Our research fellow, Dr. Rachelle L. Brooks of Northwestern University, wrote a chapter in a new book about student learning assessment in higher ed. In the book, Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment, just published by the Teagle Foundation, Rachelle argues we should assess student learning within specific academic disciplines rather than generically.
The volume, edited by Donna Heiland and Laura J. Rosenthal, explores what is at stake in the debates about assessment, especially in the literature classroom: “what we stand to gain, what we fear to lose, and whether current assessment methods can even capture the outcomes we care about most: the complex, subtle, seemingly ineffable heart of learning.”
The book is available for download on the Teagle Foundation's website.
Rachelle’s chapter, “Making the Case for Discipline-based Assessment,” emerges from her thinking about assessment after several years of research as principal investigator of the Teagle Assessment Project. It also provides an overview of that research which focuses on learning outcomes in the fields of classics and political science.
“Rachelle is doing leading-edge work in a field that’s really heating up,” says Slover Linett’s higher ed leader Bill Hayward. “Her chapter is a strong, smart contribution to the dialogue. I can’t wait to see the impact the book makes on the future of assessment.”
There are 17 other contributors to the book, including education leaders, faculty form English and foreign language departments, and other assessment experts.
We congratulate Rachelle on this timely publication.
Category: Higher education
