Academic Programs, Assessment & Accreditation

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, to be narrowed with a device that teaches and tests simultaneously; (3) the process of teaching and its content, which can be improved through better understanding of instructional methods appropriate to different subject matters; (4) curriculum and instruction, to be narrowed by classroom investigations, particularly collaborative, to assess whether aggregated teaching goals add up to a curriculum and how much of it students are gaining; (5) assessment and the improvement of learning, for which teachers can gather relevant information about what is happening in their own classrooms; (6) educational research and practice, which teachers can narrow by the credibility of their own research efforts; (7) research and teaching by the same individual, for which classroom research is a logical remedy; and (8) intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in the academic profession, which classroom research can change by giving visibility, and mobility, to those who show talent for teaching.