Research by Tyton Partners claims to have established a holistic framework that assesses an individual’s full capabilities and skills and helps institutions bridge academic learning and outside experience to better serve their needs, as well as the needs of students and employers, according to a Tuesday press release.
Two separate reports by the group focus on the “evidence of learning system,” and aims to give colleges better measures of what and how students are learning and how employers can contribute to changing that landscape. In the release, “evidence of learning” is defined as “the body of knowledge, skills and experience achieved through both formal and informal activities that an individual accumulates and validates during their lifetime.”
“Our goal is that it serves as a catalyst to a provocative conversation about how institutions can continue to think about how they effectively serve and meet the needs of students and employers,” said Adam Newman, the co-founder and managing partner at Tyton Partners.
An integrated evidence of learning system involves clear objectives, technological integration and related work experience, according to the first study, called “Evidence of Learning: The Case for an Integrated Competency Management System for Students, Higher Education and Employers.”
Newman said traditional measures like transcripts for academic courses and resumes for job experience are not telling enough of what graduates know and can do.
“It’s that the traditional transcript is limited in terms of what it actually reveals about you [students] as an individual and your experiences,” Newman said. “Increasingly, it’s going to be evidence that’s not just gained at your college but also other things like summer experiences and working experiences.”
The second study, titled “Evidence of Learning: Understanding the Supplier Ecosystem,” examines seven markets that comprise the evidence of learning “ecosystem,” the release stated.
“It candidly helps institutions become smarter costumers and more aware to the options available to them to help support their decision-making process,” Newman said.
Newman said the study’s purpose is to assist institutions of higher education in using the opportunity to incorporate market innovations to ensure that they are keeping pace as an institution.
“It’s really about helping postsecondary community and by extension that includes students, employers and relevant stakeholders to understand some of the growth opportunities and challenges that exist in ensuring that individual students and learners are able to capture and present and share the whole spectrum of what they know and what they’ve learned effectively,” he said.
Several students said traditional measures of evidence of learning are useful, but could be updated.
Diana Parker, a freshman in the College of Communication, said measures such as transcripts and resumes can be subjective.
“People are not always right on paper. Really smart people or leaders can do stuff if they have a very streamlined thing that they’re told to do and they’re able to study and they know exactly what to expect, but when they’re thrown to new situations that they need to adapt and be flexible, that takes a certain quality,” she said.
Victor Su, a freshman in the School of Hospitality, said although transcripts can’t show a student’s full potential, transcripts still give employers a sense of what students know.
“Academic capability is a crucial attribute to first impressions. At least the employers know that a student can and will learn something along the way,” he said. “It’s hard because schools are supposed to educate and make sure students learn while at the same time there’s a shift in what employers demand. Maybe schools should offer students assistance to create a portfolio aside from just transcripts.”
Elizabeth Solichin, a junior in the School of Management, said institutions should consider ways to update the way they evaluate what and how much students have learned.
“Schools can change the content in terms of grading. They need to realize that the world is changing into a place that increasingly values perfected skills and experiences more than academic excellence,” she said. “Nowadays, students do a lot more things to enrich themselves, so they don’t just study what’s given in lectures. They seek different experiences too, and those experiences can’t be justified and validated by grades.”
