Teaching in the College Classroom: A Short Bibliography
Ambrose, Susan A., et. al. (2010) How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Distilling the research literature and translating the scientific approach into language relevant to a college or university teacher, this book introduces seven general principles of how students learn. The authors have drawn on research from a breadth of perspectives (cognitive, developmental, and social psychology; educational research; anthropology; demographics; organizational behavior) to identify a set of key principles underlying learning, from how effective organization enhances retrieval and use of information to what impacts motivation. Integrating theory with real-classroom examples in practice, this book helps faculty to apply cognitive science advances to improve their own teaching.
Angelo, Thomas A. and K. Patricia Cross (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. This revised and greatly expanded edition of the 1988 handbook offers teachers at all levels how-to advise on classroom assessment, including:
- What classroom assessment entails and how it works.
- How to plan, implement, and analyze assessment projects.
- Twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects.
- Fifty classroom assessment techniques
- Step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques
- Practical advice on how to analyze your data
Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators. The short answer is–it’s not what teachers do, it’s what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out–but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn.
Barkely, Elizabeth F. Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Keeping students involved, motivated, and actively learning is challenging educators across the country,yet good advice on how to accomplish this has not been readily available. Student Engagement Techniques is a comprehensive resource that offers college teachers a dynamic model for engaging students and includes over one hundred tips, strategies, and techniques that have been proven to help teachers from a wide variety of disciplines and institutions motivate and connect with their students. The ready-to-use format shows how to apply each of the book’s techniques in the classroom and includes purpose, preparation, procedures, examples, online implementation, variations and extensions, observations and advice, and key resources.
Fink, D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Fink provides several conceptual and procedural tools that will be invaluable for all teachers when designing instruction. He takes important existing ideas in the literature on college teaching (active learning, educative assessment), adds some new ideas (a taxonomy of significant learning, the concept of a teaching strategy), and shows how to systematically combine these in a way that results in powerful learning experiences for students. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the design process will empower teachers to creatively design courses for significant learning in a variety of situations.
Nilson, Linda B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors, 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. This expanded and updated edition of the best-selling handbook is an essential toolbox, full of hundreds of practical teaching techniques, classroom activities and exercises, for the new or experienced college instructor. This new edition includes updated information on the Millennial student, more research from cognitive psychology, a focus on outcomes maps, the latest legal options on copyright issues, and more. It will also include entirely new chapters on matching teaching methods with learning outcomes, inquiry-guide learning, and using visuals to teach, as well as section on the Socratic method, SCALE-UP classrooms, and more.
Rotenberg, R. (2006). The art and craft of college teaching: A guide for new professors and graduate students. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. The second edition of Rotenberg’s popular guide to college teaching includes additional material on teaching in a digital environment, universal design, and teaching diverse students. As in the first edition, the book provides a hands-on, quick-start guide to the complexities of the college classroom for instructors in their first five years of teaching independently. The chapters survey the existing literature on how to effectively teach young adults, offering specific solutions to the most commonly faced classroom dilemmas. The author, a former department chair and award-winning instructor, encourages the new teacher to support their students as individual learners who are engaged in a program of study beyond their individual class.
ACADEMY FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
One Bear Pl 97189 • Waco, TX 76798-7189 • (254) 710-4064 • FAX (254) 710-1725 • WEBSITE: http://www.baylor.edu/atl