This page provides an Annotated Bibliography of some of the main resources in the Holman Library that could be useful for instructors. 

Anderson, Rebecca S., Bauer, John F., Speck, Bruce W. Speck (Editors) (2002). Assessment Strategies for the On-line Class From Theory to Practice: New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 91. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Addresses the kinds of questions that instructors need to ask themselves as they begin to move at least part of their students' work to an on-line format. The chapters present an initial overview of the need for evaluating students' on-line work with the same care that instructors give to the students' work in hard-copy format; what an instructor needs to know about the technology, a discussion of alternative instructional formats such as group work and fieldwork; as well as participation in chat rooms and threaded discussions. Two chapters address curricular issues and the value of on-line learning as a supplement to more traditional instructional formats. The issues explored here will help guide instructors who are considering using on-line learning in conjunction with their regular classes, as well as those interested in going totally on-line.

Angelo, Tom, Cross, Pat.  (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for Faculty (2^nd Edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

This revised and greatly expanded edition of the 1988 handbook offers teachers at all levels of experience detailed, how-to advice on classroom assessment—from what it is and how it works to planning, implementing, and analyzing assessment projects. The authors illustrate their approach through twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects.

Arter, Judith A., McTighe, Jay. (2001). Scoring Rubrics in the Classroom: Using Performance Criteria for Assessing and Improving Student Performance.  Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.

This is a practical guide to more effective assessment for improved student learning.  Learn how to be more consistent in judging student performance, and help your students become more effective at assessing their own learning! This book offers a practical approach to assessing challenging but necessary performance tasks like creative writing, "real-world" research projects, and cooperative group activities.

Judith Arter and Jay McTighe, experts in the field of assessment, wrote Scoring Rubrics in the Classroom to help you achieve three main goals:

·         Clarify the targets of instruction, especially for hard-to-define problem     solving

·         Provide valid and reliable assessment of student learning

·         Improve student motivation and achievement by helping students             understand the nature of quality for performances and products

Each chapter is framed by an essential question and includes illustrative stories, practical examples, tips and cautions, and a summary of key points and recommended resources for further information. The resources section contains a wealth of rubrics to adopt or adapt.

Bain, Ken. (2004). What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators.

The short answer is--it's not what teachers do, it's what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out--but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn.

In stories both humorous and touching, Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students' discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

Banta, Trudy W., Lund, Jon P., Black, Karen B., Oblander, Frances W. (1995).  Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Good practice in assessment is occurring on hundreds of campuses across the country. Yet most accounts of this work go unreported or are widely dispersed, published in the literature of dozens of different academic disciplines. Now, Assessment in Practice brings together in one volume the best current knowledge of what assessment methods work best and what principles should be incorporated into all effective assessment efforts—whether at institutional, program, or department levels. Drawing from 165 actual cases—and reporting 86 of them in their entirety, in the words of those who developed them—the authors illustrate methods and techniques of assessment covering a wide range of objectives in diverse types of institutions. Classroom assessment topics, for instance, include mathematics, foreign language, technology, and more. Topics on overall institutional effectiveness range from student motivation and standardized testing to a multiple-campus, course-embedded approach to assessment of general education. The authors provide a helpful cross-referencing system that enables readers to access cases by type of objective, type of institution, and type of method. And they include numerous forms, questionnaires, and contact names to help practitioners implement the book's strategies.

Banta, Trudy W. and Associates (2002). Building a Scholarship of Assessment.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

In this book, leading experts in the field examine the current state of assessment practice and scholarship, explore what the future holds for assessment, and offer guidance to help educators meet these new challenges. The contributors root assessment squarely in several related disciplines to provide an overview of assessment practice and scholarship that will prove useful to both the seasoned educator and those new to assessment practice. Ultimately, Building a Scholarship of Assessment will help convince skeptics who still believe outcomes assessment is a fad and will soon fade away that this is an interdisciplinary area with deep roots and an exciting future.

