Book Review

Issue 27(2)

Blueprint for Learning: Constructing College Courses to Facilitate, Assess, and Document Learning. (2005). Laurie Richlin, Sterling , Virginia : Stylus Publishing, 160 pp., $24.95, ISBN # 1-57922-143-2.

Review by: Nikki Allen Dyer

Director, Student Retention

Wor-Wic Community College (MD)

While it is has long been postulated that advising is teaching (Crookston, 1972), academic advisors may ask, "Can the same processes for designing, facilitating, assessing, and documenting learning in college courses be employed to design, facilitate, assess, and document learning in the academic advising function?" After a review of Richlin's text, administrators and advisors alike will affirm that such can be done. Although Richlin's text is primarily designed as a tool for designing courses and facilitating, assessing, and documenting, learning outcomes which result from college classroom instruction, the teaching goals (TGs), learning outcomes (LOs), classroom assessment techniques (CATs) and learning resources can readily be applied to academic advisement. Whether selecting, designing, or improving an advisement model, developing an advisement syllabus, portfolio or assessment project, or laying the foundation for an advisement philosophy, this text can serve as a "blueprint" to establish, maintain, or enhance the teaching> <learning (T> <L) connection via effective activities (p. x).

This text provides an overview of the scholarly teaching process and an overview of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) process. Such reading would be particularly valuable to committees preparing to design, implement, and assess change in the advising unit, as it provides a schematic that can be used to systematically establish advisement goals, examine the advisement models within other units or institutions, and formulate advisee learning objectives, advising activities, and assessment projects. Also, advisors who wish to contribute to the body of knowledge regarding academic advising by publishing or presenting original research, will find application of this section beneficial.

The text features visual depictions of elements of the SoTL design cycle, including how they interrelate, thus providing readers with an appreciation for how a properly devised design cycle can be self contained and sustained - in the classroom and in the advisement function. A significant benefit of employing this design cycle in advisement assessment and planning processes is that the cycle fosters ongoing evaluation and improvement of the advisement function at the unit or institutional levels. The section of Richlin's text, titled, "Facilitating Learning", takes a multi-disciplinary approach to examining how college students learn and how teachers can teach with respect to such learning styles. Advisors and advising administrators should understand basic brain functions associated with learning and those respective behavioral changes which signify learning, student learning styles and intelligences, and how college students learn and develop, as related, in particular, to academic advising. With the help of this text, advisors could gain awareness as to how they themselves learn, how they teach, and how their teaching style interacts with students' learning styles, thus better enabling them to make their advisement practices truly student-centered, individualized, and pedagogically-founded.

The chapter titled "Designing Learning Experiences" would be useful in both the design of the academic advising model, and in the processes contained within the individual advisement conference. While advisors may not traditionally perceive the advising relationship as a series of learning experiences, it can be, for it is acknowledged that learning experiences are associated with learning outcomes.

An entire section of Richlin's text is dedicated to the assessment of learning. While much of this section deals with grading techniques, the applicability of this material lies in the recommendations regarding how to connect assessments with objectives, such as learning objectives, as related to advising, offering feedback to learners, and designing assessment tools. In essence, "The focusing tool for assessment is the learning objective" (p. 83). "Just as is the case for teaching, we must recognize the need to assess not only the manner and process used to deliver advising, but the expected student learning achieved through advising experiences" (Nutt, 2004, ¶ 4).

"An advising portfolio provides a rich and diverse way to document advising expertise" (Vowell & Wallet-Ortiz, 2003, ¶ 1). Blueprint for Learning features elements of the "teaching" or "course portfolio" (p. 102) that advisors could readily use to develop their personal "advising" portfolio. In this "age of accountability", advisors should build an advising portfolio and not rely on institutional assessments of advisement to justify their practice. In the fifth and final section, Richlin offers a collection of tools that can be used to implement approaches, assessments, and activities and initiatives in the advisement process to develop, implement, and assess the informational, conceptual, and relational aspects of learning in the academic advising function.

Richlin's text provides a concise survey of research and literature pertaining to instructional design, learning principles, assessment, and documentation of learning outcomes, making such a scope of knowledge manageable for the academic advisor. The author operationalizes research and literature and applies it to sample classroom settings, which can be translated (with minimal limitation) into the academic advising setting. The functionality of Richlin's Blueprint for Learning makes it usable as just that - a detailed, yet user-friendly outline for maximizing learning not only within classroom settings, but into the advising conference and beyond, making it a "must have" reference text.

References

Crookson, B.B. (1972). A developmental view of academic advising as teaching. Journal of College Student Personnel , 13 , pp. 12-17.

Nutt, C. L. (2004, December) Assessing Student Learning in Academic Advising. Academic Academic Advising Today , 27 (4). Retrieved January 12, 2007 from the NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources Web site: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/AAT/NW27_4.htm#6

Vowell, F. N. and Wallet-Ortiz, J. (2003, February). Using a portfolio to document advising effectiveness. The Academic Advising News , 26( 1). Retrieved January 12, 2007 from the NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources Web site: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/worth.htm