Best Books for College Teaching
Tips, Strategies, and Inspiration for the College Classroom
Aug 18, 2009
As a fresh school year begins to crank up, teachers of every stripe are browsing their bookshelves for new ideas and inspiration.
Three books that have proven highly useful in these waning days of curriculum planning include:
- The Courage to Teach Parker Palmer
- McKeachie's Teaching Tips by Wibert J. McKeachie
- Nuts & Bolts, a Practical Guide to Teaching College Composition edited by Thomas Newkirk
Best Teaching Philosophy: Parker Palmer
One book every teacher needs on his or her bookshelf, no matter if it is a college, high school, middle or elementary classroom, is Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach. Palmer’s gentle intelligence shines through statements like these:
- Technique is what teachers use until the real teacher arrives, and this book is about helping that teacher show up.
- We teach who we are.
- Community is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.
A teacher and author who draws on many years of experience in the classroom is gentle without being indulgent, understanding without being merely soft. For teachers who can get lost in the endless details of the classroom, Palmer's words are a reminder as to why one chose this work in the first place: For the simple desire to make a difference, to affect young lives for the better. This book cheers as well as inspires.
Best Tips for Classroom Methods: Wilbert McKeachie
Another classic which should live on every teacher's bookshelf is McKeachie's Teaching Tips by Wilbert J. McKeachie. Even after many years in the classroom, this book holds a wealth of fresh ideas and sorted-out old ones. Questions every new teacher asks him or herself, and that even the seasoned teacher must revisit from time to time, are addressed succinctly and fully, including the following:
- What really causes barriers in classroom discussion?
- What actually motivates students to do their best besides that ubiquitous A?
- How are your "active learning" strategies?
- Are you up on the latest with the learning cell and peer tutoring?
- What to do about cheating?
- How do you teach a large class and still get active learning?
- What are the basics of assigning grades?
This book is concise and packed with such information making it a boon to lesson planning. Who could plan a successful curriculum without McKeachie's tips?
Best Ideas for Teaching Language Arts
And thirdly, a book aimed at the college writing instructor but equally at home in any advanced high school English class, is Nuts and Bolts a Practical Guide to Teaching College Composition. Here is a a cornucopia of brilliant ideas and practical considerations on everything from how to get students really doing that close reading (a tool that can be brought into every other classroom and without which everyone struggles) to how to write a research paper that has the authority of research with the personal engagement of an real essay.
Each chapter written by a different author, Nuts and Bolts brings together a stellar group of college composition teachers, some of whom have fame in the classroom as well as stellar reputations as writers, this is one books that cannot sit still on a teacher's book shelf for long. It simply begs to be read.
Each book offered here carries its own perspective be it philosophical or practical. Any one of them can provide a nice jump start to a new year in the classroom.
Works Cited:
McKeachie, Wilbert J. McKeachie's Teaching Tips, 11th ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2002.
Newkirk, Thomas, ed. Nuts & Bolts, a Practical Guide to Teaching College Composition. Portsmouth, N.H.: Boynon/Cook, 1993.
Palmer, Parker. The Courage to Teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.
 |
 |
 |
