If that can happen, you sure as heck can earn a BA in 4 weeks. Then again, that maybe beyond your ken.

.

 

I agree with you Dr. Borchers.

There is a process invovled in learning that happens in the classroom. Yes, it can happen elsewhere and it does not happen perfectly within the classroom. Nonetheless it is unique. I can think back to my own undergraduate program taking a class in Sociology from a Critical Theorist (Marxist). The process of daily interaction with him and the other students was a very important part of the learning environment that would have not been obtained by CLEPing out of the course. Professor MacLean did not want us to barf up Marxist theory. He demanded particpation and thinking from us. An answer had better be reasoned out whether or not it was in agreement with his philosophical outlook he did not care.

As we get these super dehydrated semesters we loose something in that process. The focus becomes on getting the "union card" damn the learning process. I think we have all heard stories regarding some of this instruction. I had an adjunct prof share the issues with grade inflation and everybody passes.

North

 

There is the other side of argument too, while it is possible to obtain a BA degree by non-traditional means within a short period of time (testing and portfolio prearation).

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO GET THAT KNOWELDGE?

I truly doubt that most "average" high school students could test well enough to obtain the BA in 4 weeks. And if they can perhaphs that degree is not worth very much after all. And yes I will conced that some (perhaps 1 in 1,000,000) could, but not the other 999,999.

If the testing is so easy that any one can pass it doing no more than reading MAD and watching TV then the testing is flawed.




It is knowledge

 

Of course they don't magically become educated in 4 weeks or 7 weeks, or--for that matter--4 years. The learning, the actual education has taken place over a period of years. The assessment takes place in 4 weeks or 7 weeks.

And don't kid yourself. Traditional students are focused on the test. Haven't you ever heard of cramming for finals?

If faculty are lowering standards so that the process can match the time, than that's all the more reason to at least follow the model of the BA in 4 weeks. There is a standard you are required to meet, when you think you can meet it, take the test. The standard doesn't change, the time does.

Tracy<><

 

I am often led to wonder two things.

1. How many of those who choose to comment on BA in 4 Weeks have actually read it. . . any of it?

2. How many of those who pontificate on the veracity and practicality of the process delineated in BA in 4 Weeks, have actually written or sat even one of the proficiency exams used in the guides?

It seems that no matter how many times it is explained that BA in 4 Weeks is a guide to earning a degree in 4 weeks or longer, the presumption is it is only good for four week degrees, after which time, it goes off.

In another thread on this board, "Accelerated Degrees", in the second post, I've written a short explanatory piece on the process. I did this so that those reading the board and interested enough to comment on the process, its veracity and practicality, might gain some useful insight before posting. This was done so that they need not actually visit the BA in 4 Weeks web site, and read the very informative and concise introduction.

There is also a betting challenge in the thread to any board member who believes a bachelor degree cannot be earned in 4 weeks. It involves completing the requirements of the final year of a regionally accredited degree in three days plus a couple of hours.

Other questions that come to mind are:

3. To those who say it cannot be done in 4 weeks, how they know that?

4. To those who assert the exams are a sham, how it is they know they are a sham?

5. To those who say only 0.1%, 1%, 2%, and on, could fulfill degree requirements in 4 weeks, how they come by that particular number, and what, if any research they have done on the subject?


Those who comment with concern that the knowledge necessary to pass the exams cannot be gained in 4 weeks, may like to read the guides or one of the many, many posts here and in AED that make it crystal clear that passing the exams in 4 weeks is about the validation of EXISTING competencies. Passing the exams in some longer period utilizes a combination of existing knowledge and new learning. The percentage relationship of existing learning to new learning moves in a reciprocal fashion as time to degree completion is expanded or contracted.

Lawrie Miller
author BA in 4 Weeks, a non commercial resource for adult learners
http://geocities.com/BA_in_4_Weeks

.

 

I've read the whole thing, or at least the whole thing as it was posted on the website a few weeks ago (any updates since then, no). I also took many of the exams listed for credit, passing them all, way before the 4 weeks thing was published.

My take on it is this:

1) The title is a bit misleading. A legitimate degree in 4 weeks? Technically, yes, it's possible to gain enough credit through exam in a month of testing to qualify for a degree. But....and it's a big but.....that doesn't include the time to grade the exams, get the results sent to your school, and get the credit listed on your transcript. There is no way in hell that you can have a legitimate degree, in-hand, 4 weeks after starting from scratch. But, I will admit that the title is a great attention-getter.

