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This book is an invitation, and is itself a somewhat circuitous reflection on teaching and learning. Directed at writing teachers, much of Danberg’s advice applies to teaching in general, and not just because faculty teach forms of writing in class. The title borrows an image from a famous rabbinic story in which Rabbi Hillel was asked by a nonbeliever to teach the whole of Torah in the time the nonbeliever could stand on one foot. “That which is hateful to you do not do to others,” Hillel instructed, “The rest is commentary; go and learn it” (13). Danberg reminds us that standing on one foot is a posture of instability, the position of both teachers and learners. He encourages teachers to remember their own difficulties in learning. Following Rosenzweig, Danberg suggests that Hillel did not mean “the rest is only commentary… To know Torah is to know the lesson, but also to participate in an ongoing conversation… into the lesson’s value” (14). Students often seek facts, principles, or methods that they can then apply, but good teachers are able to set them on a path of lifelong inquiry. A series of autobiographical vignettes in prose and poetry, the book is punctuated by reflection prompts, or “commentary.” The author employs several metaphors, but cooking images dominate. A good cook has learned not just to follow a recipe but knows how to see the possibility of a meal in the ingredients on hand; a good cook knows what a dish needs and when it is done. The implied parallel perhaps works best with the craft of writing but the larger point is about what Danberg calls “enfolded knowledge.” Teaching involves confronting the tension “between what we must tell students and what they can only know for themselves” (71). He offers a compelling description of his own learning disability – his struggles, the strategies he developed, and how teachers reacted to him along the way (47). Danberg laments that schools often define gifts narrowly and he suggests the following exercise: “Spend a couple of days observing the people around you and see how many gifts you can identify… Think of yourself as a zoologist whose great pleasure it is to wait for a butterfly they’ve never seen before” (58). Later, he describes class as “an invitation to inhabit forms of attention and attunement, patterns of caution and regard… If all goes well, it is no more mysterious than the heart and mind, that tangle we are always entangled in” (73). Danberg invokes the kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum, the contraction of the divine making space for creation. (This comes in a piece entitled “Four Principles and a Fifth” – but I counted six!). A good teacher knows when to get out of the way in order to make space for learning: “You can shape the problems and anticipate the obstacles. You can decide what a student encounters and the time it takes. But in the end, you simply must get out of the way, and leave them to do the work of learning” (98-99). Reading this book is a bit like ruminating on a Zen koan. Danberg contradicts himself and revels in paradox. The bizarre organization and genre shifts can be frustrating. This is a quirky book, but one with many moments of glittering insight into the difficult joys of learning and teaching.