Barkley, Elizabeth, Cross K. Patricia, Major, Claire Howell (2004). Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Engaging students in active learning is a predominant theme in today's classrooms. To promote active learning, teachers across the disciplines and in all kinds of colleges are incorporating collaborative learning into their teaching. Collaborative Learning Techniques is a scholarly and well-written handbook that guides teachers through all aspects of group work, providing solid information on what to do, how to do it, and why it is important to student learning. Synthesizing the relevant research and good practice literature, the authors present detailed procedures for thirty collaborative learning techniques (CoLTs) and offer practical suggestions on a wide range of topics, including how to form groups, assign roles, build team spirit, solve problems, and evaluate and grade student participation.

Bean, John C. (1996).  Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

"Engaging Ideas surprised me. I didn't expect to like it, but I really did. I didn't expect to find so much in it that would cause me to pause and reflect on my own practices as a teacher, but this is exactly what happened repeatedly. I didn't expect to find the writing so sprightly an attention holding, but it was. And I didn't expect that I would decide to change the nature of the writing assignments I give students as a result of this book, but I have…An excellent resource for faculty across all disciplines who long for ways of improving student writing and thinking skills." —Howard B. Altman, director, Linguistics Program, University of Louisville.

Engaging Ideas is a practical nuts-and-bolts guide for teachers from any discipline who want to design interest-provoking writing and critical thinking activities and incorporate them into their courses in a way that encourages inquiry, exploration, discussion, and debate. The book also shows how writing can easily be integrated with such other critical thinking activities as inquiry discussions, simulation games, classroom debates, interactive lectures, and more—helping transform students from passive to active learners.

Brookfield, Stephen D. (2000). The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. San Francisco: Josssey-Bass.

Drawing on decades of professional experience and research on teaching and learning, award-winning author Stephen D. Brookfield offers insight, inspiration, and down-to-earth advice to new and seasoned teachers showing how to thrive on the unpredictability and diversity of classroom life.

Casazza, Martha E., Silverman, Sharon L.  (1996).  Learning Assistance and Developmental Education: A Guide for Effective Practice.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Authors Martha Casazza and Sharon Silverman take an in-depth look at learning assistance programs that have been developed at four very different types of institutions--a community college, a technical school, a private research university, and a public research university. Using these case studies, the authors offer a new model for effective practice that helps learning assistance and developmental education professionals meet diverse student needs, increase accountability, manage resources more effectively, use technology, develop and maintain professional standards, and promote a sense of leadership and student advocacy.

“This is a solid and well-researched work. It not only provides the 'how to' but also offers the 'why' for those who are designing a new program or refining an existing one." --Hunter R. Boylan, professor and director, National Center for Developmental Education” A significant contribution to learning assistance and developmental education. It offers concrete and practical advice that is thorough and sound for the new professional as well as for the more experiences...The authors are to be congratulated for having done an excellent job in the presentation of both practice and theory." --Georgine Materniak, director, Learning Skills Center, University of Pittsburgh

Comeaux, Patricia, Editor, Forword by Brent Muirhead. (2004). Assessing Online Learning. Anker Publishing.

Assessing Online Learning offers an assortment of tools and strategies for evaluating learning and instructional design in online classrooms. Conceptual and pragmatic, this book addresses the salient issues of assessment and offers a variety of assessment tools and strategies for online classrooms and programs, such as self-assessment tools for students to evaluate their progress toward their final products, instruments in which teams can evaluate their progress and contributions, and specific tools and strategies for assessing students' critical thinking and writing skills in electronic discussion boards and in similar reflective writing environments.

With its multidisciplinary, comprehensive approach, this book will be of interest to faculty, administrators, scholars, and researchers in higher education, and to anyone interested in the particular needs and challenges of assessment in online instruction and its integral role in learning.

