Resources
Designed as a resource for persons interested in improving the quality of teaching and student learning, this book covers aspects of the teaching-learning process that can be altered with relative ease. Practical suggestions are given in chapters focusing on concepts known to have a strong influence on student learning. The chapters include: (1) new ideas on teaching and learning in higher education; (2) exceptionally effective college teachers (identifying and interviewing them, feedback, etc.); (3) learning and evaluation (traditional and alternative uses, critical elements, subject area differences, etc.); (4) mastery learning; (5) motivation and early success (predicting college success, importance of first semester and first test, etc.); (6) time use and student involvement (John Carroll's model, Benjamin Bloom's ideas on learning rate, allocated versus engaged time, etc.); (7) student support services (faculty contact, tutorial services, computer-assisted instruction, etc.); and (8) staff development (collegial sharing, program characteristics, etc.).
Building on the insights of his highly acclaimed earlier work, The Skillful Teacher, Stephen D. Brookfield offers a very personal and accessible guide to how faculty at any level and across all disciplines can improve their teaching. Applying the principles of adult learning, Brookfield thoughtfully guides teachers through the processes of becoming critically reflective about teaching, confronting the contradictions involved in creating democratic classrooms, and using critical reflection as a tool for continuous personal and professional development. (From the Publisher)
Journal Issue. Full text is available online.
This essay is a discussion of effective teaching in the science and religion classroom. I begin by introducing Alfred North Whitehead’s three stages of learning -- romance, discipline, and generalization -- and consider their implications for powerful pedagogy in the science and religion classroom. Following Whitehead’s three principles, I develop a number of additional heuristics that deal with active, visual, narrative, cooperative, and dialogical learning styles. Finally, I present twelve guidelines for how to use e-mail and class-based listservers to achieve some of these outcomes.
In Talk and Chalk: The Blackboard as an Intellectual Tool, Michael O'Hare describes what distinguishes the nearly ever present blackboard from other media such as slides, overheads, and flip charts. In doing so, he pinpoints the unique nature of a blackboard and how this makes it an especially effective device for managing and stimulating discussions. O'Hare makes a series of practical points about techniques that can put this ubiquitous classroom feature to work helping students stay engaged in class discussion. Everyone who has a blackboard in the classroom will find this a useful piece.
This is a collection of case studies written by professor and by graduate students teaching in the field of religion. Each case highlights one or more teaching problem (or possibility), some facet of the mystery of teaching (and learning to teach) at the college level. Each case is intended to spark conversations about a particular collegiate teaching situation. (From the Publisher)
“Teaching and Learning When We Least Expect It: The Role of Critical Moments in Student Development”
Personal reflection on the importance of informal moments in the education of students, and the implications for our metaphor of teaching.