2) Very, very, very few people can pull off all the exams necessary without significant study time, which kind of negates the "quickness" attraction.

I think the main benefit of the "BA in 4 Weeks" website (and I do think it's very beneficial, having referred a few people there already) is the breakdown & advice given about the exams. I think most people who visit the website will go away with some useful knowledge, but I also think hardly any will follow the 4-week schedule to the letter. My opinion, of course.


Bruce

 

Profound statement, Bruce, and I fully concur with your summation!

The concept of a BA in 4 Weeks does indeed have merit for those who, through life experience, have achieved a substantive level of knowledge/skill/expertise. However, I agree that the title is somewhat misleading. Very few individuals could begin from scratch (e.g., the day after graduating high school), and obtain a BA via this method.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, and periodically a genius will surface who could not only earn the BA in 4 Weeks, but three weeks later have a Ph.D.

 

Why is that even relevant? My primary concern is with some of the things that people (not Lawrie Miller) have said here on Degreeinfo. People have related passing exams (GRE's for example) and in some cases getting large blocks of credit, with minimal or even no previous study of the material. And it is a common practice here on Degreeinfo for students to be directed to degrees by assessment of prior learning **without ever inquiring** as to their background, if any, in their subject. The implicit assumption occasionally seems to be that anyone can pass these things.

I think that anyone who has taken a university course or earned a university degree is qualified to comment on such things. In fact, a complete neophyte had better form some opinions very quickly if it is being suggested that he or she pursue such a course.

You are partly responsible for that misperception, Lawrie. You could very easily retitle it 'BA in as little as 4 Weeks'. Even that retains the ultra-short timeframe as the selling point, which naturally invites comparison to the 'Ph.D. in 21 days by life experience' degree mills like Trinity C&U. False perhaps, but a natural association for some readers to make.

You would probably be best off giving it a more innocuous title about earning accelerated degrees by use of credit for prior learning. That wouldn't overhype the acceleration and it would clearly suggest that prior learning is in fact necessary, a critical fact that sometimes seems to be overlooked as things are now. By making some small and simple adjustments to your presentation, you could deflect much of the skepticism that 'BA in 4 Weeks' currently receives.

I don't believe that a bachelors degree can be earned in four weeks. I think that if a person already knows the necessary material, the necessary assessments can be scheduled in four weeks, but that is something very different.

I would define 'earning a bachelors degree' as the entire process. It starts at wanting to learn a new subject and beginning at average layman's level knowledge in that field. It ends with having the knowledge and skills necessary to deserve a BA/BS.

The assessments are just an appendix. They are obviously important in one sense, being critical and central to the integrity of the degree as a certification. But they aren't education. And when people hear the words 'earn a degree', they are usually going to think education. They don't just think certification, they think of how one comes to deserve that certification.

Through their own experience of what it took to earn a degree, probably.

One can't enter the field of physics cold, do the entire introductory physics sequence, advanced mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetic theory, quantum mechanics, let alone learning calculus up through differential equations, taking the chemistry sequence and so on... all in four weeks of desultory independent study. Can't happen.

Of course, we are talking apples and oranges, aren't we? You aren't talking about the time it takes to learn a subject, just the time it takes to document that learning.

I don't think that they are a sham. But they sometimes sound that way on Degreeinfo, when people talk about earning huge blocks of credit in subjects they have never studied, either formally in a classroom or informally through independent study.

When people say that, the percentage is just a way of saying "a small number". It isn't meant to taken precisely.

The point that is being made is a valid one, I think. It is that few people who are walking around on the street already have the equivalent of a university degree just through life experience. Some may have acquired that level of learning on the job or through persuit of an interest or a hobby, but that isn't typical. If just reading the paper or watching TV is the equivalent of earning a university degree, then that's a pretty good reductio-ad-absurdem of a university degree. If everyone already deserves one, what's the point? Just pass a law giving the entire population the degrees they "deserve" and close the universities, saving all that government education budget.

I agree with that entirely. As I've said, my argument isn't really with Lawrie. I do think that he could avoid some grief though, by making some small adjustments in his presentation.

My concerns revolve around two different issues:

1. The anecdotal stories here on Degree info about large amounts of credit earned in subjects that were never studied, either formally or informally. That makes some of the exams suspect.

2. The speed with which inquiring students here at Degreeinfo are steered to these kind of assessment programs without any inquiry about the student's background in his or her subject or about their suitability for the process.