Resources

Teaching First-Year College Students is a thoroughly expanded and updated edition of Teaching College Freshmen, which has become a classic in the field since it was published in 1991. The book offers concrete suggestions about specific strategies and approaches for faculty who teach first-year courses. The new edition is based on the most current research on teaching and learning and incorporates information about the demographic changes that have occurred in student populations since the first edition was published. The updated strategies are designed to help first-year students adjust effectively to both the academic and nonacademic pressures of college. The authors also help faculty understand first-year students and show how their experiences in high school have prepared or not prepared them for the world of higher education. (From the Publisher)

Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

This book brings teachers a bold vision and on-the-ground Monday morning practicality. It will move educators to think differently about technology’s potential for strengthening students' critical thinking, writing, reflection, and interactive learning. Will Richardson demystifies words like "blog," "wiki," and "aggregator" making classroom technology an easily accessible component of classroom research, writing, and learning. This guide demonstrates how Web tools can generate exciting new learning formats, and explains how to apply these tools in the classroom to engage all students in a new world of synchronous information feeds and interactive learning. With detailed, simple explanations, definitions and how-tos, critical information on Internet safety, and helpful links, this exciting book opens an immense toolbox, with specific teaching applications for * Web logs, the most widely adopted tool of the read/write Web * Wikis, a collaborative Webspace for sharing published content * Rich Site Summary (RSS), feeding specific content into the classroom * Aggregators, collecting content generated via the RSS feed * Social bookmarking, archiving specific Web addresses * Online photo galleries This book makes it possible for anyone, no matter how inexperienced, to harness this amazing technology for the classroom today! (From the Publisher)

In this book, Karen Hammerness sheds light on the complex relationship between teachers' ideal and the realities of school life. Through the stories of four teachers, she reveals how teacher educators can help new teachers articulate, develop, and sustain their visions and assist them as they navigate the gap between their visions and their daily work. (From the Publisher)

A comprehensive guide for effectively integrating assessment in the classroom. Based on extensive research, this book offers teachers a thorough grounding in all aspects of classroom assessment for enhancing student learning and achievement. While the major focus is on how to design quality performance tasks and scoring guides, the book also provides guidance on setting standards-based learning targets, analyzing assessment data, and using instructional strategies to provide effective feedback to students. The book also covers portfolios, grading practices, and issues of high-stakes testing. (From the Publisher)

Communities of Difference looks at the implications of educational practices in communities that are differentiated by issues of language, culture, and technology. Trifonas and contributors argue that a "community" is at once a gathering of like-minded individuals in solidarity of purpose and conviction, and also a gathering that excludes others. The chapters in this collection reveal this tension between theory and practice in order to engage the models of community and the theories of difference that support them as a way to teach, to learn, and to know. (From the Publisher)

An article published in “Academe” on the AAUP website, arguing that we should embrace the responsibility for critically evaluating our work as teachers – assessment should be the “property” of faculty, it should work for us rather than against us.

To be or not to be. That is the question. To be a teacher-performer or not to be. Authors Timpson and Burgoyne assert that teachers are inherently performers and as such, techniques from the stage enhance and expand a teacher’s ready repertoire of discipline-based content. While teachers are trained as planners and scholars, very few are trained as performers. Using performance theory, the authors show how an educator can transform ordinary classroom experiences into occasions that attract and engage the students. In this second edition of Teaching and Performing, the authors expand on the possibilities of using warm-up exercises, assuming roles, props, lighting, blocking, energy, concentration, and a variety of other techniques important to good theatre and good teaching. (From the Publisher)

There’s no doubt that a great classroom lecturer can be an inspiration to students. But almost all lecturers worry that their students are not learning how to discover, how to make connections on their own. If you have never taught an online course you’ll be surprised to learn that teaching online, as described by the authors, has the potential for providing students with a truly comprehensive learning experience. An online course can offer students the chance to learn through exploration, to pursue related areas of interest, to participate in a community of learners, and to take advantage of opportunities to excel. This book, ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online Course offers an easy-to-follow guide that is based on a model developed from experience with hundreds of online courses. The authors are members of The Concord Consortium, a nonprofit educational technology lab dedicated to improving teaching practices through the appropriate integrated use of technology in the classroom. Based on their experience, the authors offer the Concord Consortium e-Learning Model — which provides a working overview of online teaching — and seventeen essential elements that take you step-by-step through everything you’ll need to know for successful online teaching. The essential elements describe the necessary steps to put the Concord model into practice with these results: * You will use courseware to display your course assignments and reference materials as text, with graphics, colors, and multimedia to enhance the presentation. *Your course will have clearly written assignments that engage your students in active learning with each other. *You, as the instructor, will play an integral roll as a facilitator of that learning. *Your will use the Internet both as a resource and as a means for connecting yourself and your students based on your mutual interest in the content — regardless of your individual schedules, geographic location, or physical ability to come to class. *You and your students will communicate and collaborate on a regular basis in a discussion area that allows for student-to-student and student-to-instructor interaction. *Students will assess their own growth and learning through group discussion and reflection, peer review, instructor feedback, and self-evaluation. The essential elements are presented in three sections — prepare, design, and teach — that will take you from the starting gate to the finishing line, offering complete assistance for the new online teacher and new techniques and tips for those who have taught online before. With tips addressing everything from technology to student assessments, from online community building to collaborative teaming, and from scheduling and pacing to facilitating online discussions, the authors have the virtual classroom covered. (From the Publisher)

Journal Issue. (This issue, and all "Spotlight on Teaching" issues prior to 1999, are not available on the AAR website.)