Getting Learning Right: The Promise of Higher Education

An action-oriented guide to revitalizing higher education by putting learning at the center of institutional action.

As the challenges to higher education continue to mount, we believe that the surest path forward is a renewed commitment to the primary purpose of colleges and universities: higher learning. In Getting Learning Right, Chris Gallagher, Kristi Girdharry, and Kevin Smith argue that institutions can meet today’s challenges—public skepticism, AI, political pressure—by orienting decision making around a deep understanding of their learners and how learning actually works.

The book examines institutional practices undertaken by colleges and universities that get learning right: listening to students; designing learning-focused environments; employing collaborative and project-based learning; helping students build networks of support and opportunity; offering flexible learning pathways; and codesigning and cocreating with students. Each practice is illustrated through key learning concepts, real institutional examples, and firsthand student accounts, whose reports offer fresh insights into more established concepts such as experiential learning and learning transfer.

Written for practical and effective use, the book includes reflective questions at the end of each chapter that are designed to facilitate conversation and inform learning-grounded design.

About the Author :
Chris W. Gallagher (Author) Chris W. Gallagher professor of English at Northeastern University in Boston, where he has held a variety of administrative roles at the program, college, and university levels. Professor Gallagher has published widely on the teaching and assessment of writing and on educational innovation in K-12 and higher education. He is author or co-author of five books and many articles in writing studies and education journals. His most recent book is College Made Whole: Integrative Learning for a Divided World (Johns Hopkins University Press). Professor Gallagher teaches courses in writing and pedagogy at every level of the curriculum, from first-year writing to graduate seminars on topics such as Writing and Community Engagement, Composing in the 21st Century, and Writing, Language, and Policy. Kristi Girdharry (Author) Kristi Girdharry is an associate teaching professor of English and director of the writing center at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts where she teaches courses on research, writing, social media, and artificial intelligence. You can find her most recent scholarship in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, Double Helix: A Journal of Critical Thinking and Writing, and College Composition and Communication. Kevin G. Smith (Author) Kevin G. Smith is an associate professor of English at the University of Virginia where he co-directs the University Writing Center and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in pedagogy, public and community writing, and writing and technology. He has written for a range of journals in Writing Studies and Digital Humanities, including College Composition and Communication, Digital Humanities Quarterly, and Reflections: A Journal of Community Engaged Writing and Rhetoric.