Re-Engineering Education -

Chapter 8 - Diploma Qualification
 

Our future student will sign up for all required and optional courses just like a traditional course selection, e.g., algebra, calculus, or classical mechanics.  Core courses will be required, and must be mastered at a specified grade or evaluation level, presumably C, in order to qualify for a given diploma.  There can also be optional courses which are outside of diploma requirements and which lead to specialized certificates or are taken for their own sakes, but which nevertheless specify equivalent mastery requirements.  Finally, any course content can be browsed for curiosity, but homework and evaluation must proceed in the order specified in the courseware, which may be linear or any multi-pathed organization specified by the courseware author.

Each course will consist of a sequence of topics, very similar to the scope and sequence charts of standard curriculum development.  However, grades will assume an inverted significance from traditional courses: instead of representing what has been learned after instruction, grades will become targets selected prior to instruction.

Topics can be tagged as required, conditionally required at a specified grade target, or optional. For example, there may be 100 topics in a math course, of which 60 are required for all students (target grade C), 70 required for students who elect for a target grade of B, and 80 required for students electing for an A. The remaining 20 topics are optional for all.

The student will select the target grade he or she wants when they sign up for the course.  An optional topic may be viewed and even homework presented, but the student can break off at any point and the topic will be excluded from spiraling re-evaluation.  A student may downgrade their grade election at any time, but an upgrade mid-way through the course will result in having to master those topics that are now required at the new grade target, and the new topics will be added to spiraling re-evaluation.

Distinct diploma levels are anticipated, presumably at each traditional grade level but perhaps at a different level of granularity. So, we could have 12 diplomas, one for each grade, or three, one for elementary, middle and high school. Or we might define a new organization entirely, including general instruction and specialized instruction.

For the purpose of this design document, we assume the following diploma levels in our discussion:

• Elementary school, general diploma

• Middle school, general diploma

• Basic high school, general diploma, roughly corresponding to current 10th grade instructional levels

• Basic high school, specialized diplomas, corresponding to basic/general plus specific, presumably employment oriented, content courses

• Special diploma, for learning disabled students documenting that they have reached the maximum level of mastery of which they are capable

• Advanced high school, general diploma, roughly corresponding to current 12th grade instructional levels

• Advanced high school, specialized diplomas, corresponding to advanced/general plus specific content courses for college bound and for terminal students

• Associates degree, general studies diploma

• Associates degree, specialized major diplomas, corresponding to associates/general plus specific content courses

• Bachelor's degree, major study area diploma

• Bachelor's degree, specialized diplomas, corresponding to Bachelor's/major but including specific content courses, equivalent to a minor study area

• Masters degree, specialized diplomas, representing specific content courses

• Doctoral degree, specialized diplomas, representing specific content courses

• Special certificates, representing mastery of specified content courses without a degree

Each diploma can be summa cum laude, all A's, cum laude, all B's or better, or without any distinction, indicating C's or better.  Alternative definitions of distinction are clearly external to the software design, but it is strongly recommended that they be standardized, preferably at the national level or (ideally) internationally. Note that there is no distinction for honors or other tracks, except insofar as electing an A, B or C represents tracking. Any given diploma represents a defined mastery at the chosen level.

Similarly, it is strongly recommended that all general diplomas at least be standardized, preferably at the national level or (ideally) internationally. Standardization of specialized diplomas according to minimum professional requirements is highly desirable as well, along similar lines.  In this era of globalization, any diploma issued anywhere in the world should represent a documented minimum level of knowledge.  Nevertheless, all discussion of diploma levels is clearly outside the scope of the software design except insofar as the software must support their implementation.

Anyone with a given diploma who has left school can return at any time to qualify for a higher diploma level. However, they will have to re-demonstrate mastery of their existing diploma courses before advancing.

Similarly, if the requirements for a given diploma are upgraded, anyone seeking a further diploma will have to meet the new requirements of their existing diploma. As a consequence, anyone holding a given diploma as of a given date will have mastered all the requirements as of that date, whether they are 18 or 80 years of age.

© 2008 by Don Estes