Cross, K. Patricia, Steadman, Mimi Harris. (1996). Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Classroom Research is the “eagerly awaited”,” next step”, resource to Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross's bestselling guide, Classroom Assessment Techniques. Classroom Assessment Techniques offers faculty members a set of tools to identify what is working and what is not in their classrooms and the companion volume Classroom Research details a collaborative process for investigating teaching and learning issues. This technique engages teachers in problem-based discussions, integrates their teaching experience with recent research and theory on learning, and gives examples of Classroom Assessment and Classroom Research projects that can be carried out in any classroom. It provides a “pathway into the scholarship of teaching”.  Designed for faculty members, in groups and in workshops, Classroom Research's case method approach illustrates ways to think about a variety of common learning issues. While the situations presented will be familiar to experienced teachers, the problems they pose are not easily solved. The cases show students in the process of learning, clearly illustrate their problems and perceptions, and focus on long-term issues such as memory, motivation, deep and surface learning, metacognition, learning strategies, gender issues, intellectual development, and critical thinking. The authors designed the discussion questions to provoke a lively exchange of ideas and interpretations and they show how faculty can acquire the critical knowledge— from research and literature as well as from students themselves—to determine some possible solutions.

Dalton, Jon C., Russell, Terrance R., Kline, Sally, Editors. (2004). Assessing Character Outcomes in College: New Directions for Institutional Research #122. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The authors examine several perspectives o the role of colleges and universities in developing student character and illustrate different approaches to defining and assessing character outcomes in the higher education setting.  This is the 122^nd volume in the Jossey-Bass higher education report New Directions for Institutional Research.

Gardner, John N. (Editor), Betsy O. Barefoot, Marc Cutright, Libby V. Morris, Charles C. Schroeder, Stephen W. Schwartz, Michael J. Siegel, Randy L. Swing (2005).  Achieving & Sustaining Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

In 2002, the Policy Center on the First Year of College (supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and Lumina Foundation for Education) sponsored a project to recognize colleges and universities as "Institutions of Excellence" in their design and execution of the first year. Thirteen colleges and universities—representing a broad spectrum of campus types—were selected as exceptional institutions that place a high priority on the first-year experience. Achieving and Sustaining Excellence in the First Year of College includes case studies of each of the thirteen exemplary institutions. These studies illustrate and analyze the colleges’ best practices in teaching, assessing, and retaining first-year college students. The individual case studies offer lessons learned and have broad potential application beyond the particular type of institution represented.

Gross Davis, Barbara. (1993). Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

A rich compendium of classroom-tested strategies and suggestions designed to improve the teaching practice of beginning, mid-career, and senior faculty members.  Forty-nine teaching tools cover both traditional tasks--writing a course syllabus, delivering a lecture--and newer, broader concerns, such as responding to diversity and using technology. Forty-nine teaching tools cover both traditional tasks--writing a course syllabus, delivering a lecture--and newer, broader concerns, such as responding to diversity and using technology.

Huba, Mary E., Freed Jann E.  (1999). Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses: Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning.  Old Tappan, NJ: Pearson Education.

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses integrates current thinking and research regarding the learning of undergraduate students with principles of best practice in assessment and teaching. The book will help readers see the connection among three powerful trends in higher education today: the focus on learning and learners, the emphasis on the assessment of learning, and the need to continually improve what those in higher education do. Grounded in principles of constructivist learning theory and continuous improvement, the book provides opportunities for readers to make connections with what they already know about assessment, integrate new information with their current knowledge, and try new approaches to enhance the learning of their students.

Readers will consider what it means to shift from a teacher-centered paradigm of instruction to a learner-centered paradigm. The book offers practical approaches to help formulate intended learning outcomes, gather feedback from students to guide instruction, and develop scoring criteria for guiding and evaluating student work. Readers will learn how to assess students' ability to think critically, address enduring and emerging issues and problems in their disciplines, and use portfolios to promote and evaluate student learning. Numerous questions to guide implementation, as well as examples from a variety of disciplines and institutions are provided.

