160 pages
152 x 227 mm
ISBN-10: 1 57922 123 8
ISBN-13: 978 157922 123 2
Pub date: December 2004
Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC

Making a discipline come alive for those who are not experts - particularly students who may only take one or two courses - requires rigorous thought about what really matters in a field and how to engage students in its practice.
Faculty from Alverno College in several disciplines -- chemistry, economics, history, literature, mathematics and philosophy -- demonstrate what it means for them to approach their disciplines as frameworks for student learning. They show how they have shaped their teaching around the ways of thinking they want their students to develop; and how they design assessments that require students to demonstrate their thinking and understanding through application and use.
Contents: Introduction--Tim Riordan; Part One: Learning in "Irrelevant" Disciplines: Common Ground: How History Professors and Undergraduate Students Learn through History--James Roth; Learning to Think Mathematically--Susan Pustejovsky; Part Two: Bringing Outsiders inside the Disciplines: Teaching Students to Practice Philosophy--Donna Engelmann; Making Economics Matter to Students--Zohreh Emami;
Part Three: Teaching the Cognitive Processes of the Disciplines: Reading and Responding to Literature: Developing Critical Perspectives--Lucy Cromwell; Articulating the Cognitive Processes at the Heart of Chemistry--Ann van Heerden; Part Four: The Student Perspective: Because Hester Prynne Was an Existentialist, or Why Using Disciplines as Frameworks for Learning Clarifies Life--Rebecca Valentine
Author: Tim Riordan is professor of philosophy and associate dean for academic affairs at Alverno College. James Roth is professor of history at Alverno College
Reviews:
'The main point, developed across all of the chapters is that each discipline not only has characteristic modes of thinking and analysis--its framework--but also that these frameworks provide and important means of viewing and interacting with the world. These educators have considered how studying their discipline will enhance students' learning across the curriculum, and throughout their lifetimes…This book will be valuable as an example of how individual faculty have thought through their discipline to understand its value within the context of an education. It also provides a fine view of a holistic approach to higher education, where assessment, learning activities, and disciplinary content are inseparable, rather than seen as discreet building blocks. While it is not intended primarily as a course design handbook, it does provide some excellent examples of alternative assessments and collaborative learning activities. Above all, it will be sure to spark reflection in readers about the value of their own disciplines, and how they may be better taught and practiced.' - The National Teaching and Learning Forum