I was intrigued by a post on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s brainstorm blog about Summer Reading that May Improve Your Fall Teaching. The reading list was developed by members of the POD network, a group for faculty development professionals, and includes titles from the higher ed literature. The list includes both classics and new titles. Here are a few from the list that I’ve found particularly useful:
- Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Our Learning Assessment working group is drawing on this book heavily in a project we are working on to help people implement assessment of student learning to improve their teaching… look for this in Fall 08.
- Bean, J. (1996). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. This is what I’ll be reading, based on a recommendation from the Summer Faculty Institute
- Walvoord, B. E. F., & Anderson, V. J. (1998). Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. My favorite book on assessment of student learning.
- Weimer, M. (2002).Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. This is a very useful book in rethinking your instruction in a user-centered way. I did some workshops based on this model with a colleague from Berkeley and Weimer was the Instruction Section speaker at ALA a few years ago. The book club led by Lil Tong here at UW read this last year as well.
- Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2001). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. A useful instructional design manual grounded in constructivist learning theory.
So many titles on the list! So much reading to do! I’ve been thinking about the idea of learning communities, and I know I get more out of reading when I discuss what I learn. Let me know if you’re interested in talking about a particular reading, perhaps this would be a fun framework for a forum or just coffee.
