Tech Directions - March 2008 - (Page 7)

Meanwhile, some of the principles of CTE were affirmed in a national survey of employers of college graduates, conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities(AACU). The employers recommended that colleges and universities invest in assessments that evaluate students’ abilities to apply what they are learning to complex problems in real-world settings. Employers gave really bad marks to multiple-choice testing (only 7 percent thought it was effective in ensuring student preparation for the workplace). Instead, the preferred ways of judging student competence included: evaluations of internships or community-based learning; essay tests that measure individual students’ problem-solving, writing, and analytical thinking skills; electronic portfolios of student work; and evaluations of comprehensive senior projects. “Too many policymakers and educational leaders are focused on the tests rather than on what is really important—whether students are learning what they need to know,” said R. T. Jones, president of Education and Workforce Policy, on release of the study. The survey study, “How Should Colleges Assess and Improve Student Learning? Employers’ Views on the Accountability Challenge,” is part of AACU’s multi-year initiative, Liberal Education and America’s Promise. Barton first analyzes the 10 occupations with the fastest or highest rate of growth. Six require either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, the other four require only short-term or on-the-job training. Looking at the projected increase in jobs in the 10 fastest-growth occupations, he found that 61 percent of the new jobs will not require college. If the list is expanded to the 30 fastestgrowing occupations, the jobs requiring a college education will be double those not requiring a college degree, or 1.9 million compared with 984,000. These are important occupations, he says, but the quantity of jobs is relatively small. There is a different story for the top 10 occupations with the largest, rather than the fastest, growth in the number of jobs. Between 2004 and 2014, the top 30 occupations in this category will increase by 8.8 million. Seventy percent of these occupations do not require college work. Consistent with the gradual increase in educational requirements Assessing the Real Demand for College Grads Adding to the skepticism about traditional college experiences is another look at the predictions on labor force needs by Paul Barton, policy researcher for the Educational Testing Service. Writing in the Carnegie Foundation’s magazine Change, he acknowledges that college educations are critical to future economic growth, but he notes that there is confusion about the demand for college graduates. He makes a distinction between the fastestgrowing jobs and the occupations with the largest growth. Using innformation from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), www.techdirections.com WASHINGTON 7 http://www.g-w.com http://www.g-w.com http://www.techdirections.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Tech Directions - March 2008

Tech Directions - March 2008 Technically Speaking Contents Direct from Washington The News Report Technology’s Past Technology Today Mastering Computers HDTV—Understanding the New, Dealing with the Old Technical Studies Lead to Dream Career Fill and Fund Your CAD Classroom with These Exciting Strategies STEM Progress in Katrina’s Wake School Web Site of the Month Spring Spotlight More than Fun

Tech Directions - March 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.