GMworld

Tools for Teaching / Barbara Gross Davis

Second edition. 2009

English. 612 pages

Teaching. Classroom management. English language.

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Tools for Teaching provides new and experienced faculty in all disciplines with practical, tested strategies for addressing all major aspects of college and university teaching, from planning a course through assigning final grades. Graduate student instructors and teaching assistants will also benefit from the foundational knowledge and research findings described in this book.

This second edition includes twelve new chapters devoted to innovations in classroom technology and current trends on American campuses. In addition, all of the chapters from the first edition have been thoroughly revised to incorporate recent research on college-level teaching and learning.

Certain assumptions about you, the reader, have guided the design and organization of this second edition:

1. You teach a course that is primarily face -to-face and use technology for administrative and educational purposes.
2. You want to know about specific instructional strategies that faculty members have used successfully and that researchers have found to be effective in developing students’ intellectual and cognitive skills.
3. You can figure things out for yourself. Once you are presented with the gist of a strategy, you can adapt it to your particular circumstances and needs—or reject it as inappropriate for you and your students.
4. You are busy and have little time to read through the burgeoning literature on teaching and learning. You want to be able to quickly locate information and appropriate strategies for improving your teaching and students’ learning.

Each chapter contains a brief introduction, a set of general strategies, and concise descriptions of teaching ideas, supported by research, that instructors can adapt and try out. The format lends itself to easy and efficient identification

of major points and to quick reading or browsing. Each chapter can be read independently of the others, and the chapters can be read in any order.

Many of the suggestions can be readily implemented; others require planning or modifications in course design. No one instructor could possibly use even half of the ideas — nor would any instructor want to. Tools for Teaching is truly a toolbox from which to select and adapt those ideas that match your teaching style and the needs of your students. Indeed, one of the premises of the book is that there are no pat answers, quick fixes, or sure-fire recipes for excellent teaching and optimal learning, only endless ways to improve.