Huber, Mary Taylor (2004). Balancing Acts: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Academic Careers. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

How can faculty integrate the scholarship of teaching and learning into their academic careers? Balancing Acts addresses this question through the experience of four scholars who have been innovators in their own classrooms, leaders of education initiatives in their institutions and disciplines, and pioneers in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Drawing on interviews with Dan Bernstein (psychology, University of Nebraska), Brian Coppola (chemistry, University of Michigan), Sheri Sheppard (mechanical engineering, Stanford University), Randy Bass (American literature, Georgetown University), and colleagues within and outside their institutions and fields, the author looks at the routes these pathfinders have traveled through the scholarship of teaching and learning and at the consequences that this unusual work has had for the advancement of their careers, especially tenure and promotion.

Lessons from these case studies will be of interest to scholars of teaching and learning and their advocates at colleges and universities of all kinds.

King, Patricia & Kitchener, Karen. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

How do students learn to reason and think about complex issues? This book fills a critical gap in our understanding of a long-neglected facet of the critical thinking process: reflective judgment. Drawing on extensive cross-sectional and longitudinal research, including their own ten-year study, Patricia M. King and Karen Strohm Kitchener detail the series of stages that lay the foundation for reflective thinking, and they trace the development of reflective judgment through adolescence and adulthood.  King and Kitchener's new model of reflective judgment is designed to enhance both research and practice in the areas of critical thinking, intellectual development, and education. The authors examine key questions concerning reflective judgment: How do high school, college, and graduate students reason differently about ill-structured problems? Does students' reasoning improve with additional exposure to and involvement in higher education? Do adult learners differ from traditional-age students in their reflective thinking? How does the reasoning of adult college graduates differ from that of non-college-educated adults? The authors also describe the implications of the Reflective Judgment Model for working with students in the classroom and beyond—encouraging educators to think differently about interactions with their students and to create ways of more effectively promoting the ability to make reflective judgments.

Kirst, Michael W., Venezia, Andrea, Editors, (2004). From High School to College: Improving Opportunities for Success in Postsecondary Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Would you like to improve your school’s graduation and college admission rates? In From High School to College educational policy experts Michael W. Kirst, Andrea Venezia, and their contributors reveal why so many students are entering college unprepared for college level work and often unable to complete a degree.  This important book presents the findings of the Bridge Project a major national research study conducted by Stanford University and funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the U.S. Department of Education. The researchers examined the fit between what high schools were doing to prepare students for college admissions and course work, and what colleges considered when admitting and placing incoming freshman. Based on hundreds of interviews with teachers and counselors, thousands of surveys with students and parents, and a thorough examination of the policies and practices in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Texas, From High School to College offers recommendations for bridging the gap between high school and college and for improving college admission and graduation rates.  Their findings include recommended changes in assessment and curriculum development, teacher training, and policies that should result in improved opportunities for all students to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.

Lipman, Matthew (2003). Thinking in Education (Second Edition).  Cambridge University Press.

The first edition of Thinking in Education made a case for inserting thinking into all levels of education by infusing critical thinking into existing disciplines. Matthew Lipman, a leading education theorist, provided procedures to enable students at all levels of education to become more thoughtful, more reasonable, and more judicious. In the 12 years since the first edition was published, the author has broadened his approach to teaching thinking. While critical thinking is important and highly valuable, it is not sufficient; students must develop creative and caring thinking as well. This new edition provides methods for integrating emotive experience, mental acts, thinking skills and informal fallacies into a concerted approach to the improvement of reasoning and judgment. It also shows how the community of inquiry can be utilized for the reduction of violence in the classroom and for the improvement of the education of children at risk.  Contents include:

1. The reflective model of educational practice; 2. Approaches in teaching for thinking; 3. Obstacles and misconceptions in teaching for thinking; Part II. Communities of Inquiry: 4. Thinking in community; 5. The community of inquiry approach to violence reduction; Part III. Orchestrating the Components: 6. The emotions in thinking and in education; 7. Mental acts; 8. Thinking skills; Part IV. Education for the Improvement of Thinking: 9. The transactive dimensions of thinking; 10. Education for critical thinking; 11. Education for creative thinking; 12. Education for caring thinking; 13. Strengthening the power of judgment.

