Synopses & Reviews
Using a popular and proven business strategy, Janet Donald identifies optimal practices or ?benchmarks? for creating a quality learning environment and outlines steps faculty and administrators can take to strengthen student learning. Donald integrates the rich literature of teaching and learning with the findings from her in-depth interviews with faculty and administrators at four of America's premier research institutions, and offers practical, real-life solutions for meeting student learning challenges..Academic Leaders who have been charged with ensuring accountability and promoting improvement in the higher education process will find diverse and multi level strategies that can be selected and adapted for institutions with different histories and missions. Using the voices of faculty, administrators, and members of higher education centers, Donald shows how to define an educational mission and set of priorities. She discusses how learning goals vary across the disciplines and what this means in terms of student outcomes. She examines the practices that support the improvement of teaching and she discusses classroom assessment techniques that measure learning and teaching. Donald also covers student selection and access—especially questions of quality and diversity—and she provides strategies that recognize teaching in tenure and reward systems.
Review
"This excellent manual explains not only how but why educators should improve the learning environment at the higher education level. If the academic community treats Donald's recommendations seriously, the educational outcomes of students as well as the learning environment will surely improve." (Choice)
Synopsis
While busy implementing the latest management and assessment techniques, academic leaders have lost sight of their most important goal -- improving the environment for learning. Donald plans to remedy that with this book which identified optimal practices, or benchmarks, within higher education and discusses the steps that administrators can take to achieve similar results on their own campuses. Donald draws on the rich literature of teaching and learning and integrates this theory base with the findings from her in-depth interviews with faculty and administrators at some of America's premier research institutions. By culling out the foremost challenges facing higher education and offering practical, real life solutions for meeting these challenges, Donald will give faculty and administrators the tools they need to bring about genuine improvement in student learning and the campus learning environment.
Synopsis
Identifies best practices—benchmarks—and offers the tools needed to enrich the learning environment. Improving the Environment for Learning identifies optimal practices or ?benchmarks? within higher education and outlines steps faculty and administrators can take to strengthen student learning on their own campuses. The author integrates the rich literature of teaching and learning with findings from her in-depth interviews with faculty and administrators at four of America's premier research institutions. The author focuses on key factors influencing learning, identifies policies and practices central to effectiveness, and offers practical, real-life solutions for meeting student learning challenges.
Synopsis
Identifies optimal practices or
benchmarks for creating a quality learning environment and outlines steps faculty and administrators can take to strengthen student learning on their own campuses. Integrates the rich literature of teaching and learning with the findings from in-depth interviews with faculty and administrators at four of America's premier research institutions, and offers practical, real-life solutions for meeting student learning challenges.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 244-262) and index.
About the Author
JANET G. DONALD is professor of education and former director of the Centre for University Teaching and Learning at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She lives in Westmount, Canada.
Table of Contents
Frameworks for Improving Learning.
The Role of the Disciplines in the Quality of Learning.
Student Selection and Access.
Fostering Students' Motivation for Learning.
Improving Instruction by Focusing on Learning.
Providing Institutional Support for the Improvement of Teaching.
Using Assessment to Define Tasks and Measure Learning.
Faculty Responsibilities, Rewards, and Assessment.
Institutional Assessment to Improve Learning.