Open-Space Learning (OSL), a “transdisciplinary pedagogy” as practiced at the University of Warwick, challenges assumptions about the boundaries of disciplinary knowledge, the organization of teaching spaces and resources, and the power arrangements that order the roles of teachers and students. This book bears witness to the efficacy of learning in spaces that assume students are engaged in embodied risk-taking, problem-based play, personal responsibility, group collaboration, and open-ended exploration within boundaries and expectations that yield demonstrated competence. The essential prefix for this learning space is “trans-”; it is asserted to be transgressive, transcendent, transitional, trans-rational, transactional, transdisciplinary, and transcultural. OSL draws from the learning theories of Boal, Freire, Vygotsky, Gardner, and Kolb and from the work of Clark and Damasio in neuroscience. In 2005 the University of Warwick received a grant from the Higher Education Funding Counsel of England to create its center for Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning (CAPITAL) in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Principles of theater pedagogy and performance studies opened new learning possibilities for disciplines not normally associated with embodied performance. The OSL website at the university notes collaborations between CAPITAL and students in business, chemistry, cultural studies, theater studies, philosophy, math, and psychiatry programs. The authors indicate that hundreds of students have been exposed to their learning pedagogies between 2007 and 2011. Four case studies create the backbone for the book. (1) An undergraduate module “without chairs” for literature majors brought twelve of Shakespeare’s plays to life and assessed student learning in comparison with students in the “with chairs” version of the module. (2) Law students argued cases found in four plays and analyzed their legal implications. (3) The learning gained by participants in the Certificate in Teaching Shakespeare program and the Postgraduate Award in Teaching Shakespeare for Actors is assessed using several measures. (4) Three “practice as research” projects focused on theatrical productions, practical workshops, and performance process for undergraduate students or post-graduates who were teaching Shakespeare. These studies provide descriptions and interpretations of the projects, but they do not offer much detail about the pedagogy’s methods for those without a theater background. The book publisher provides videos and outlines for specific OSL activities on its website. (I was not successful in getting a number of the links to work.) The OSL site at the University of Warwick provides similar links as well as some others. (This website has not been updated since fall 2013, which also raises questions about the current state of OSL at Warwick.) This book was published as a paperback in 2015. Open Space Learning reads like a report for university or funding organization officials. The authors give significant attention to student assessment of their learning and their performance on various required assignments. Classroom lectures and seminars, characterized negatively as contexts of “knowledge download,” were the dominant forms of teaching when CAPITAL began. OSL intentionally changes, at least in theory, the relationship between teachers and students, “dethroning” or “uncrowning” the power of the teacher that is reinforced by physical classroom spaces and presentation formats. I am not satisfied that the authors grappled with the power dynamics that remain present in OSL environments. While a teacher’s authority and expertise are expressed differently in the OSL context, teachers are still structuring the environment in which learning occurs. They are evaluating student work. They determine who passes or fails the modules. While teachers may have been “dethroned” from the traditionally hierarchical ways of exercising authority, they still have power, and perhaps disguised power, in the exploratory OSL context. The expressions of open space learning reported in this book depend heavily on the plays of Shakespeare. These applications of OSL for religious or theological educators are not immediately obvious, but imaginative teachers, especially those with a performing arts background, will draw inspiration from Open Space Learning and develop possibilities for performing the narrative-based texts from their disciplines in their teaching.

Joshua Canzona Georgetown University In his “Homage to Joe Sacco,” Edward Said celebrates the author of Palestine and gives us one of the best love letters to comics ever written. He shares his first comic book experience, “Everything about the enticing book of colored pictures, but specially its untidy, sprawling.

The authors of this extremely helpful book open with an observation that is often true: there is a lot of research on how to teach effectively, but “this information tends to be inaccessible to most instructors, as it has been published piecemeal in journals that instructors frequently do not read” (xi). To help remedy this lamentable situation, they have sifted through hundreds of studies in teaching and learning in order to compile a list of educational activities that both work in real world settings and are supported by research. In other words, if you have ever wondered what kinds of teaching actually lead to learning (retention, critical thinking skills, creative application), and you would like to do a better job of varying your pedagogical approaches, then this book will be of interest to you. Each of the eight chapters focus on a particular kind of teaching and learning format, including lecture, discussion, peer teaching, academic games, reading strategies, writing, graphic organizers, and metacognitive reflection. In clear prose, the authors explain the strengths and drawbacks of each kind of teaching as well as what researchers have found concerning each approach’s effectiveness. For example, lectures work better when instructors keep the lectures short, focused on essentials, and when accompanied with frequent quizzing and guides to effective note-taking. After establishing what works according to research, the authors provide detailed “Intentionally Designed Educational Activities” (IDEAs) to help instructors teach in a way that has been proven to lead to learning. Again, using lecture as an example, some of the suggested activities include guided note-taking, a “find the flaw” exercise, the Socratic seminar, and lecture bingo. The IDEAs, which are delightful and often fun, are cross-referenced with other teaching activities in the book and include helpful “pro-tips” to give additional guidance on implementation. This clear structure makes the book one that can be read cover-to-cover as well as a handy reference volume for specific classroom situations. Both seasoned and new teachers will get a lot out of this book. New instructors will find the help they need when trying to translate their graduate education into effective teaching. More seasoned teachers will find some tried-and-true methods confirmed but will also encounter new ideas to reinvigorate the classroom. While some of the 101 IDEAs in the book are clearly designed for mathematics or scientific fields, the vast majority are well-suited to humanities and social sciences and will be right at home in religious studies and theological departments at both undergraduate and graduate levels. This book has the potential to greatly improve our day-to-day teaching; our students will be grateful.

