Impact/Impasse: Revaluing University Classroom Life

By: Laura E. Smithers and Heidi Fischer and Faith A. Watrous

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Synopsis: Impact/Impasse argues for the value of everyday life in college classrooms. Quantifiable categories such as high-impact practice, student engagement, and integrative learning have captured the imagination of a generation of higher education researchers, practitioners, administrators, and policymakers. But they miss those mundane moments, or "impasses," that resist capture by metrics while nevertheless shaping student outcomes. Impact/Impasse blends critical theories and ethnographic research—conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic—to argue that learning happens in ordinary moments. Indeed, in sharing anecdotes from both in-person and virtual classrooms, the coauthors show how the so-called new normal is little different from the old in its neoliberal attachment to data. Impact/Impasse provides a conceptual and practical foundation for an alternative approach to valuing impacts on their own terms, in excess of quantification.