Accountability and Higher Education: Teaching and Learning in the American University [Paperback]

Undergraduate teaching and learning has faced external challenges throughout each historic period in Higher Education. Today the challenge to account for how students are taught and how they learn has become a prominent focus. Accountability and Higher Education frames the debates on teaching and learning accountability in Higher Education. Due to consumer concerns about rising costs of US higher education, a diverse and relatively autonomous system of national and state policy boards, foundations and the general public are demanding that Higher Education institutions account for their effectiveness and functions.

Ana M. Martinez Aleman examines the following democratic imperatives in light of accountability obligations: the teaching of undergraduates, the development of faculty as teachers through the theoretical lens of John Deweya (TM)s pragmatism, data and empirical research on college teaching and learning, and the institutional policies for graduate student and faculty teaching development. Her examination considers:

• The democratic principles and practices that guide American Higher Education accountability today in light of the evolution of the purposes of Higher Education
• The tensions between the vocational nature of college teaching and the corporate economies of modern universities
• The concern that academic freedom is challenged by the rise of accountability and its demand for standardization in instruction and knowledge
• How the current demands for accountability challenge the nature and character of the faculty and how faculty respond to these challenges.
• How demands for educational equity, changes in student demography, advances in technology, and the increase in party time untenured faculty impacts teaching and learning accountability.

Higher Education faculty, executives and administrators, public policy makers and students enrolled in HE Masters and PhD programs will find that this book informs their practice and will serve to contribute to the debates on accountability for years to come.