Harmonizing Perspectives: A Platonic Dialogue on Student Learning

Abstract

The two authors, from assessment and educational development backgrounds respectively, use the form of a Platonic dialogue to uncover the emergent framework that guided their successful first year in collaborating to lead institution-wide assessment and accreditation initiatives at Northwestern University, a private, select-enrollment RI university with 21,000 students (8,000 undergrads and 13,000 graduate students) in the Midwestern region of the United States. They explore the contexts that have shaped their approach, such as a decentralized institutional structure, the integration of their positionalities within the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, and their personal values and backgrounds. These contexts are placed into larger conversations about the vilification of assessment, theories of change, and the purpose of education. After reflecting on their assessment experiences and values, they realize that through their conversation together, they have co-created an assessment framework built on a student-centered, equitable, authentic, responsive, life-long, and empathetic approach. These foundational principles seamlessly coalesce to form the acronym SEARLE, which not only mirrors the name of their center for teaching and learning but also captures the essence of their core values: the SEARLE Framework. The article concludes with a heuristic other assessment and educational development professionals can use to reflect on their own collaborations and contexts.