Creating Significant Learning Experiences An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses

“Dee Fink challenges our conventional assumptions and practices and offers an insightful approach to expanding our learning goals, making higher education more meaningful. This is a gem of a book that every college teacher should read.”
—Ken Bain, author, What the Best College Students Do

Since the original publication of L. Dee Fink’s Creating Significant Learning Experiences, higher education has continued to move in two opposite directions: more institutions encourage faculty to focus on research, obtaining grants, and publishing, while accreditation agencies, policy-makers, and students themselves emphasize the need for greater attention to the quality of teaching and learning.

Now the author has updated his bestselling classic, providing busy faculty with invaluable conceptual and procedural tools for instructional design. Step by step, Fink shows how to use a taxonomy of significant learning and systematically combine the best research-based practices for learning-centered teaching with a teaching strategy in a way that results in powerful learning experiences.

This edition addresses new research on how people learn, active learning, and student engagement; includes illustrative examples from online teaching; and reports on the effectiveness of Fink’s time-tested model. Fink also explores recent changes in higher education nationally and internationally and offers more proven strategies for dealing with student resistance to innovative teaching.

Tapping into the knowledge, tools, and strategies in Creating Significant Learning Experiences empowers educators to creatively design courses that will result in significant learning for their students.

“As thought-provoking and inspiring today as it was when it was first published, it is a ‘must’ for anyone serious about creating courses that challenge students to learn deeply.”
—Elizabeth F. Barkley, author, Student Engagement Techniques

L. Dee Fink has been an instructional consultant for more than thirty years. A former president of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD), he consults on the topics of faculty development and integrated course design at two- and four-year colleges and accrediting associations around the world.

Note to Updated Edition

About This Book

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Author

1 Creating Significant Learning Experiences: The Key to Quality in Educational Programs

2 A Taxonomy of Significant Learning

3 Designing Significant Learning Experiences I: Getting Started

4 Designing Significant Learning Experiences II: Shaping the Learning Experience

5 Changing the Way We Teach

6 Better Organizational Support for Faculty

7 The Human Significance of Good Teaching and Learning

Appendix A Planning Your Course: A Decision Guide

Appendix B Suggested Readings

References

Index

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