Resources

Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age is for all those interested in considering the impact of emerging digital technologies on teaching and learning. It explores the concept of a digital age and perspectives of knowledge, pedagogy and practice within a digital context. By examining teaching with digital technologies through new learning theories cognisant of the digital age, it aims to both advance thinking and offer strategies for teaching technology-savvy students that will enable meaningful learning experiences. Illustrated throughout with case studies from across the subjects and the age range, key issues considered include: • how young people create and share knowledge both in and beyond the classroom and how current and new pedagogies can support this level of achievement • the use of complexity theory as a framework to explore teaching in the digital age • the way learning occurs – one way exchanges, online and face-to-face interactions, learning within a framework of constructivism, and in communities • what we mean by critical thinking, why it is important in a digital age, and how this can occur in the context of learning • how students can create knowledge through a variety of teaching and learning activities, and how the knowledge being created can be shared, critiqued and evaluated. With an emphasis throughout on what it means for practice, this book aims to improve understanding of how learning theories currently work and can evolve in the future to promote truly effective learning in the digital age. It is essential reading for all teachers, student teachers, school leaders, those engaged in Masters’ Level work, as well as students on Education Studies courses. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching provides educators with easy and practical ways of using games to support student engagement and learning. Despite growing interest in digital game-based learning and teaching, until now most teachers have lacked the resources or technical knowledge to create games that meet their needs. The only realistic option for many has been to use existing games which too often are out of step with curriculum goals, difficult to integrate, and require high-end technology. Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching offers a comprehensive solution, presenting five principles for games that can be embedded into traditional or online learning environments to enhance student engagement and interactivity. Extensive case studies explore specific academic perspectives, and featured insights from professional game designers show how educational games can be designed using readily accessible, low-end technologies, providing an explicit link between theory and practice. Practical in nature, the book has a sound theoretical base that draws from a range of international literature and research. (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: Here is a new text that fulfills an emerging need in both higher and public education and stands to break new ground in addressing critical skills required of graduates. When working on their last book, It Works for Me, Creatively, the authors realized that the future belongs to the right-brained. While Daniel Pink and other visionaries may have oversimplified a bit, higher education is ripe for the creative campus, while secondary education is desperately seeking a complement to the growing assessment/teach-to-the-test mentality. You don’t have to study the 2010 IBM survey of prominent American CEOs to know that the number one skill business wants is students who can think creatively. To meet the demand of new courses, programs, and curricula, the authors have developed a 200-page “textbook” suitable for secondary or higher education courses that are jumping on this bandwagon. Introduction to Applied Creative Thinking, as the title suggests, focuses not on just developing the skills necessary for creative thinking, but on having students apply those skills; after all, true creative thinking demands making something that is both novel and useful. Such a book may also be used successfully by professional developers in business and education. For this book, Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet are joined in authorship by Rusty Carpenter. He not only directs Eastern Kentucky University’s Noel Studio for Academic Creativity but has co-edited a book on that subject, Higher Education, Emerging Technologies, and Community Partnerships (2011) and the forthcoming Cases on Higher Education Spaces (2012). Introduction to Applied Creative Thinking is student-friendly. Every chapter is laced with exercises, assignments, summaries, and generative spaces. Order copies now or contact the publisher for further information. (From the Publisher)

The popularity of entertainment gaming over the last decades has led to the use of games for non-entertainment purposes in areas such as training and business support. The emergence of the serious games movement has capitalized on this interest in leisure gaming, with an increase in leisure game approaches in schools, colleges, universities and in professional training and continuing professional development. The movement raises many significant issues and challenges for us. How can gaming and simulation technologies be used to engage learners? How can games be used to motivate, deepen and accelerate learning? How can they be used to greatest effect in learning and teaching? The contributors explore these and many other questions that are vital to our understanding of the paradigm shift from conventional learning environments to learning in games and simulations. (From the Publisher)

