Although experts overwhelmingly support the idea of using assessment to improve college instruction, most testing programs call for summative evaluation or accountability rather than formative evaluation. In using assessment to improve instruction it is essential to examine what decisions should be made in order to improve instruction.…

Vocational education has many pedagogical advantages over academic education in meeting three critical conditions of excellence. The first critical condition is student involvement. Most vocational education programs tend to involve students intensely and personally with peers and teachers. The natural advantage most vocational education has over…

An extensive literature exists on what makes good teachers, focusing on their characteristics, their behaviors in the classroom, and the effects they have on their students. This literature points to three groups as being currently involved in defining good teachers: students, who, as research demonstrates, are reliable observers, fair and…

The 30 or more major educational reform reports that have appeared since "A Nation at Risk" are in solid agreement that public education falls short of excellence. While suggestions for reform in elementary/secondary education have focused on teaching, in colleges and universities the emphasis has been more on curriculum than instruction. However,…

The educational reform movement of the 1980s has sparked a renewed emphasis on the quality of teaching and learning, not only in community colleges, but at every level of education. Most teachers embark upon their careers knowing very little about teaching and learning and, unfortunately, remain naive observers of their profession. Classroom…

Aspects of the perception that assessment is a large-scale testing program conducted at institutional or state levels to determine what students have learned from college is questioned. Small-scale assessments conducted continuously in college classrooms by discipline-based teachers to determine what students are learning in what class are also…

Describes the Classroom Research Project, designed to help community college faculty members from the San Francisco Bay area to develop and test classroom assessment techniques. Discusses project activities, such as workshops and a summer institute, and progress toward the integration of the assessment of student learning into everyday teaching.…

Discusses the role of classroom research in scholarship concerning learning and teaching at the college level. Identifies a shift from assessment for accountability to assessment for improvement to attention to roles of college faculty. Shows how use of classroom assessment techniques as part of a classroom research program can immediately improve…

Advocates that campus professionals, particularly student affairs professionals, refocus on student learning in all its dimensions. Discusses research and learning, students' 24-hour needs, engaging in professional inquiry, collegiality, and classroom assessment techniques. Reiterates that learning is the goal of all education and that students…

The mission, curricula, students, and faculty of community colleges make them ideal laboratories for the study of teaching and learning at the college level. To accomplish this goal, community college faculty members should take on the role of classroom researchers, conducting careful, systematic, and patient studies of their students in the…

Since community colleges play such a key role in meeting the needs for workforce development as well as open access to education, considerable pressure is placed on the colleges to demonstrate their effectiveness. Recently, the focus of assessment in community colleges has shifted from gathering data that legislators and accrediting agencies want…

Perspectives on the improvement of college instruction are offered. External forces that focus attention on the quality of college instruction are identified, including: the demand for good teaching by two groups of nontraditional students (low-performing students and adult students); technology, and especially new interactive technologies; the…

Eight basic gaps in the college teaching and learning process are described, and teachers are encouraged to use classroom research as a "zipper" to help close them. The gaps include those between: (1) teaching and learning, to be remedied by clear definition of teaching goals and continuous feedback on learning outcomes; (2) teaching and testing,…

The dilemma of maintaining academic standards as well as open access policies is discussed in this paper with respect to the causes of and possible solutions to the problem. Trends leading to the standards/open access dilemma are first considered, including the dominant belief in the 1950's that education served to select and groom the most…

Perspectives on good teaching at the college level are offered. Some evidence exists that students' retention of lecture material is poor. One promising approach is the Personalized System of Instruction, which emphasizes student involvement, high expectations, and assessment and feedback. Some faculty members now focus on recall and comprehension…