Maki, Peggy, L. (2004). Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution. Sterling, VA. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

This book offers colleges and universities a framework and tools to design an effective and collaborative assessment process appropriate for their culture and institution. It encapsulates the approach that Peggy Maki has developed and refined through the hundreds of successful workshops she has presented nationally and internationally. Peggy Maki starts with a definition of assessment as a process that enables us to determine the fit between what we expect our students to understand and be able to do and what they actually demonstrate at points along their educational careers. She then presents a framework -- accompanied by extensive examples of processes, strategies and illustrative campus practices, as well as key resources, guides, worksheets, and exercises -- that will assist all stakeholders in the institution to develop and sustain assessment of student learning as an integral and systematic core institutional process.

Exploring the continuum of students' learning, this book sets the assessment of learning within the twin contexts of: (1) the level of a program, department, division, or school within an institution; and (2) the level of an institution, based on its mission statement, educational philosophy, and educational objectives. Each chapter explores ways to position assessment within program- and institutional-level processes, decisions, structures, practices, and channels of communication. Here is a process that any campus can adapt and use to engage all its constituencies -- institutional leaders, faculty, staff, administrators, students and everyone involved in governance -- in constructive dialogue to forge a vision about and commitment to a culture of evidence.

Malnarich, Gillies with Dusenberry, Pam, Sloan, Ben, Swinton, Jan, van Slyck, Phylis. (2003). The Pedagogy of Possibilities: Developmental Education, College-Level Studies, and Learning Communities.  National Learning Communities Monograph Series, Olympia, WA: The Evergreen State College, Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, in cooperation with the American Association for Higher Education.

The Pedagogy of Possibilities discusses what it takes to be “prepared” for college, introduces the work of developmental educators, a developmental education perspective on learning and research-based practices in developmental education, and examines learning communities, an acknowledged “best practice” and means for creating challenging and supporting learning environments for developmental students.

Mezirow, J. & Associates (1990). Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

When confronting new learning situations either in their personal lives or at work, adults often can have difficulty adapting to change or may lack the ability to see new alternatives because of past experiences or inhibiting values, prejudices, and assumptions.  Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood provides a comprehensive guide for helping adults learn how to transform their rich and diverse life experience from a potential barrier to change into a basis for growth and life-long learning.

National Writing Project, Nagin, Carl (2003). Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Because Writing Matters examines the myths and realities surrounding the teaching of writing in schools. This important book reveals how kids learn to write, what schools need to do to teach writing effectively, and shows that effective writing teachers address more than content and skills. Sponsored by the National Writing Project, a nationally recognized organization for teachers, Because Writing Matters offers step-by-step recommendations for developing effective writing programs in all grades. Each of the book's action steps is prioritized from the easily achieved to the larger and longer term.

Palloff, Rena, Pratt, Keith (2004). Collaborating Online: Learning Together in Community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Collaborating Online provides practical guidance for faculty seeking to help their students work together in creative ways, move out of the box of traditional papers and projects, and deepen the learning experience through their work with one another. Authors Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt draw on their extensive knowledge and experience to show how collaboration brings students together to support the learning of each member of the group while promoting creativity and critical thinking. Collaborating Online is the second title in the Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning. This series helps higher education professionals improve the practice of online teaching and learning by providing concise, practical resources focused on particular areas or issues they might confront in this new learning environment.

Palloff, Rena M., Pratt, Keith. (2001). Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom: The Realities of Online Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Filled with numerous examples from actual online courses and insights from teachers and students, this essential guide offers you helpful suggestions for dealing with such critical issues as evaluating effective courseware, working with online classroom dynamics, addressing the needs of the online student, making the transition to online teaching, and promoting the development of the learning community.