This book presents the research-based case that Learner Centered Teaching (LCT) offers the best means to optimize student learning in college, and offers examples and ideas for putting it into practice, as well the underlying rationale. It also starts from the premise that many faculty are much closer to being learner centered teachers than they think, but don’t have the full conceptual understanding of the process to achieve its full impact. There is sometimes a gap between what we would like to achieve in our teaching and the knowledge and strategies needed to make it happen. LCT keeps all of the good features of a teacher-centered approach and applies them in ways that are in better harmony with how our brains learn. It, for instance, embraces the teacher as expert as well as the appropriate use of lecture, while also offering new, effective ways to replace practices that don’t optimizing student learning. Neuroscience, biology and cognitive science research have made it clear that it is the one who does the work who does the learning. Many faculty do too much of the work for their students, which results in diminished student learning. To enable faculty to navigate this shift, Terry Doyle presents an LCT-based approach to course design that draws on current brain research on cognition and learning; on addressing the affective concerns of students; on proven approaches to improve student’s comprehension and recall; on transitioning from “teller of knowledge” to a “facilitator of learning”; on the design of authentic assessment strategies – such as engaging students in learning experiences that model the real world work they will be asked to do when they graduate; and on successful communication techniques. The presentation is informed by the questions and concerns raised by faculty from over sixty colleges with whom Terry Doyle has worked; and on the response from an equal number of regional, national and international conferences at which he has presented on topics related to LCT. (From the Publisher)

Most of the scholarship on learner-centeredness is focused on individual classroom pedagogy, but this book takes learner-centeredness beyond the classroom and asks academic leaders to consider the broader implications of making their institutions fully learner-centered. Systemic change is needed, and curriculum is at the heart of what higher education does. To truly effect change, the curriculum needs to be examined and aligned with learner-centered practices. In this book the authors offer both design specifications for a learner-centered approach to curriculum as well as practical recommendations for implementation and assessment. The book covers the need for redesigning curriculum, curriculum design in the instructional paradigm, learner-centered design in practice, implementation, program assessment (including a helpful rubric for this), innovating through technology, and learning spaces that support learner-centered curricula. (From the Publisher)

This volume contains material on research based teaching techniques for use in higher education. The focus is on small group learning procedures. None of this material has previously appeared in book form. Twenty of the articles first appeared in the Cooperative Learning and College Teaching newsletter that Jim Cooper and Pamela Robinson edited from 1990 to 1999. These articles address applications of small group learning within a variety of academic disciplines. (From the Publisher)

From the Pubisher Pedagogy of Place focuses on the embodiment of purposefully created space resulting from the creation and enactment of its participants' cultural and social conditions. It is also about education, the purposeful creation of spaces that comprise learning environments, and the aesthetic dimensions of the created space called school. The essays present the concept of space - the place where learning happens and where the lives of student and teacher can thrive or wither - a place rich in human potential. In an attempt to address the diversity of what we define as space, Pedagogy of Place addresses issues around place and identity in three distinct strands: as social, as aesthetic, and as political and historical. As a collection, these essays are attempts to open conversations with persons interested in what counts as curriculum, teaching, and learning within the spaces and places that release human potential and nurture the human spirit.

Our goal in writing this book was to validate teachers for strong efforts in their life's work. We often observe teachers' frustrations with what they perceive to be a multitude of different hot topics in education that they must attend to now, but which they expect to come and go, like the last hot topics. So, we wanted to help readers see similarities between many of these hot topics-differentiation, multiple intelligences, culturally responsive teaching, brain-friendly strategies, authentic assessment, and ethical classroom management which we feel are not flashes in the pan. And we trust that serious practitioners will not oversimplify the findings of neuroscientists and their application to education. Reading studies and books by scientists, a number of which are user-friendly, can help ensure that teachers separate the hype from credible information. We have seen this professionally judicious approach in the work of graduate students (Kolinski, 2007) in adopting brain-friendly strategies. We have intentionally packed both theoretical/research-based and practical information in this book because professional educators want to know why they should use certain approaches, models, and strategies. In turn, as professionals, we should be able to explain why we teach the way we do-not to justify, but to educate others about our knowledge-based, reflective, decision-making processes and the impact on student learning. Thus, it is important to read Chapter 1 because it lays a foundation. Each succeeding chapter (2-6) has unique and compelling twists and turns-chock full of ideas to use or to adapt. It is possible to gain lots of ideas, processes, and strategies from reading and implementing (or adapting) even one of the unit chapters, or a part of it. While some of the units are explicitly about literacy, others focus on content using reading, writing, speaking, and listening as critical in the learning process. Thus, literacy skills are reinforced and strengthened. Additionally, some of our colleagues and public school partners have given us feedback that they wanted to implement some of the units and activities themselves. So, feel free to use this book for self-exploration and professional development. (From the Publisher)