Description
Book SynopsisA comprehensive history of evaluation in American higher education. In Grading the College, Scott M. Gelber offers a comprehensive history of evaluating teaching and learning in higher education. He complicates the conventional narrative that portrays evaluation as a newfangled assault on the integrity of higher education while acknowledging that there are many compelling reasons to oppose those practices. The evaluation of teaching and learning, Gelber argues, presented genuine dilemmas that have attracted the attention of faculty members and academic leaders since the 1920s. Especially during the peak era of faculty authority that followed the end of the Second World War, significant numbers of professors and administrators believed that evaluation might improve institutional performance, reduce the bias inherent in traditional methods of supervision, strengthen communication with laypersons, and encourage a more deliberate focus on the distinctive goals of college. Gelber reveal
Trade ReviewNo reader can walk away from Gelber's study without a curious mix of respect and exasperation.
—Daniel A. Clark, Indiana State University,
History of Education QuarterlyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction. Grading the College
Part I. Teaching
Chapter 1. Teacher Evaluation
Chapter 2. Student Course Evaluations
Part II. Learning
Chapter 3. Testing
Chapter 4. Rubrics, Surveys, and Rankings
Chapter 5. Accreditation
Part III. Accountability
Chapter 6. The Evaluation of Teaching and Learning since 1980
Conclusion. How Should Colleges Be Evaluated?
Notes
Index
