Resources
This book is a straightforward and entertaining primer on college teaching. It discusses the nitty-gritty aspects of teaching while providing readers with a synoptic but concise explanation of the principles of the art. It also offers a viable alternative to the books on teaching currently available or in print. That alternative is the classic texts on education and pedagogy. These books are essential, the author argues, because they show teachers how to apply the principles of teaching while fostering the aims of liberal education at the same time. These books also help them pose the fundamental questions about education that all teachers should be asking. Aimed primarily at graduate students and new college professors, this book is a useful and practical guide for those who are passionate about teaching but feel unprepared to teach, unsure of what to expect in the classroom, and stifled in the current academic climate. It will likewise appeal to high school teachers and veteran college professors who are disenchanted and seek some way to break free from their malaise. It is intentionally short, little, “skinny,” so that it can be read through quickly and so that readers can peruse the chapters and mull over the topics at their leisure. Above all else, this book will introduce a new generation of readers to some of the great masters who can reveal the timeless truths—and yes, even the magic—behind the art. (From the Publisher)
Discover how to engage your students and raise their grades and attendance in your classroom. The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game is your detailed guide to designing any structured learning experience as a game. Written for professional educators or those learning to be educators, here are the tools to engage and excite students by using principles learned in the development of popular video games. Suitable for use in the classroom or the boardroom, the book features a reader-friendly style that introduces game concepts and vocabulary in a logical way. You don't need any experience making games or even playing games to use this book. Yet, you will learn how to create multiplayer games for any age on any subject. Bring your classroom into the 21st century! (From the Publisher)
This book focuses on online pedagogy and the challenges and opportunities incumbent in the transformation of a face-to-face college course. It is intended as a resource and support for new online teachers – a source of ideas and strategies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives as well as pedagogical perspectives – and for those experienced in the online environment. The book meets the needs of faculty new to online teaching by providing them a wide variety of perspectives on the online transition – e.g. pedagogical, multidisciplinary, class size and level – by faculty with varying degrees of previous experience who have recently made the transition from face-to-face to online. Their advice and recollections offer a fresh, contemporary perspective on the subject. For administrators and faculty experienced with online instruction, the collection works as a resource for ideas intended to sustain the vibrancy and efficacy of the online environment. Taking Your Course Online includes the experiences of a cohort of faculty that responded to a University - wide call for faculty interested in developing online courses for summer session. This group participated in a series of workshops that addressed various aspects of developing online courses and online pedagogy. All of the authors taught their new online course over a subsequent 10-week summer session, and many of them have done so subsequently as well. Their experiences have great currency in the ever-changing world of online teaching. Because the collection represents the work of teachers exposed to best practices and many discussions concerning rigor, assessment, and accountability, it provides support for the viability of online teaching/learning in an environment frequently plagued by doubts about its effectiveness. Practitioners using this book will learn how to turn their face-to-face course into an online course successfully, understand best practices for transitioning courses/online teaching, minimize errors and avoid pitfalls in the transition process, and maximize learning. Faculty development professionals can use this book as a resource to teach faculty from a wide range of disciplines how to transition from the actual to the virtual classroom. Administrators such as deans and program chairs will gain useful insights into ways to think about taking entire programs online, as well as how to guide faculty in their development of pedagogical skills pertinent to online learning. (From the Publisher)
This is a practical introduction to blended learning, presenting examples of implementation across a broad spectrum of disciplines. For faculty unfamiliar with this mode of teaching, it illustrates how to address the core challenge of blended learning—to link the activities in each medium so that they reinforce each other to create a single, unified, course—and offers models they can adapt. Francine Glazer and the contributors to this book describe how they integrate a wide range of pedagogical approaches in their blended courses, use groups to build learning communities, and make the online environment attractive to students. They illustrate under what circumstances particular tasks and activities work best online or face-to-face, and when to incorporate synchronous and asynchronous interactions. They introduce the concept of layering the content of courses to appropriately sequence material for beginning and experienced learners, and to ensure that students see both the online and the face-to-face components as being equal in value and devote equal effort to both modalities. The underlying theme of this book is encouraging students to develop the skills to continue learning throughout their lives. By allowing students to take more time and reflect on the course content, blended learning can promote more student engagement and, consequently, deeper learning. It appeals to today’s digital natives who are accustomed to using technology to find and share information, communicate, and collaborate, and also enables non-traditional students to juggle their commitments more efficiently and successfully. (From the Publisher)
