Resources

Journal issue. Full text is available online.

It Works For Me, Online is designed primarily to aid instructors in two major types of classes: fully online and web-enhanced/hybrid courses. Those who teach fully online classes will find tips on such things as tricks you can use with synchronous chats, how to use blogging in your classroom to replace traditional chat-rooms (talk about your superannuation), and even ways of adapting Blackboard to meet administrative needs. Those who prefer web enhancements to the traditional classroom will find advice to navigate between the virtual and real world. And, truthfully, we are hopeful that even dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying Luddites will skim through these pages and realize it is possible for old dogs to learn new tricks (we and many of our contributors are either retiring or nearing retirement, yet found the brave new world of technology as exciting as we did our Erector Sets as kids or learning to beat our own kids at Pac-Man). Use It Works For Me, Online both as a handy desk companion filled with practical strategies and as a springboard for generating your own strategies for making your classes as effective as possible. Like the first two books in this series, It Works For Me and It Works For Me, Too, this handbook runs the gamut from short to long pieces, from very course-specific suggestions to general pieces, from some theoretical applications to down-to-earth tactics. But the following tips share one important common characteristic–they all work. (From the Publisher)

Teaching for Understanding with Technology shows how teachers can maximize the potential of new technologies to advance student learning and achievement. It uses the popular Teaching for Understanding framework that guides learners to think, analyze, solve problems, and make meaning of what they've learned. (From the Publisher)

We live in a media culture, surrounded by ever-evolving digital technologies. Engaging Technology in Theological Education is a breakthrough book that invites religious educators to both engage and adapt their pedagogy to incorporate new media and technology. Drawing from her expertise as a seminary professor and consultant to religious institutions on the use of technology in teaching, Mary E. Hess invites professors, pastors, seminarians, and anyone interested in religious education to critically reflect on ways of engaging technology to enhance learning and to serve as critical interpreters within communities of faith. (From the Publisher)

This self-assessment guide will help all teaching professionals - whether in higher education, schools or management training - to assess, critique, reflect on and improve practice. The book is based on extensive research carried out at the Institute for Learning at the University of Hull. Fully practical, it looks at the generic skills of teaching, and guides readers to consider their own work both in the light of best practice and of their own strengths and weaknesses. In so doing it will help to assess and build teaching that is best for the individual and their situation. Developed around the basic functions of teaching, rather than the methods used to actually deliver learning, the Guide shows readers how to identify key elements of their teaching, and its context, and uses a matrix approach to suggest routes to bring about change. "Trouble-Shooting Your Teaching" will help to identify possible problem factors (intake, course, materials, teaching, support, assessment); to recognize agents of change (learners, self, colleagues, support staff, management, stake-holders); and to initiate improvement. It will be a valuable self-help tool for any teacher who is concerned about diagnosing, understanding and developing his or her own practice. (From the Publisher)

Gathering concepts and techniques borrowed from outstanding college professors, The Joy of Teaching provides helpful guidance for new instructors developing and teaching their first college courses. Award-winning professor Peter Filene proposes that teaching should not be like a baseball game in which the instructor pitches ideas to students to see whether they hit or strike out. Ideally, he says, teaching should resemble a game of Frisbee in which the teacher invites students to catch ideas and pass them on. Rather than prescribe any single model for success, Filene lays out the advantages and disadvantages of various pedagogical strategies, inviting new teachers to make choices based on their own personalities, values, and goals. Filene tackles everything from syllabus writing and lecture planning to class discussions, grading, and teacher-student interactions outside the classroom. The book's down-to-earth, accessible style makes it appropriate for teachers in all fields. Instructors in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences will all welcome its invaluable tips for successful teaching and learning. (From the Publisher)

Suskie (Towson U.) believes in developing an assessment culture in schools and universities. She describes assessment as a four-step continuous cycle of establishing learning goals, providing learning opportunities, assessing student learning, and making good use of results. She provides rubrics for evaluating a variety of learning opportunities and media, and supplies model examinations, surveys, checklists, and reports for publication. (From the Publisher)

Inquiry-guided learning (IGL) refers to an array of classroom practices that promote student learning through guided and, increasingly independent investigation of complex questions and problems. Rather than teaching the results of others' investigations, which students learn passively, instructors assist students in mastering and learning through the process of active investigation itself. IGL develops critical thinking, independent inquiry, students' responsibility for their own learning and intellectual growth and maturity. The 1999 Boyer Commission Report emphasized the importance of establishing "a firm grounding in inquiry-based learning and communication of information and ideas". While this approach capitalizes on one of the key strengths of research universities, the expertise of its faculty in research, it is one that can be fruitfully adopted throughout higher education. North Carolina State University is at the forefront of the development and implementation of IGL both at the course level and as part of a successful faculty-led process of reform of undergraduate education in a complex research institution. This book documents and explores NCSU's IGL initiative from a variety of perspectives: how faculty arrived at their current understanding of inquiry-guided learning and how they have interpreted it at various levels -- the individual course, the major, the college, the university-wide program, and the undergraduate curriculum as a whole. The contributors show how IGL has been dovetailed with other complementary efforts and programs, and how they have assessed its impact. The book is divided into four parts, the first briefly summarizing the history of the initiative. Part Two, the largest section, describes how various instructors, departments, and colleges in a range of disciplines have interpreted inquiry-guided learning. It provides examples from disciplines as varied as ecology, engineering, foreign language learning, history, music, microbiology, physics and psychology. It also outlines the potential for even broader dissemination of inquiry-guided learning in the undergraduate curriculum as a whole. Part Three describes two inquiry-guided learning programs for first year students and the interesting ways in which NCSU's university-wide writing and speaking program and growing service learning program support inquiry-guided learning. Part Four documents how the institution has supported instructors (and how they have supported themselves) as well as the methods used to assess the impact of inquiry-guided learning on students, faculty, and the institution as a whole. The book has been written with three audiences in mind: instructors who want to use inquiry-guided learning in their classrooms, faculty developers considering supporting comparable efforts on their campuses, and administrators interested in managing similar undergraduate reform efforts. It will also appeal to instructors of courses in the administration of higher education who are looking for relevant case studies of reform. While this is a model successfully implemented at a research university, it is one that is relevant for all institutions of higher education. (From the Publisher)

Teachers in higher education are constantly looking for ways to engage students and motivate them to respond creatively and actively to their disciplines -- but frequently lack the formal grounding in teaching to design effective courses and implement appropriate learning strategies. This book reflects and incorporates McGill University's thirty years' experience developing teaching programs and workshops at its Centre for University Teaching and Learning. Eight authors from the Centre, working as a coordinated team, here develop their most successful program into a portable workshop for anyone who is interested in improving their teaching knowledge and skills. The program in question is a week-long intensive workshop that offers professors in an opportunity to discuss their teaching, reflect on it, and put new strategies into practice to enhance the quality of student learning. This book takes the reader through the process, walking him or her through the principles of course design and teaching, and providing concepts to frame them within the reader's disciplinary knowledge and expertise. The book also incorporates the perspectives of professors from a wide range of disciplines who participated in the program, and who offer their personal accounts of conceptual change about teaching and learning and their current involvement toward the improvement of student learning. This book will appeal to new and seasoned teachers in higher education, as well as to graduate students planning an academic career and wanting to develop their teaching skills. For faculty developers the book captures and reflects the thinking behind the development of this workshop, its evolution since it was first implemented in 1993, and constitutes a practical guide for designing and implementing similar workshops. (From the Publisher)