Tag: books – Teaching in Higher Ed

James Lee got in touch on Twitter and asked me the following:

Hi, Bonni. I enjoy listening to your podcast. Do you have a blog post on what you consider to be essential reading for pedagogy in higher education? If not, what would you consider to be essential reading for those who want to become better college teachers?”

As I responded to James, I do not recall having written such a post, though the other day I inadvertently put some fresh strawberries “away” in the refrigerator only to have my husband discover them in a kitchen drawer. I may not be operating on all cylinders this week.

I did find a post about how I organize my physical books, but nothing containing a list of favorite books on teaching.

Your question is harder than it might seem. I love reading about teaching and have found pretty much every book I have ever read on the subject useful to me in my pedagogy. It is hard to commit to a ranked list. They all should be recommended since they have all shaped my teaching.

Since I need to pick up our kids from school in a couple of hours, I am going to limit myself to ~~five~~, even though I could easily choose many more than that. James Lang wrote a list of his top ten books on The Chronicle of Higher Education that is worth a look. I forced myself not to re-read it until I finished this post since I suspect I might have been influenced by his selections.

I also know that I am completely remiss in not having yet read Parker Palmer's: The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of A Teacher's Life. How I have not read it yet is beyond me… Even just the first few sentences beckon us to enter in…

Top Five Books on Pedagogy

Below are my top picks for essential reading for those who teach in higher education. I can already envision a part two needed for this post, as there are so many I am leaving out.

What the Best College Teachers Do, by Ken Bain

This is the first book I can remember reading about teaching in the context of higher education, specifically. It came out right about the time I started teaching (first as an adjunct – and then as a tenure-track professor).

Bain (2004) reports the restyle of a longitudinal study and outlines the following:

What the best teachers know and understand
How they prepare to teach
The expectations they have of their students
What they do while they are teaching
How they treat their students
The approaches they take to evaluate their teaching

Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses (2nd Edition), by L. Dee Fink

I remember being incredibly inspired by Bain (2004) and wanting to challenge myself even more in my teaching. Fink’s book on Creating Significant Learning Experiences caused me to think about how we should consider ourselves more as designers of experiences for our students in their learning. He presents a taxonomy of different types of learning experiences and which ones are more effective in particular circumstances.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Fink had written the first edition of his book about designing learning experiences a year before Bain reported out the results of his study). However, I noticed that Fink has a second edition out and that is the one I am linking to in this post.

Effective Grading, by Barbara E. Walvoord & Virginia Johnson Anderson

It was not long before I realized how much help I needed with regards to grading. My background had initially been in corporate training and traditional grading was never a part of my teaching.

While this book was initially published in 1998, it still had timely advice for me regarding giving my students feedback on their learning. The appendix includes the AAHE’s Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning, which is known for having “aged” quite well. I noted a newer version than the one I had on my bookshelf and am linking to the 2009 edition here.

Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback, and Promote Student Learning (2nd Edition), by Dannelle D. Stevens & Antonia J. Levi

As I considered ways to make my grading more effective and to help students have a more clear sense of what was expected on a given assignment, I found myself in need of instruction on how to create a rubric. This short book gets a lot across in a short number of pages and provides plenty of examples.

There are many who criticize rubrics as representing too mechanistic of an approach to learning. I will admit to still wrestling with these critiques, while still finding benefits to using rubrics for some types of assignments. For newer faculty, I would still recommend becoming familiar with rubrics, especially to attempt to fight against the potential for subjectivity in one’s grading.

Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, by James M. Lang

A more recent addition to my books on pedagogy is James Lang’s book: Small Teaching. His approach in writing this book was to explore the small changes we could make in our teaching that would have a big impact. It can be so overwhelming to be a new teacher and this book provides a solid foothold for effective practices.

None of us who teach in higher education should be without a copy of Small Teaching.

The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom (3rd Edition), by Stephen D. Brookfield

Those of you who are counting can already tell that I could not do it. Limiting myself to just five would mean leaving out another book that has had a tremendous impact on my teaching. Even if you read one of Brookfield’s earlier additions, it is worth picking The Skillful Teacher up, again, to read the new chapters on:

Teaching critical thinking
Using play and creativity in the classroom
Teaching in teams
Helping students take responsibility for learning
Teaching about racism
Exercising teacher power responsibly

Your Turn

I already know I left a bunch of wonderful books out of this list. What essential reading would you recommend for those looking to become more effective at facilitating learning?

I am starting my initial preparation for a presentation I'll be giving at the 2016 Lilly Conference in Newport Beach, CA in February.

As I went to search for Dan Roam's Show and Tell book, which has a method for outlining presentations, I discovered a book I have been looking for on my shelves for more than a year now. It is unusual for me to lose books, since I have a pretty good system going for cataloging them.

Most organizing experts all have some way of stating that everything should have a place that it belongs. I find whenever I lose things, or start to get messy, it is because I have acquired items that have yet to find a “home” either in my university or home office.

In my delight over my discovery of the lost book, I decided to describe a few of the approaches I use to ensure that my books have a place.

Group physical books by category and label them

Decades ago, my Mom used to work in a bookstore and is pretty much the family librarian. She has twice now helped me categorize my books through two moves. Thank you Mom.

In order to maintain the categories that she set up, I printed labels using my label maker.

I used an index card, folded down about an inch from the end of the card, with a label with the relevant category attached.

Devote a space near your primary working desk for books you're using this semester

I tend to read the majority of my books these days via either my iPad or my Kindle. The big exception to that is that I tend to read hardcopy textbooks. I use them more than any other books during a given semester.

It makes it simple having them all grouped together within arm's reach of where I do the majority of my focused work.

Weed out old books once a year and consider donating them

On a recent episode of Very Bad Wizards, the hosts spoke about their powerful experiences in teaching prison inmates.

One need they mentioned was for textbooks for inmates. This isn't something I have done before, but through a bit of searching found the Prison Book Program and Books Through Bars as a couple of organizations that may help facilitate your giving.

There's also a listing by the Prison Book Program website for other prison book programs, in case none of the options above serve in your area. Again, I can't vouch for these organizations and welcome any feedback you have in the comments section.

Another idea for donating books is to consider giving to Books for Africa.

Consider transitioning to ebooks

As I mentioned previously, most of my new reading takes place via my iPad or my Kindle. It is great to have all my highlights in one place and have the ability to search annotations that I've made previously.

When reading electronic books, there's no longer a physical book that needs to be stored. You can let whatever service you use keep all your books organized and avoid spending more than a year looking for that one missing book, like me.

I also enjoy using Goodreads to catalog books that I've read and even to share with the grandparents the books that our kids own.