Palomba, Catherine A, Trudy W. Banta. (1999). Assessment Essentials: Planning, Implementing, and Improving Assessment in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

This step-by-step guide provides the most current practices for developing assessment programs on college and university campuses. Assessment Essentials outlines the assessment process from the first to the last step and is filled with illustrative examples to show how assessment is accomplished on today's academic campuses. It is especially useful for faculty members and others who may be new to the assessment process. In clear, accessible language, Palomba and Banta describe effective assessment programs and offer a thorough review of the most up-to-date practices in the field.

Each chapter of the book addresses a specific aspect of assessment and is designed to walk users through various steps of the assessment process. This comprehensive resource shows how to: Develop plans and goals that are right for the needs of an individual campus, Encourage involvement and support from students, faculty, alumni, and employees, Select useful methods and approaches, Use the most advantageous performance measures, Develop tests and classroom assignments, Choose appropriate surveys and focus groups, Accurately assess general education, campus environments, and student experiences, and Effectively analyze, report, and use the assessment results.

Perry, William G. Jr.  (1998). Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years: A Scheme.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Since its original publication in 1970, this landmark book by William Perry has remained the cornerstone of much of the student development research that followed. Using research conducted with Harvard undergraduates over a fifteen-year period, Perry derived an enduring framework for characterizing student development--a scheme so accurate that it still informs and advances investigations into student development across genders and cultures.

Drawing from firsthand accounts, Perry traces a path from students' adolescence into adulthood. His nine-stage model describes the steps that move students from a simplistic, categorical view of knowledge to a more complex, contextual view of the world and of themselves. Throughout this journey of cognitive development, Perry reveals that the most significant changes occur in forms in which people perceive their world rather than in the particulars of their attitudes and concerns. He shows ultimately that the nature of intellectual development is such that we should pay as much attention to the processes we use as to the content.

In a new introduction to this classic work, Lee Knefelkamp--a close colleague of Perry's and a leading expert on college student development--evaluates the book's place in the literature of higher education. Knefelkamp explains how the Perry scheme has shaped current thinking about student development and discusses the most significant research that has since evolved from Perry's groundbreaking effort.

Roueche, John E., Milliron, Mark D., Roueche, Suanne D. (2003).  Practical Magic: On the Front Lines of Teaching Excellence. Washington D.C.; Community College Press

What constitutes excellent teaching? To answer this question, these noted experts went straight to the thousands of teachers who have been recognized for excellence-recipients of teaching excellence awards-and asked them. Their answers, which the authors have put into context with history and research, make for a book that is as inspiring as it is informative, shedding new light on both the definable and the simply magical components of good teaching.

Saroyan, Alenoush, Amundsen, Cheryl. (2004). Rethinking Teaching in Higher Education: From a Course Design Workshop to a Faculty Development Framework. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publications, LLC.

This book is intended for faculty and faculty developers, as well as for deans, chairs, and directors responsible for promoting teaching and learning in higher education. Intentionally non-technical, it engages readers reflectively with a process for developing teaching and details the planning necessary to apply this process to teaching within disciplines.

The book centers on McGill University’s week long Course Design and Teaching Workshop that the contributors have offered together for more than ten years and provides faculty developers and administrators with valuable non-prescriptive models and challenging ideas that promote faculty development in general and university teaching in particular. It engages faculty members in the process of course design in a way that is learning centered and can lead to deep student learning.

Smilkstein, Rita.  (2002).  We're Born to Learn: Using the Brain's Natural Learning Process to Create Today's Curriculum.  Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Make it possible for all students to realize their potential as natural learners!  Combining field/classroom and neuroscience research, Smilkstein provides principles for developing brain-compatible, natural-learning curricula for any subject at any grade level.

This resource includes:

      Simple charts detailing the six-stage Natural Human Learning Process (NHLP) from foundational knowledge through higher-level thinking

      Practical methods for developing curricula and selecting pedagogical strategies that are most effective in helping students utilize their innate learning processes

       Guidelines and models for how this theory can be applied to the development of classroom-proven lesson plans and curricula

Stevens, Dannelle D., Levi, Antonia J. (2004). Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback and Promote Student Learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publications, LLC.

