Assessing Learning through Experience at UWW: The Prior Learning Portfolio
Most students enrolling in UWW degree programs bring some credits gained from previous courses, but also from their experiences at work, in the community, and in their personal lives. UMass Amherst UWW is able to award credits for this learning through experience by assessing a prior learning portfolio prepared in Writing About Experience, usually taken during the second or third semester of the program. To receive credit, this learning:
- must be identified as college-level learning
- must not duplicate other credited courses, projects, or training on the student's transcript
- must be demonstrated through documentation, analysis, and reflection within a prior learning portfolio
UWW students write, revise, and compile a portfolio in UWW 370 Writing About Experience which can be submitted for assessment of up to fifteen credits. With these reflective and analytical essays developed through the courses, the student will add various kinds of documentation to prepare the portfolio for review by a faculty evaluator, and for larger portfolios, by a team of UWW reviewers.
Those students seeking more than fifteen credits will have an opportunity to add additional material in the following semester. The expanded portfolio will then be evaluated for up to a maximum of thirty credits. Typically, students earn between 15 and 24 credits for prior learning, although in some cases the award will fall below or rise above that range.
NOTE: Students who have taken UWW 370 Writing about Experience prior to spring 2008 will follow a somewhat different process for completion of the portfolio. These students should consult their UWW advisors.
Learn about prior learning assessment fees…
