When can I enroll?
The University of the World will launch its first pilot class in the Fall 2015 in cooperation with the Future Generations Graduate School. This hybrid class will fuse some of the University’s innovative pedagogy with the accredited Master’s degree structure of Future Generations. The cohorts will be made up of students from the Appalachian region of the United States, from East Africa, and from the Himalaya.
What is Applied Blended Learning?
Applied Blended Learning refers to the method through which students grow in their education ? it is based on real life (applied) and draws from multiple sources of knowledge and practice (blended).
There are four streams of Applied Blended Learning:
- Online Learning ? accessing educational resources from the Internet
- Site-based Demonstrations ? learning by watching experts and listening to them
- Supervised Practice ? learning by doing with supervision by experts
- Independent Practice ? learning and doing on the job
- Students will utilize these four streams in order to learn and prove competency in an area of knowledge or skill. When competence has been proven, a student will earn a certificate ? taking one step closer to graduation.
The advantage to the Applied Blended Learning pedagogy is that it gives the student great flexibility in terms of time, finances, and personal learning styles.
What is Competency-based Education?
Competency-based Education provides a new way of learning that is based on what the student needs to learn in order to advance their skills to improve their employment position. Students are therefore not told what they should know and then tested to prove that they have memorized material. Instead, students must give proof that they are able to use the knowledge and skills they need in a way that is grounded in reality. In other words, they must show that they are competent to perform that skill.
Core Competency Areas
The process of determining competencies is one of the most important steps in the development of a competency-based program. As this program is student-centered, the student must be directly involved in the process of defining their learning objectives and the set of competencies required for degree completion. This set of competencies is called your Competency Profile. This profile determines the focus of your learning and its assessment.
The University of the World offers a general competency profile for a Masters degree level.. It is not a blueprint but a useful guideline.? This framework, with very general competency statements, is organized according to five broad areas of competency learning. A student? can use this broad framework and customize it to start refining a Learning Plan. The five broad areas are:
- Intellectual Skills -?This category includes analytic inquiry, use of information resources, engaging diverse perspectives, ethical reasoning, quantitative fluency, and communicative fluency.
- Specialized Knowledge -?This category addresses what students should demonstrate with respect to their disciplines or fields of study. It includes theoretical and practical knowledge, tools, methodologies, skills, and terminology.
- Broad and Integrative Knowledge -?This category asks students to consolidate learning from different broad fields of study ? the humanities, arts, sciences, and social sciences ? and to discover and explore concepts and questions that bridge these essential areas of learning.
- Applied and Collaborative Learning -?This category emphasizes what students can do with what they know, demonstrated by innovation and fluency in addressing unscripted problems at work and in other settings outside the classroom.
- Civic and Global Learning – Recognizing higher educations responsibilities both to democracy and to the global community, this fifth area of learning addresses the integration of knowledge and skills in applications that facilitate student engagement with and response to civic, social, environmental and economic challenges at local, national and global levels.
Each of these broad areas includes a set of specific competences that must be defined in clear terms. In other words, when determining the competencies to prove knowledge and skill, the student must relate each of these competencies to their degree area. In proving competency in each of these areas, students earn certificates. The accumulation of certificates, along with a Thesis, are what earn the student a degree.
If the Faculty are not teaching, what do they do? How will I be graded?
Another unique feature of the University of the World model is that faculty do not teach. Instead, they serve a number of other critical functions as they guide and mentor students, manage the Local and Global Classes, assure academic rigor.
Students are not graded by faculty. Instead, they are evaluated with their peers with faculty oversight. Students therefore do not receive a pass or fail grade. Instead, they pass (and receive the certificate) or continue improving their skill and knowledge until they achieve the competency.
Where do I go to study?
The University of the World takes the learning outside of the traditional classroom and into the real world life of each student, respecting the fact that the best learning comes from applied use of knowledge and skills and that there is no longer one prescribed answer to solving problems and advancing in ones work.
Therefore, students study at a desk, but this desk is their place of work where they can apply their learning and seek growth. In Local Classes, students will connect with their local peers, and in Global Classes, students will connect with their peers from all over the world. The result is that learning and teaching takes place from all over the world ? not inside a classroom, and not from one person.
Some students will still elect to take a formal course at a university and take advantage of that opportunity. In doing so, the student must still prove competency to the University of the World and to their peers in order to earn their certificate.
