Books About Teaching and Learning

Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching

Bruff D. West Virginia University Press, Morgantown WV, 2019. ISBN: 978-1-949199-15-4 – “Arguing that teaching and learning goals should drive instructors’ technology use, not the other way around, Intentional Tech explores seven research-based principles for matching technology to pedagogy.”

Intentional Tech: Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching

Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead)

Blum SD (ed). West Virginia University Press, Morgantown WV, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-949199-812-6 – “In Ungrading, fifteen educators write about  their diverse experiences going gradeless. Based on rigorous and replicated research, this is the first book to show why and how faculty who wish to focus on learning, rather than sorting or judging, might proceed. It includes honest reflection on what makes ungrading challenging, and testimonials about what makes it transformative.”

Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead)

Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning

Hrach S. West Virginia University Press, Morgantown WV, 2021. ISBN: 978-1-949199-7 – “Minding Bodies draws from a wide range of mind/body research in cognitive psychology, kinesiology, and phenomenology to bring a holistic perspective to teaching and learning. The embodied learning approaches described by Susan Hrach are inclusive, low-tech, low-cost strategies that deepen the development of disciplinary knowledge and skills.”

Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning

 

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

Walker M. Scribner, New York, 2018. ISBN: 78-1501144325 – “Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity. In this “compelling and utterly convincing” (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity.”

The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain

Doyle T, Zakrajsek T. Stylus, Sterling VA, 2013. ISBN: 978-1620360095 – “Recent advances in brain science show that most students’ learning strategies are highly inefficient, ineffective or just plain wrong. While all learning requires effort, better learning does not require more effort, but rather effectively aligning how the brain naturally learns with the demands of your studies. This book shows you what is involved in learning new material, how the human brain processes new information, and what it takes for that information to stick with you even after the test.” The New Science of Learning: How to Learn in Harmony with Your Brain

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers

Schacter DL. Houghton Mifflin, New York, 2001. ISBN: 978-0618219193 – “In this fascinating study, Daniel L. Schacter explores instances of what we would consider memory failure—absent-mindedness, transience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence—and suggests instead that these miscues are actually indications that memory is functioning as designed. Drawing from vivid scientific research and creative literature, as well as high-profile events in which memory has figured, The Seven Sins of Memory provides a more nuanced understanding of how memory and the mind influence each other and shape our lives.” The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers

Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students’ Self-Awareness and Learning Skills

Nilson LB. Stylus, Sterling VA, 2013. ISBN: 978-1579228675 – “Linda Nilson provides the theoretical background to student self-regulation,the evidence that it enhances achievement, and the strategies to help students develop it. She presents an array of tested activities and assignments through which students can progressively reflect on, monitor and improve their learning skills; describes how they can be integrated with different course components and on various schedules; and elucidates how to intentionally and seamlessly incorporate them into course design to effectively meet disciplinary and student development objectives. Recognizing that most faculty are unfamiliar with these strategies, she also recommends how to prepare for introducing them into the classroom and adding more as instructors become more confident using them.” Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students’ Self-Awareness and Learning Skills

Veterinary Medical Education: A Practical Guide

Hodgson JL, Pelzer JM. Wiley Blackwell, Hoboken NJ, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-119-12500-6. "Veterinary Medical Education: A Practical Guide offers a complete resource of fundamental information on key areas of veterinary education. Chapters cover topics ranging from curriculum design to learning opportunities to teaching strategies and assessment methods. Written by an international group of leading veterinary educators, the book offers a thorough examination of veterinary medical education." Veterinary Medical Education: A Practical Guide
 

Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning

Lang JM. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-118-94449-3 – “Cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, and biologists have produced a revealing body of research over the past several decades on how human beings learn, but often translating these findings into the classroom is overwhelming for busy instructors. Small Teaching bridges the gap between research and practice by providing a fully developed strategy for making deliberate, structured, and incremental steps towards tuning into how your students are hardwired to learn. Each chapter gives examples of how a particular learning phenomenon appears in everyday life, supporting research and findings, up to five small-teaching models, guidance for customizing your own models, and quick-reference features when you need inspiration fifteen minutes before class.” Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning
 

