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Interrogating, Disrupting, and Reframing College Student Learning Outcomes
By Jarek Janio, Ph.D. The argument behind everything COACHes stands for, in full: why higher education must stop assuming learning and start observing it.
About the book
Higher education measures almost everything except learning. Enrollment, persistence, completion, and grades all stand in for the one question no transcript can answer: what can this student actually do? This book takes the Student Learning Outcomes movement seriously enough to challenge it, interrogating the assumptions beneath current practice, disrupting assessment that exists for compliance rather than for students, and reframing outcomes around what can be observed, demonstrated, and evidenced.
Written for faculty, coordinators, and academic leaders, the book draws on more than a decade of practice, research, and thousands of conversations across the SLO community. It does not offer another template to file. It offers a different way to see the classroom.
Three questions the book refuses to leave alone
What does a grade actually tell us?
A B+ certifies compliance with course requirements. Does it certify learning? The book examines what our accountability metrics measure, and what they quietly ignore.
Can learning be observed?
If skill lives in demonstration, then every essay, performance, and product is evidence. The book builds the case for assessment grounded in what students do.
What would education look like if learning came first?
Not access, not persistence, not completion: learning. The book reframes the work of faculty, institutions, and the system around that question.
The writing behind the book
The book's argument was developed in public, across articles in Inside Higher Ed, Psychology Today, The EvoLLLution, and The Assessment Review. Read the trail that led here. References follow APA style.
- Janio, J. (2025, June 18). Beyond “grit” and “growth mindsets.” Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/06/18/beyond-grit-and-growth-mindsets-opinion
- Janio, J. (2025, April 8). Humpty Dumpty, AI and the mastery of meaning: Navigating bias in a digital age. The EvoLLLution. https://evolllution.com/humpty-dumpty-ai-and-the-mastery-of-meaning-navigating-bias-in-a-digital-age
- Janio, J. (2025, April). Where behaviorism meets Bloom: Modern classroom learning. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-learn/202504/where-behaviorism-meets-bloom-modern-classroom-learning
- Janio, J. (2025, March 19). AI, language and the right to be understood. The EvoLLLution. https://evolllution.com/ai-language-and-the-right-to-be-understood
- Janio, J. (2025, March). Observable behavior: The essential key to assessing student learning. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-learn/202503/observable-behavior-the-essential-key-to-assessing-student-learning
- Janio, J. (2025, March). Why education misunderstands stimuli and why it matters. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-learn/202503/why-education-misunderstands-stimuli-and-why-it-matters
- Janio, J. (2025, March). Clarifying common myths about behaviorism in education. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-learn/202503/clarifying-common-myths-about-behaviorism-in-education
- Janio, J. (2025, March). Behavior control is real: Education can't look away now. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-learn/202503/behavior-control-is-real-education-cant-look-away-now
- Janio, J. (2025, February 27). The battle over AI in higher education classrooms is being fought in the field of student agency. The EvoLLLution. https://evolllution.com/the-battle-over-ai-in-higher-education-classrooms-is-being-fought-in-the-field-of-student-agency
- Janio, J. (2025, January 15). Rethinking metrics in higher ed: Moving beyond persistence and retention. The EvoLLLution. https://evolllution.com/rethinking-metrics-in-higher-ed-moving-beyond-persistence-and-retention
- Janio, J. (2023, May 11). Nothing but skill. The Assessment Review. https://assessatcuny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2023/05/nothing-but-skill/
- Apigo, M.-J., & Janio, J. (2022). Most frequently asked questions about SLOs: A Delphi method research project. Assessment Update, 34, 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/au.30315
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