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Frequently Asked Questions
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Question
#1:
Why use "College Readiness" to describe the HECB's
new science and English Standards development project?
Content Team Participant, Norah McCabe, asks:
I am a member of the College Readiness Science group convened
by the HECB that recently met in Seattle to determine benchmarks
or goals for students who graduate from High School. In speaking
with my colleagues at WSU and other members of this group, I
have a suggestion with regards to the name "College Readiness".
The general
question is why "College Readiness" as not every high
school student wants to, or should go to college. This negative
comment immediately sets up a barrier to further conversation,
and I think has in the past and will in the future seriously
prohibit the progression of this group's work. You may also
have heard this comment.
I think therefore,
that it would be beneficial to the success of this project to
be more inclusive and to include the term "Work Place"
in the title of this group in the future. College and Work Place
readiness is all encompassing and implies that this scientific
knowledge is essential for all graduating High School students
to be successful in their career choice whether they choose
to attend college or not.
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Answer #1:
Project Manager, Ricardo
Sanchez, responds:
The question you raise is a good one. Initially, we started out intending
to call this the college/workplace readiness project. Then after a
meeting of the Project Coordination Team and internal discussions,
we agreed that we should call it the college readiness project, for
a few reasons.
- The budget authority from the legislature
calls for defining college readiness, with no mention made to workplace.
- The 2004 master plan for higher education
also uses the college readiness terminology.
- If we attempt to define workplace readiness,
do we then need to concern ourselves with industry workplace standards,
when we're not yet clear or in agreement on what is college readiness?
Here it would begin to get complex and the thought was that we may
confuse the issue so much that we could get stalled even before
we're out the gate.
Having said this, there is a train of thought
out there that says college and workplace readiness standards or definitions
are one and the same. That is, students, due to technology and the
global marketplace, need the same set of entry-level skills, whether
they choose to enter college or the workplace.
By developing college readiness definitions, we can at some point
ask business and industry human resource managers to give us their
assessment of whether our college readiness definitions are applicable
to the workplace. If not, do they need minor tweaking, or do we need
completely different definitions?
This is to say, we are proceeding on the college readiness front with
an eye towards seeing if or how they might be applied to the workplace.
Question
#2:
Once the English and science standards are in place, what's
next?
Content Team Participant, Norah McCabe, asks:
I also have a question regarding how the recommendations from
this group will be acted upon in High Schools? Is this a topic
for our next meeting ? Are we as group likely to produce some
sort of a "Guide to Science Knowledge for a WA state High
School graduate", which might include the benchmarks we
come up with and perhaps practice conceptual questions or something
of this nature.
For example, we as instructors in Introductory Biology classes
for Science majors here at WSU, have long been concerned at
what level to pitch our classes. We have an agreement on what
topics we should cover, but the issue is; at what level to start
to teach the topics, as we appreciate our freshmen come from
very diverse High School Biology exposures and experiences.
To that end, we came up with a Pre-assessment exam which we
administer in the first week of classes. Students do not get
any credit for this exam, but rather they invariably get a wake-up
call and a jolt from their state of delusion that 'they know
it all'. At the end of the semester, we administer the same
exam, and gratifyingly there is a huge increase in student success.
At the same time however, it is a valuable tool for us as Instructors
as it pinpoints areas that either were not taught effectively
or were not effectively learned during the semester .
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Answer #2:
Project Manager, Ricardo Sanchez, responds:
As to how the definitions will be acted
upon by high schools (or the state legislature), we will be discussing
this in future meetings with the content team members. Your idea of
a "Guide to Science Knowledge..." is an interesting one.
We do plan to engage the content teams in addressing ideas like this
so, together, we can shape the policy direction for the state.
As well, we have a College Readiness Project Coordination Team, a
group you will have some interaction with before it's all said and
done. These are representatives of the
K-16 education groups in the state who track policy issues in the
state.
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