This link is too long:

should be as: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00407.x/abstract  

without any Complexity;  :-}  

- library

Thanks! Now fixed.

Thanks Jon.

Your points make lots of sense to me. I like the idea of assessing memorization through application. Actually, I think competency-based learning is the way of future education, and a few universities are starting doing that or trying that (e.g. Western Governors University). This might be a good model for AU since AU's majority students are adults who have more immediate opportunities or needs of applying what they have learned. So, project-based, problem-solving, case study, research paper, product design, portfolio, presentation, discussion, ... all look good to me for this purpose.

One thing still bothers me. In some subjects, we need students to get a certain level of skills. For example, in math, we might want students to solve a problem in 5 mins, not a whole hour. So, if we evaluate how skillful a student is, timing should be an important factor (?). I am not sure what's the alternative of exam or quize to do it. Thoughts? 

I strongly agree - WGU has an extremely sound basic model that clearly works, economically and pedagogically. We do have most of the pieces - challenge processes, independent study courses, PLAR, etc - and have been doing this in pockets for decades, but we should seriously consider building whole programs and perhaps even the whole university this way.

If (and only if) timing matters in an authentic setting, then by all means time it! It's absolutely fine as long as the conditions are realistic, the problems are genuine and situated, and the task and timing matches closely what competent individuals will actually need to do in the real world. There are lots of ways you could assess that, from lightweight reflections (just ask how long it took) to webcam-recorded evidence, to oral questions via a webinar and so on. But it would be necessary to think carefully about its authenticity and about what it actually shows. Speed only matters in an applied context so students should be doing this under real-world conditions or the nearest thing we can provide to that. And, if a problem should be solved in 5 minutes, then that's roughly how long the assessment should take. And unless, in real life, people have to solve a succession of such questions in 3 hours, we should not require it of them in an exam. Equally, if a problem should take days (many programming tasks are like that) then that's how long we should allow.

I recall an interview a long time ago where I was given a real-life programming task the company needed doing to complete in a few minutes using MS Access, a system I had not touched for years and had barely played with even then.  I failed the task abysmally but I was offered the job anyway, because they were observing my problem-solving approach while I did it  - which included chatting with them, looking stuff up online, making intelligent use of help files, etc - and that is what they were actually testing. I suspect that is the kind of thing we would want to assess in a mathematician rather than the results on an exam paper.

As long as it is authentic to the task and/or helps people to learn (it is constructively aligned), I have no problems with any particular form of assessment. The trouble with sit-down written exams of the sort we habitually use is that, with very few exceptions, they are not authentic and they make a negative contribution to the learning process.

very good points, Jon.

Jon, your recounting the history of ELF is very helpful.  Thanks for providing it in such detail.  It most certainly puts the NGDLE idea in context.  If nolthing else, we are hoping that a renewal of attention, discussion, and perhaps even investment might urge the evolution of the digital environment onwards at a pace faster than it would otherwise.  I'd bet that we certainly agree that such acceleration would benefit everyone. 

Thanks for engaging in the discussion!

- Malcolm Brown

It's a pleasure, Malcom - I wish you every success in this and will certainly use it to support my own efforts to see such a model used at Athabasca. It's great to see it pushed at a level where people are almost forced to at least defend their position against it. I suspect that, as back then, a lot of the biggest resistance will come from the likes of Blackboard, Pearson, and others that are strongly invested in preventing the success of truly open standards (though they will pay lip service).

One thing I did not mention in my list of reasons is that most of the pilot products were not very good - at least, given that they had to overcome the incumbents, they were not good enough. Brian W. Arthur (in The Nature of Technology) notes that it took decades for jet airplanes to become better than propeller-driven aircraft after their introduction: engineers knew they could be better, but it was a long hard struggle against a better product before they were. Getting compelling exemplars out there, ideally that start by building on things like Moodle, Sakai, etc, that are palpably superior to the old guard, will matter a lot.

Nice article, thanks Mary! I half agree with them re control though I think they confuse choice and control - very different things.  Sometimes learners need to delegate choices to others to be in control. The subtitle of my book says it all: 'choosing when to choose'

My granddaughter (just finishing grade 6) brought home all of her school work at the end of the year today. She went through it on the floor and as I listened to her describe the documents she was sifting through I saw a complete series of pages discussing learning styles. No wonder there are issues and challenges at the post-sec level when students as early as 11 years old are taught all about learning styles and how to identify them and use them in their learning at this age. I asked her about this and I was impressed at her understanding of learning syles and how she was shown how to use them to support her learning. I really am not sure what to think about Gardner's learning styles and multiple intelligences and the impact of all of this on impressionable 11 year olds. My granddaughter did not need to hear grandpa ranting however.

It seems that every generation ends up with something to unlearn at the end of K-12! I thinks it's great that various kinds of intelligence are acknowledged, but I hate to think that learners are taught to see themselves as defined by a preference for visual, auditory, haptic, etc., input. It would be better for every learner to develop as many learning strategies as possible and to learn skills like collaboration and presentation no matter what their level of sociability or introversion. Kids are so pliable. They can learn so many things in so many ways. We shouldn't limit them.