Success depends on the ability to think critically. Training and practice turn this ability into a powerful skill. BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER gives students the opportunity to develop this skill in a classroom environment while stressing its application to daily life. Students learn to solve everyday problems, maintain successful relationships, make career choices, and interpret the messages of advertising in a variety of media. Exercises throughout the text encourage them to practice what they read and to apply it to their own lives. BECOMING A CRITICAL THINKER breaks up critical thinking into a series of cumulative activities, a unique approach that has made this text a staple of many critical thinking courses. Features • “Good Thinking” features throughout the text profile diverse individuals who underscore the role of critical thinking in achievement. Exercises invite students to apply the lessons of the various profiles to their own lives. • Quizzes at the end of each chapter allow students to test their understanding of chapter concepts. • Group activities allow students to practice the transfer of individual thinking skills to situations in which problems require a cooperative solution. • Comprehensive coverage of argumentation helps students develop and communicate arguments strongly. Students are asked to analyze and compare real arguments and viewpoints on contemporary topics as a way of expanding their own reasoning capabilities. • The depth and breadth of theory, skill building, and application in the text make it ideal for an English Composition course or an introductory course in critical thinking. (From the Publisher)
Ubiquitous Learning: Strategies for Pedagogy, Course Design, and Technology bridges the gap between digital media and education, by presenting an intriguing look on the future of education. By combining theory, research, and practice, this book paints a broad picture of the field of ubiquitous learning by focuses on how to use theory and research to enhance technology integration to support teaching and learning through instructional design strategies for instruction, models and frameworks for course design, and applications of mobile and social media tools to create, implement, and deliver a ubiquitous learning environment. This book is of interest to researchers and graduate students in educational technology, information sciences, adult learning and other learning and performance fields, as well as university faculty, teachers, administrators, policymakers, and industry leaders, who can use this text to make essential decisions related to their respective roles in education. Ubiquitous Learning: Strategies for Pedagogy, Course Design, and Technology is a great reference for those who wish to enhance their levels of teaching and student engagement though the use of technology. (From the Publisher)
This practical handbook for designing and teaching hybrid or blended courses focuses on outcomes-based practice. It reflects the author’s experience of having taught over 70 hybrid courses, and having worked for three years in the Learning Technology Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a center that is recognized as a leader in the field of hybrid course design. Jay Caulfield defines hybrid courses as ones where not only is face time replaced to varying degrees by online learning, but also by experiential learning that takes place in the community or within an organization with or without the presence of a teacher; and as a pedagogy that places the primary responsibility of learning on the learner, with the teacher’s primary role being to create opportunities and environments that foster independent and collaborative student learning. Starting with a brief review of the relevant theory – such as andragogy, inquiry-based learning, experiential learning and theories that specifically relate to distance education – she addresses the practicalities of planning a hybrid course, taking into account class characteristics such as size, demographics, subject matter, learning outcomes, and time available. She offers criteria for determining the appropriate mix of face-to-face, online, and experiential components for a course, and guidance on creating social presence online. The section on designing and teaching in the hybrid environment covers such key elements as promoting and managing discussion, using small groups, creating opportunities for student feedback, and ensuring that students’ learning expectations are met. A concluding section of interviews with students and teachers offers a rich vein of tips and ideas. (From the Publisher)
Early life experiences are likely to be important for the formation of preferences. Religiosity is a key dimension of preferences, affecting many economic outcomes. This paper examines the effect of college major on religiosity, and the converse effect of religiosity on college major, using panel data from the Monitoring the Future survey as a way of gauging the extent to which various streams of thought, as taught in college, affect religiosity. Two key questions, based on the differences in college experience across majors, are whether either (a) the Scientific worldview or (b) Postmodernism has negative effects on religiosity as these streams of thought are actually transmitted at the college level. The results show a decline in religiosity of students majoring in the social sciences and humanities, but a rise in religiosity for those in education and business. After initial choices, those respondents with high levels of religiosity are more likely to enter college. Of those who are in college, people with high levels of religiosity tend to go into the humanities and education over other majors.
This book is a practical resource for lecturers working with groups of all sizes, in a range of teaching environments. Written by a highly experienced teacher and lecturer, Alan Mortiboys, the book is a distillation of the common concerns and issues raised at workshops Alan has run. The book reflects three of the six areas of activity outlined in the UK Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Higher Education: Design and Planning of Learning Activities and/or Programmes of Study Teaching and/or Supporting Student Learning Evaluation of Practice and Continuing Professional Development The book answers 55 of the questions most commonly asked by HE teachers. There are 14 tasks to help the reader apply the answers to their own teaching practice. The answers are also linked to relevant literature for further reading. How to be an Effective Teacher in Higher Education provides key reading for those teaching and undertaking PGCert in HE or other postgraduate teaching courses as well as academics concerned with their professional development. (From the Publisher)
In recent years there has been increasing use of virtual worlds in Higher Education, particularly in Second Life. This practical handbook is a pedagogically-informed text that guides staff in the use of Second Life in the fields of further and higher education. The book has been designed to support teachers who want to use Second Life and provides both an overview and a detailed consideration of the opportunities this immersive world offers for teaching, learning, assessment and research. To assist readers, Maggi Savin-Baden has included: - A glossary of terms - Details of challenges and mistakes to avoid - Examples of good practice - Links to websites and other sources of help This book is designed both for those new to Second Life as well as those with experience of teaching in virtual environments. It will help teachers to progress from getting started with Second Life to developing their teaching within the environment. (From the Publisher)