Connecting high school and University for student learning. (High School/College Connections).

As a university administrator and faculty member, I am aware of many ways to think about the connection between high school and postsecondary education. Universities and colleges are constantly concerned about recruiting new students to their institutions, in the cyclical changes in the number of new students emerging from the secondary schools and the quality of the students arriving on our doorsteps. Traditional modes of connecting, though, have tended to be through admissions office contacts with high school counselors, information on applications, financial aid arrangements, and through all the wonderful programs and events happening at the university that would appeal to students.

Ultimately, the questions most asked about the high school/university connection revolve around the preparation of high school students entering universities. For years states have passed legislation to articulate expectations for high school graduates. Most of the time these regulations have taken the form of certain types and numbers of courses. In the state of Oregon, for example, high school graduates are required to complete a set number of units in English, mathematics, social sciences, science, and foreign language. More recently a set of student learning expectations have been created for high school graduates called Certificates of Initial Mastery, or CIM. The CIM standards are based on rubrics that enunciate gradations of mastery in each of the major subject areas such as science, social studies, writing, oral communication, etc. For the most part, students meet the CIM standards through the same assignments that they complete in their classes for course grades. Teachers are trained to read student work using the statewide rubrics and to assign scores for their respective subject areas. To achieve CIM, students must receive scores of Exceeds, or Meets the respective standards.

Demonstrating student learning

The thinking behind the development of CIM was to move away from seat time and course-grade calculations toward more authentic demonstrations of student learning in areas broadly accepted as necessary for student success in the workplace or in postsecondary education. In keeping with trends in higher education led by Alan Guskin, former president of Antioch College, the Pew Course Redesign Project, and the Greater Expectations initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), the CIM standards focused assessment of student learning on demonstration of levels of performance in skill and knowledge areas, rather than the accumulation of courses and grade points.

The Oregon University System (OUS) also began to establish a set of student learning expectations for entry into any campus of the university system. The Proficiency-Based Admission Standards System (PASS) was developed by teams of high school teachers and university faculty across the state. The teams met for years to develop and refine the rubrics and the scoring expectations for each of the PASS standards. Patterned on the CIM standards, i.e. rubrics for each subject area, levels of performance, and demonstration through authentic work in the regular courses taken by high school students, the PASS standards are an alternative to the traditional grade point average and standardized test score entry requirements to the university. Indeed, Meets and Exceeds performance standards on CIM translate into performance standards for PASS. By completing CIM in high school for graduation, a student can at the same time demonstrate proficiency levels for admission to the university. PASS standards incorporate the CIM s tandards and build upon them for higher-level performance scores possible for PASS. The complementarity is intentional.

An initial pilot study of students who had achieved CIM/PASS standards for admission to the university and their subsequent performance in university classes found a high correlation between CIM/PASS achievement and university performance. The point here is not that students who do well in high school are more likely to do well in college, but rather that CIM/PASS is measuring the abilities that are critical to success in postsecondary education--and doing it well. Because the scores are grounded in actual student work, they also provide richer information for placement purposes.

Portland State University approach

Before CIM and PASS were developed, Portland State University (PSU) embarked on a different approach to align student learning expectations between high school and university. A general education reform in 1994 moved Portland State away from the traditional distribution model to an interdisciplinary, four-year general education program called University Studies, built on four broad learning goals: communications, critical thinking, understanding the variety of human experience, and ethics and social responsibility. One part of the University Studies program, Freshman Inquiry (frinq), an interdisciplinary, team taught, year-long learning community course, was created for entering first-year students. Shortly after it was introduced on the PSU campus, frinq was adopted as Senior Inquiry in two area high schools.

The high school senior inquiry is taught by a team consisting of two high school teachers, a PSU faculty member, and an undergraduate PSU peer mentor, to create the year-long, interdisciplinary course around a specified theme, e.g. Einstein's Universe. The three instructors are in the classroom together or individually throughout the year. Mentor labs on technology, research, writing, and other topics connected to assignments in the main class are scheduled at the high school and led by the PSU peer mentor. The specific learning outcomes for the senior inquiry are the same ones for the freshman inquiry at PSU. The goals of University Studies' frinq are calibrated to the CIM/PASS standards as well. Students in senior inquiry satisfy high school graduation requirements and can earn college credit through the same course.

The University Studies high school program has been focused on working with schoolteachers to identify students for senior inquiry who exhibit potential for college success even if they have not been outstanding academic performers thus far in their high school course work. Recently, the senior inquiry program has been expanded to two other high schools--one an under-performing central city high school and the other an alternative high school of last chance for students excluded from two previous high schools. At the beginning of the year at the alternative high school, none of the students saw themselves continuing their education if they graduated from high school. By the end of the year, all but two had set their sights on a postsecondary education either at a community college or university. At the central city high school where typically only ten students went on to higher education upon graduation and virtually none came to PSU, ten students from the first senior inquiry class had requested or applied t o PSU by the end of the first term of the course.

The senior inquiry approach is a time-consuming, but rich approach to aligning high school and university expectations for student learning. The instructors from the high schools and the university work together to create a curriculum that meets both high school graduation requirements and levels of learning expected at the university. Students directly experience the connection between their high school courses and the goals and curriculum of the university, while not relinquishing their high school senior status. They meet and interact with university professors and with an upper-division university student, who often is a first-generation college student him- or herself. These students experience how the CIM/PASS standards are linked together and are reflected in the learning outcomes at the university. Furthermore, rather than university faculty bemoaning the lack of preparation of the students produced by high school teachers, they collaborate in bringing students to expected levels of performance shared by both educational institutions. The high schools have experienced increased college-going rates and college success for their students, while the university has experienced well-prepared students (some of whom would not have otherwise gone on to college) and increased student credit hours.

In that they no longer have a separate target at which to aim their complaints about student preparation and performance, the risks for universities are large. On the other hand--and most importantly--this collaborative approach allows high schools and universities to enjoy the success of students through the articulation of shared learning outcomes and their shared responsibility and contributions to providing students with the opportunities to learn and demonstrate their achievement of shared learning goals.

TERRY L. RHODES is vice provost for curriculum and undergraduate studies at Portland State University.