This image from France over 100 years ago predicts what school will look like in the 21st century: Students still sitting in rows but literally plugged into a knowledge machine. Fascinating as a commentary on education, it also raises questions for us to ponder about teaching and learning today. In particular, where did the dream of “knowing without learning” come from and why does it persist today?
In “Student Engagement and Learning,” Jillian Kinzie presents an overview of the current research on student engagement and learning. She concludes that when students are engaged, they are usually learning—and vice versa. In other words, “Engaging pedagogies matter . . .” (p. 151).
I am happy to announce the launch of Teaching & Learning in Higher Ed. (ISSN 2329-2504), a digital project that supports teachers and reformers in higher education through encouraging serious engagement with the scholarship on teaching and learning.
Few readers of Academically Adrift have missed the significance of Arum and Roksa’s claims about how little students learn. But too many overlook what they say about how to improve.
“It has been well documented that colleges and universities are substantially failing to effectively educate students.” Meanwhile, research and theory on what actually works “flourish in the scholarship on teaching and learning. . .” (The Manifesto). College teachers can make a difference when they engage with this scholarship. Unfortunately, too few do. To encourage changing that, we present our infographic: “Grow the 8%.”
To say the least, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa have made waves in higher education with their book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010), a national, longitudinal, quantitative study of student learning in the first-two years of college in the U.S. The question driving the study is: “How much are students actually learning in contemporary higher education?” The overarching finding is unsettling. “The answer for many undergraduates,” Arum and Roksa conclude, “is not much” (p. 34).
Teaching & Learning in Higher Ed. 