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

Brown PC, Roediger HL, McDaniel MA. Belknap Press, Cambridge MA, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-674-72901-8 – “Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. More complex and durable learning comes from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skills or topic with another.” Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
 

How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching

Ambrose SA, Bridges MW, Lovett MC, DiPietro M, Norman MK. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-470-48410-4 - "In this volume, the authors introduce seven general principles of learning, distilled from the research literature as well as from twenty-seven years of experience working on-on-one with college faculty. They have drawn on research from a breadth of perspectives (cognitive, developmental, and social psychology; demographics; and organizational behavior) to identify a set of key principles underlying learning - from how effective organization enhances retrieval and use of information to what impacts motivation. These principles provide instructors with an understanding of student learning that can help them see why certain teaching approaches are or are not supporting student learning, generate or refine teaching approaches and strategies that more effectively foster student learning in specific contexts, and transfer and apply those principles to new courses." How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching
 

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Kahneman D. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1 - "Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities - and also the faults and biases - of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. " Thinking, Fast and Slow
 

Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers

Angelo TA, Cross KP, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 1993. ISBN: 1-55542-500-3 - "The book features fifty valuable classroom assessment techniques, each presented in a format that provides an estimate of ease of use, a concise description, step-by-step procedures for adapting and administering the technique, practical advice on how to analyze the data, pros, cons, caveats, and other useful information." Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers
 

The Organized Mind

Levitin DJ. Plume, New York, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-14-751631-2 - "We are constantly forced to make more - and faster- decisions than ever before. Some people become very adept at managing the hyper flow of information. The Organized Mind presents new research into attention and memory and reveals the small, simple, yet consequential, changes we can all make." The Organized Mind
 

Brain Rules

Medina J. Pear Press, Seattle WA, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-9832633-7-1 - "In Brain Rules, molecular biologist John Medina shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule - what scientists know for sure about how our brains work - and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives. You will discover how exercise improves cognition, every brain is wired differently, we are designed never to stop learning and exploring, memories are volatile and susceptible to corruption, sleep is powerfully linked with the ability to learn, vision trumps all of the other senses, and stress changes the way we learn."
 

Peer Instruction

Mazur E. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1997. ISBN: 0-13-565441-6 - "Many instructors have pointed out the benefits of teaching by questioning over the more traditional approach of teaching by telling. Here, at last, is a book that not only explains how to teach by questioning but also provides all of the necessary tools to implement this new approach with a minimum of effort." Peer Instruction
 

What the Best College Teachers Do

Bain K. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2004. ISBN: 0-674-01325-5 - "The short answer - it's not what teachers do, it's what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehand the subject and value human learning. The best teachers know their subjects inside and out - but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn." What the Best College Teachers Do
 

The Courage to Teach

Palmer PJ. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 1998. ISBN:0-7879-1058-9 - "This book builds on a simple premise: Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher. Good teachers share one trait - they are truly present in the classroom, deeply engaged with their students and their subject and are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students, so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves."
 

Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions

Schon DA. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 1987. ISBN: 1-55542-025-7 - "This book is intended especially for individuals in schools or practice settings - practitioners, teachers, students, and educational administrators - who are concerned with education for reflective practice. But it is also intended for all those who share a lively interest in the elusive phenomena of practice competence and artistry and the equally elusive processes by which these are sometimes acquired."
 

Teaching Online: A Practical Guide

Ko S, Rossen S. Houghton Mifflin, Boston MA, 2004. ISBN: 0-618-29848-7 - "Written by authors who have taught online themselves and have trained hundreds of other faculty to teach online, this practical and concise guide answers the most commonly asked questions and concerns, whether your are developing a complete distance learning course or want to use the Web to supplement what you do in your classroom." Teaching Online: A Practical Guide
 

Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning

