Changing the Conversation about Higher Education: : Robert Thompson: R&L Education

Changing the Conversation about Higher Education

Description

American colleges and universities are laboring with sharply reduced resources and being asked pointed questions about their efficiency and effectiveness in educating students like never before.
For those administrators, faculty and all readers who want to understand how colleges can get better at their most important work, they will find invaluable guidance in Changing the Conversation about Higher Education. Robert Thompson has brought together the work of more than twenty professionals across thirteen universities to present important research on the obscure issues of vision, structure, and cultural transformation as they pertain to administrators and faculty. The result is a much-needed discussion on how to improve faculty and curricular reform for student success. Changing the Conversation about Higher Education addresses the contributions and findings from this research and is intended for academic administrators, faculty, and graduate students who are dedicated to improving undergraduate teaching and learning. The research was directed at two core aims of a liberal education: critical thinking and writing.

Table of Contents

Forward:
Derek Bok, President Emeritus, Harvard University
Preface:
Content Overview:
Acknowledgements:
Contributors:
Introduction:
Robert J. Thompson, Jr., Duke University
Part One: Effective Teaching and Learning Practices
Chapter 1. From Bottlenecks to Epistemology in History: Changing the Conversation
about the Teaching of History in Colleges and Universities
Leah Shopkow with Arlene Diaz, Joan Middendorf, and David Pace
Indiana University
Chapter 2. Using Scaffolding and Metacognitive Processes to Improve Critical Thinking
in the Disciplines
Andrea Follmer Greenhoot, University of Kansas
Chapter 3. Think like/write like: Metacognitive Strategies to Foster Students’ Development
as Disciplinary Thinkers and Writers
Deborah Meizlish, Danielle LaVaque-Manty, Naomi Silver, and Matthew Kaplan
University of Michigan
Chapter 4. How Writing-to-Learn Practices Improve Student Learning: Connecting
Research and Practice through a Consideration of Mechanisms of Effect
Christopher Thaiss,University of California-Davis
Julie Reynolds, Duke University
Part Two: Approaches to Assessment
Chapter 5. Assessment Approaches and Perspectives: Engaging Faculty and
Improving Student Learning
Jessica L. Jonson, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Robert J. Thompson, Jr., Ph.D., Duke University
Chapter 6. Developing a Process for Assessing General Education Learning Outcomes
Across a Multi-College University
Erin Blankenship, Shari J. Stenberg, and David E. Wilson
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Chapter 7. Disciplinary-Specific Thesis Assessment Protocol: A Validated Rubric
that Promotes Student Learning and Faculty Development
Julie Reynolds, Duke University
Part Three: The Role of University Centers: Professional Learning Communities
Chapter 8. Teaching and Learning Centers as Professional Learning Communities
Daniel Bernstein, University of Kansas
Chapter 9. Amplifying the Impact of Pedagogical Research: The Role of Teaching
Centers and Writing Centers
Matthew Kaplan, Deborah Meizlish, Naomi Silver, and Danielle LaVaque-Manty,
University of Michigan

Part Four: Next Steps in the Continuing Efforts to Transform the Culture of
Undergraduate Education
Chapter 10. Systematic to Systemic: A Heuristic Framework to Improve Educational
Practices and Student Learning
Robert J. Thompson, Jr., Duke University
Chapter 11. Changing the Conversation, Changing the Culture: The Place of
Foundations in the Learning Commons
Annie W. Bezbatchenko, The Teagle Foundation
Andrea Conklin Bueschel, The Spencer Foundation
Donna Heiland, The Teagle Foundation

References:

Product details

Published	Mar 04 2013
Format	Paperback
Edition	1st
Extent	238
ISBN	9781475801859
Imprint	R&L Education
Dimensions	9 x 6 inches
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

With all the swirling controversy about who gets into college, how it gets paid for, and how well it pays off, we risk forgetting that the fundamental work of colleges is teaching and learning and that at root a college becomes better when its faculty teach more effectively and its students learn more. Readers who want to understand how colleges and universities can get better at their most important work will find invaluable guidance in this book.

Mike McPherson, president, The Spencer Foundation
This impressive collection uniquely crosses boundaries that usually remain separate. The contributors effectively and persuasively show ways to integrate theories of learning with methods of teaching, the scholarship on teaching and learning with assessment, and the professional identities of faculty as both teachers and scholars.

Richard L. Morrill, Chancellor, University of Richmond, Virginia, president, the Teagle Foundation
Changing the Conversation about Higher Education is a needed addition to the on-going transformation in higher education focused on strengthening students' liberal education. The manuscript not only recounts the evidence on what is needed to enhance student achievement, but through examples from thirteen prestigious research universities, demonstrates how teaching innovations can be intentionally implemented; then assessed in ways that inform faculty to act; and result in information that can be used to further improve faculty and curricular reform for student success. The combination of focus on needed change in institutions' cultures for assessment and learning, coupled with practical strategies and actions is a welcome contribution for all of higher education.

Terrel Rhodes, vice president for the Office of Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment, Association of American Colleges and Universities
There's plenty of room for improvement in the quality of American higher education. To do that we have to be systematic and this book, more than any other, shows what 'systematic' means.

W. Robert Connor, senior adviser, The Teagle Foundation