Student Motivation and Quality of Life in Higher Education provides readers a constructive overview of the relationship between student motivation and quality of life (QOL) in higher education. In five parts comprising twenty-three chapters, the book presents a wide range of topics and emphases. Part I, “Student perspectives,” offers two student case studies (one undergraduate, one graduate), relating their perspectives and experiences as to influences on personal QOL and learning motivation. These reflections set the stage for Parts II through V. Part II focuses on “Theoretical perspectives” concerned with matters of learning motivation, QOL and higher education, and applied positive psychology in higher education (chapters 3-5, respectively). Part III attends to “Diversity perspectives on motivation to learn and quality of life,” containing ten chapters encompassing wide-ranging variables such as international student well-being, higher education views among various nations and people groups, health-related and disability impact on QOL and motivation to learn, and effects of optimism and positive orientation on student well-being and learning. Part IV centers on “Promotion of motivation to learn and quality of life in higher education,” comprising six chapters examining and reflecting on improving academic QOL via counseling, resilience in students and teaching resilience skills via a computer-assisted learning website, eLearning support for mental health and perceived self-efficacy, a peer support program for student well-being, curriculum implications resulting from QOL and motivation and professionalism studies, and reclamation of light and liberty and learning related to higher education and student stress. Part V, the final chapter (23) “Synthesis of motivation to learn and quality of life,” presents the editors’ conclusion and a proposed integrative QOL and student motivation model. Evident strengths of this book include the important (and apparently original) intentional integration of QOL and student motivation, supported with substantive research, reflection, and proposals. Additional strengths of the book include the breadth of the general subject matter and variety of global perspectives. Chapters vary somewhat in terms of research, reflection, and presentation quality (not atypical of edited volumes). One apparent (and somewhat paradoxical) weakness concerns the book’s striving for – and generally achieving – various and useful diversities while also limiting its general ethos to mainly (though not exclusively) medical and health-related students, curricula, and attention. Broadening the research and application to include a wider base of students, disciplines, and curricula (more liberal arts, for instance) would foster greater connectivity within broader academia (undergraduate and graduate) – enhancing the appeal and merit of this already fine tome. Of particular importance is the dynamic “evolving model of education-related quality of life” (210), summarizing well the overall research findings and important reflective and application possibilities pertaining to student motivation and QOL in higher education. The model avoids reductionistic tendencies owing to its complex, symbiotic, and holistic orientation. I recommend this book as a constructive resource for higher education institutions (public and private): the book represents a strong effort toward advancing its stated goal of combining “the concepts of motivation and quality of life with the view to enriching the educational sector” (212).

Martin Nguyen Associate Professor, Faculty Chair for Diversity Fairfield University In a time when it is of paramount importance to assert and witness that black lives matter, how do we go about preparing our Islam courses that all too often afford little to no time at all for the societal.

Caleb Elfenbein Assistant Professor Grinnell College Don’t we all have moments when we want to, or perhaps feel like we should, set aside a class session plan in lieu of discussing a pressing event or development? Despite the vast array of subjects that we teach within the broader field of..