What is the Admissions process?
There are four parts to the Admissions process:
PART ONE. MEET ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
Students must have proof of the following:
- Employment. Your work is your desk. As a musician must have an instrument to practice on, to learn in this university you must be able to practice the work you want to learn.
- Connection to mobile broadband Internet. You need to be able to connect to the world campus. You need reliable and affordable connection from where you live or you will not be able to use this university.
- Proof of a Bachelors degree or equivalent education plus at least four years of work experience as a professional in the field or a related field in which you now seek Masters training.
- The ability to work in English as shown by a TOEFL score of 530 or an equivalent test and score.
PART TWO: DEVELOP LEARNING VISION
A Learning Vision is the starting point from where a student sees their future and shows that they understand:
- Their present-day situation
- Where they want to go in terms of their professional lives, and
- How this education program can help them to achieve this vision.? The Learning Vision is the starting point from where students see their future, and from where they later will build their Learning Plans.
The University of the World will assist aspiring students in developing their Learning Vision and will revisit it throughout the students academic career to ensure that what studies they pursue remain relevant and attainable.
PART THREE. CHOOSE FIELD OF STUDY
PART FOUR. DEVELOP LEARNING PLAN
Upon approval by the university of the requirements and Learning Vision, students are provisional accepted to the university, enroll in an Orientation Class to familiarize themselves with the non-traditional learning style of the university, and begin to work with an Academic Advisor to develop a Learning Plan. Once a Learning Plan is approved, the student is fully accepted into the university and begins work to accumulate the Certificates.
To use common academic terminology, the Learning Plan is the curriculum. Where it differs from the traditional curriculum is that it is completely individualized, both in how learning will be done (balance among learning streams) and in terms of the content of the learning (what activities are proposed). It includes:
- A Learning Vision
- A competency profile
- A plan about how to achieve mastery in all these competencies (combination of learning activities from the four Applied Blended Learning streams)
- A Thesis Plan
The challenge cuts across multiple dimensions. The student will identify and analyze the five Core Competency Areas at a level of proficiency congruent with a Masters degree and design how to use the streams of Applied Blended Learning to achieve them. Recognizing that this is not an easy task, the university will assist students using a number of online tools and guides. In addition, students in the provisional stage will only be required to have a robust first draft of the Learning Plan.
Throughout the course of study in University of the World, students will be progressively refining their plan to reflect their growing sophistication of knowledge. And throughout the course of your study, the University of the World will work with students to revise and improve the Learning Plan so that it is relevant, achievable, and up to the standards of a Masters degree.
How long is the program?
As students prove competency in a self-designed program, there is no standard graduation time. Students are not limited to semesters or terms, but instead are assessed from certificate to certificate (multiple certificates may be pursued at the same time).? At the same time, the university model recognizes that student lives go on while pursuing the degree and that students learn at different rates. Therefore students study at their own pace until the requirements for graduation are complete.
How much with the degree cost?
There is no flat rate for the degree. Instead, students pay for continued membership to study in the university until they meet the requirements for graduation. This may mean that some students earn all of their certificates and complete their thesis in 16 months. Others may take longer. Their fees are subsequently related to the amount of time they are studying in the university.
What if I need additional assistance?
The university Student Success Center will be the hub for all student resources including but not limited to additional academic support, IT assistance, training in library use, grievance recourse, and others.
How does my job impact my course of study?
A current job is required for entry into University of the World because you must be able to directly apply new learning. Your job will be a learning platform, another classroom in this university. It is expected that your professional performance will be enhanced through the course of your academic study. Eventually, as will be discussed later on, your current employer, who may be facilitating your studies allowing you to participate in specific learning activities, may have a say in the assessment of your work.
Why is it essential to have access to mobile broadband Internet?
Access to mobile broadband is essential because online learning is one component of our Applied Blended Learning pedagogy. Mobile broadband is needed to access available educational resources online. It is the instrument students use to connect with faculty and peers. You need to have access to a mobile device (tablet, smartphone, or laptop) and to mobile broadband Internet where your desk is located. The universitys technology platform is accessible using a wide range of mobile devices and operating systems. If you have questions about your current devices compatibility, a test is available on our website to see if you have the right hardware and fast enough bandwidth connection.