"Explores the commonalties and differences of teaching various disciplines in a way that greatly enhances everyone's ability to pursue our ultimate common goal of creating significant learning experiences for students." -- Dee Fink, President of the POD Network

"Readable, thought provoking, and important for every faculty member enacting a discipline within a college or university setting." -- Barbara Cambridge, American Association for Higher Education

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.

is Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Alverno College.

is Professor of History at Alverno College.

“Faculty members today are being urged to think more seriously about their role as professional educators as well as their role as professional experts in a particular discipline. For those who are serious about their role as educators, these essays explore the commonalities and differences of teaching various disciplines in a way that greatly enhances everyone's ability to pursue our ultimate common goal, that of creating significant learning experiences for students.”—Dee Fink, President of the POD Network in Higher Education and author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences. "This book is extremely important. Extending higher education's current focus on how students learn, and the related issues of learning styles, pedagogical techniques and measurement of outcomes, this book challenges deeper assumptions by redefining the role of disciplines as frameworks for learning. The authors of this book believe that new learners in the persons of their students should influence the way in which disciplines are enacted. Part of the intellectual challenge of a discipline is studying its epistemology, including who gets to make meaning in the field. This position about intellectual work in the discipline enables us to move beyond tired, repetitive contentions about research as the core of a discipline. These authors demonstrate that the core of a discipline is how meaning is made in it by experts and by novices.

This significant book is readable, thought provoking, and important for every faculty member who is enacting a discipline within a college or university setting."--Barbara Cambridge, Vice President of fields of inquiry and action, American Association for Higher Education.

"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 educatiors 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 alsoprovides 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 asessments 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

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


The Contributors

Lucy Cromwell is professor of English at Alverno College. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.

Zohreh Emami is professor of economics and associate dean for academic affairs at Alverno College. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University.

Donna Engelmann is professor of philosophy at Alverno College. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Marquette University.

Ann van Heerden is associate professor of chemistry at Alverno College. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Texas—Austin.

Susan Pustejovsky is associate professor of mathematics at Alverno College. She holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Marquette University.

Tim Riordan is professor of philosophy and associate dean for academic affairs at Alverno College. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of education from Marquette University.

James Roth is professor of history at Alverno College. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of California—Berkeley.

Rebecca Valentine is an alumna of Alverno College in English and philosophy. She is a professional writer in Windsor, CO.