In the Shadow of Bologna: Teaching and Learning Outcomes in the USA and Europe

Abstract

The conversation about teaching and learning goals in history is well established in both Europe and the USA, where such goals may be called learning outcomes, learning goals , or degree qualifications. Departments in the countries comprising the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are required to generate these goals and to publish them, while in the USA, participation in the creation of learning goals is voluntary. In both domains, there is considerable institutional variation, but there is substantial overlap in the teaching and learning goals historians have created, suggesting broad agreement about the essential competencies and capabilities students should have mastered when they complete an undergraduate degree in history. However, the different programs followed by students suggest that departments use the same words and concepts to mean different degrees of competence and there has not been much attention paid to progression nor to effective evaluations of whether students have attained these goals. This failure, coupled with considerable pushback in both realms by faculty who find such goals alien to how they think about their professional selves, threatens to undermine the value of such teaching and learning goals .