Research shows that rubrics save professors’ time while conveying meaningful and timely feedback for students, and promoting self-regulated and independent learning. The reason rubrics are little used in higher education is that few faculty members have been exposed to their use.

At its most basic a rubric is a scoring tool that divides an assignment into its component parts and objectives, and provides a detailed description of what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable levels of performance for each part.  The authors describe a variety of processes to construct rubrics, including some that involve student participation. They demonstrate how interactive rubrics—a process involving assessors and the assessed in defining the criteria for an assignment or objective—can be effective, not only in involving students more actively in their learning, but in establishing consistent standards of assessment at the program, department and campus level.

Suskie, Linda, Foreword by Thomas A. Angelo. (2004). Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide. Anker Publishing.

Interest in assessing student learning at institutions of higher education—and the need to learn how to do it—skyrocketed in the last two decades of the 20th century and continues to grow into the 21st century. This book summarizes current thinking on the practice of assessing student learning in a comprehensive, accessible, and useful fashion. Short on background and theory and long on practical advice, this is a plainspoken, informally written book designed to provide sensible guidance for assessment practitioners on virtually all aspects of student assessment, and for faculty who simply want to improve assessments within their classes. Assessing Student Learning presents readers with well-informed principles and options that they can select and adapt to their own circumstances.  Linda Suskie is director of assessment at Towson University and past director of the American Association for Higher Education's Assessment Forum.  Organized in four parts, this book:

      Sets the stage for successful assessment efforts by discussing the nature of and rationale for assessment, principles of good practice, and campus culture.

      Provides an overview of the many decisions that must be made in order to launch successful assessment efforts, including planning assessment strategies, establishing learning goals, and choosing appropriate assessment tools and approaches.

      Includes information on a wide range of assessment tools, including hands-on assignments, reflective writing, portfolios, traditional tests, surveys and focus groups, and published instruments. Concludes with information on summarizing, analyzing, and communicating assessment results and using them effectively and appropriately.

Walvoord, Barbara E., Anderson, Virginia Johnson, Angelo, Thomas A.  (1998). Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Effective Grading is written for the faculty member who believes the grading process is a valuable measure of student learning. This hands-on guide for evaluating student work offers an in-depth examination of the linkage between teaching and grading. It uses grades not as isolated artifacts, but as part of a process that, when integrated with course objectives, provides rich information about student learning. The authors reveal how the grading process can also be used for broader assessment objectives, such as curriculum and institutional assessment. As practical as it is informative, Effective Grading contains a wealth of special materials, including AAHE's Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning, types of assignments and tests, and a plan for a faculty workshop on grading and assessment. In addition, the book provides background to the principles of the grading process as well as a wealth of illustrative examples, offering faculty both a sound basis in assessment theory and the practical tools they need to put it to work.

Walvoord, Barbara E. (2004). Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Assessment Clear and Simple is “Assessment 101” in a book--a concise and step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others. Assessment Clear and Simple explores a variety of topics and shows how to: · Build on assessment already in place, Use classroom work and grading process, Get faculty and department on board, Assess hard to define goals such as moral and civic development, Develop workable learning goals, Tailor assessment to its purposes, Select sensible assessment measures, Make criteria explicit, Use assessment to improve learning, Establish effective oversight without an assessment bureaucracy, Write an assessment report, Interpret the institution’s culture to external audiences.

Wiggins, Grant P. (1999). Assessing Student Performance: Exploring the Purpose and Limits of Testing.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

What is assessment and how does testing differ from it? Why are performance tests, by themselves, not an adequate system of student assessment? How might we better "test our tests" beyond current technical standards? And why won't increased national testing offer the accountability of schools we so sorely need? In Assessing Student Performance, Grant P. Wiggins explores these questions and clarifies the limits of testing in an assessment system. He analyzes problematic practices in test design and formats that prevent students from explaining their answers. By showing us that assessment is more than testing and intellectual performance is more than right answers, Wiggins leads us to new systems of assessment that more closely examine students' habits of mind and provide teachers and policy makers with more useful and credible feedback.