About the Carleton College Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge (QuIRK) Initiative
"Deploying numbers skillfully is as important to communication as deploying verbs."
-Max Frankel, New York Times Magazine
What is QuIRK?
QuIRK is an innovative project intended to help Carleton and other institutions of higher education better prepare students to evaluate and use quantitative evidence in their future roles as citizens, consumers, professionals, business people, and government leaders. The focus of the project is on how quantitative reasoning (QR) is used in the development, evaluation, and presentation of principled argument.
QuIRK's program reflects a circular model of pedagogical reform. Through annual assessment, we evaluate samples of student writing for evidence of QR. (At Carleton, these samples are drawn from the sophomore writing portfolio. At institutions without portfolios, other methods of obtaining student writing samples have been developed.) Assessment findings inform a professional development curriculum for faculty workshops and brown-bag discussions. Equipped with a deeper knowledge of student needs and tools to meet them, faculty are encouraged to engage in curricular reform, through course revision and new course design. The circuit is completed with subsequent assessment that evaluates the effectiveness of prior reform efforts.
The initiative has been supported by grants from the the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the W.M. Keck Foundation. Information on the work completed with this support can be found by clicking the above links.
The QuIRK initiative has been supported by grants from the U. S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (#P116B040816), the National Science Foundation (#DUE-0717604), and the W.M. Keck Foundation. The contents of this web site were developed under these grants. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policy or opinions of the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, or the W.M. Keck Foundation and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government or the W.M. Keck Foundation.