Tat-siong Benny Liew Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament Studies College of the Holy Cross It is that time of the year. After weeks and months of class sessions and office hours, the spring semester is now over. There is, of course, something left for us teachers to do

Teachers routinely complain that students do not read well or enough. What they mean by this is that students do not know how to analyze written texts, in part because they fail to engage regularly with written texts. Stephen Apkon’s book challenges this traditional focus on verbal literacy to advocate strongly for visual literacy, particularly in K-12 education. In a world saturated with screens and images to be decoded, Apkon, the founder and executive director of the Jacob Burns Film Center, argues that we ignore visual literacy at our peril. Few would argue with Apkon that we live in “the age of the image,” and in response to our situation Apkon argues for the importance of understanding the grammar of the visual. He does so by examining several interrelated perspectives on images and visual storytelling, such as brain science, advertising, and film techniques. He also provides a history of visual literacy that parallels in many ways the development of visual literacy. Rather than buy into the common parental and academic moral panic over “screen time” used by digital native “screenagers,” he encourages his readers to embrace screens and images by learning intimately how they work. This will benefit both producers and watchers, he argues, and can help classrooms function more seamlessly in our screen-obsessed culture. This book will be useful to teachers who want food for thought but not direct guidance. Apkon notes early on that “As new literacies emerge, they don’t negate more traditional forms of literacy, but rather embrace them wholly” (10) but then goes on to champion what sound like fairly vapid if contextually apt viral videos as examples of visual literacy achieved. Apkon’s bias is understandable, but it seems to leave other literacies in the dust, despite the author’s claims that he’s not doing just that. The chapter devoted to teaching is full of information, including a sketch of the history of technologies in education, but it does not detail how one might go about this in a classroom or curriculum. In Apkon’s favor, he calls for a high school graduation requirement of a five-minute film that illustrates key visual grammatical skills and incorporates written work as well. That kind of balance seems appropriate and necessary. This review will be published in the traditional written format (although if I were to follow Apkon’s prescription I should probably submit a well-edited video). I am wary of Apkon’s overwhelming enthusiasm for visual storytelling, placed in his analysis as top of the hierarchy of types of communication. Phrases such as “the unstoppable rise of visual expression as a popular means of conveying truth” seems remarkably optimistic: images, like words, can be used for powerfully negative propaganda as much as they can for “truth.” In sum, this book would have been more useful had it presented a more balanced view of the many literacies and illiteracies made possible by today’s technologies.

The Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC) initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is one of many efforts targeting the advancement of community college students, faculty, and institutions across the United States. Faculty selected to participate in the initiative taught developmental courses, documenting and analyzing pedagogical practices using Web 2.0 tools in order to facilitate communication and collaboration around teaching and learning. Regular and consistent forms of peer feedback, coaching, and reflection required participants to learn with, and from, one another. Primarily intended for college instructors, Taking College Teaching Seriously promises to broaden the impact of their faculty practice improvement model by encouraging the application of these processes by instructors of all types of courses in all institutional contexts of higher education. The value of this book for faculty lies in its accessibility and in its applicability: any faculty member, or group of faculty members of the same institution or across institutions, can easily replicate one or more of the processes described and explained in this book and so heighten their potential for acquiring some of the lessons learned. Although there are many useful components in this engaging book, it should be recognized that in the larger context of scholarship on teaching and learning the book contributes to that body of work focused on the significance of reflection as a faculty practice. While faculty assessment is a built-in feature of college courses through peer visits and course evaluations, and a standard requirement in faculty review processes over the course of a career, faculty reflection on teaching and learning is often underemphasized and much less institutionalized. Furthermore, when faculty reflection on teaching and learning does occur, it often is an isolated practice intended to address a particular issue or recurring problem experienced in a specific course. However, the movement toward institutionalizing faculty reflection practices appears to be growing steadily and assuming a variety of forms. One form highlighted in this book is the formation of an online community of practice (24-26). Put simply, a community of practice typically serves a small group of faculty with a shared interest who agree to organize themselves around work on a common issue or goal. In some cases, the formation of a community of practice may be connected to teaching and learning initiatives at a particular institution. However, as technological practices continue to become more embedded in college curricula and teaching, the design and implementation of online communities of practice may prove more practical and more beneficial to faculty development and support. Furthermore, communities of practice may transcend disciplinary boundaries; while the faculty participating in this initiative had primary expertise in mathematics and English, such practice readily extends to those in other disciplines as well.