Education Commons^™

Exploring Voice As Integration: A Direction For Assessing Student Work In Learning Communities With Composition, Keisha L. Hoerrner, Ruth Goldfine, Amy Buddie, Charlotte Collins, Emily Holler, Nancy Prochaska, Brian Wooten

Faculty and Research Publications

Kennesaw State University’s team of interdisciplinary scholars qualitatively assessed student learning within theme-based learning communities to determine whether content from one discipline was evident in student work produced within another discipline. Faculty concluded that they were likely expecting more disciplinary integration than first-semester college students were capable of providing, and that they were likely not asking for the integration they were expecting. By examining student work as evidence, the researchers became more acutely aware of the assignment instructions, prompting them to work more closely with colleagues in their future learning communities to develop interdisciplinary assignments with explicit expectations for integration.