ERIC Number: EJ915952
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 4
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0737-7363
EISSN: N/A
Communicating College Learning through Noncourse Matching: An Approach to Writing the Prior Learning Assessment Essay
Lambe, Jeffrey P.
Journal of Continuing Higher Education, v59 n1 p50-53 2011
Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) brings students into active and reflective engagement with significant life experiences at the nexus of academic and nonacademic cultures. When done successfully, PLA orients students to academic ways of thinking and writing while encouraging self-exploration. Often students feel a sense of empowerment and confidence as they come to realize that they accomplished significant college level learning outside of the academy. Empire State College (ESC), a pioneer in PLA, offers the option of pursuing college credit for learning that a student gained through prior nonacademic experiences. Although interviews are an important part of the process at ESC, essays are the usual format. This article presents a method of writing PLA essays that takes students from communicating what they experienced and accomplished to what they learned. This article also demonstrates how PLA practices that are not based on course matching approaches reflect both unique pedagogic principles and solid academic integrity principles.
Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Prior Learning, Essays, Higher Education, Evaluation, Interviews, Learner Engagement, Reflection
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New York
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A