If you're interested in continuing to learn more about Education City and education in the Arabian Gulf, a
PBS documentary does a great job with it. The documentary is balanced and provides insight on both the challenges and opportunities of this work. Enjoy...
3 comments:
Thanks for the link, Denny. I watched it last night. I agree that it seemed to be pretty balanced. They had a lot of student voices in the piece, which made the story seem more real. I was interested to hear all of the talk about whether or not these universities could provide the same level of quality there as they do here in the states. It's especially intriguing given the difficulty discerning the impact and quality of education. I wonder what the basis of comparison really is in terms of criteria...
--Matt
Dear Matt - I'm glad you found the PBS documentary helpful. I wish that pieces like this received broader exposure but at least the audience that watches PBS will have access to it.
The question of impact and quality in higher education is intriguing. We started to try to measure impact by administering NSSE this last spring - results to come in August '08. We'll see what we have as a baseline indicator for student engagement. I'm also corresponding with some experts in the field to help us conceptualize the kind of approach we need to take to assessment and continuous enhancement. We have a challenge on our hands because the Education City Branches are not completely forthright and open in looking at assessment. Instead of looking at assessment as a way of understanding where we are and how we can improve, they fear that QF's assessment work will end up being evaluation that could negatively effect their resources. This will be an interesting hurdle to get over but getting over it is essential to our future. Want to help us?
Well I am getting quite good at quantitative data analysis! I'm taking a engineering statistics course at Miami Middletown this summer before I get to Maryland (it will count for a class there)!
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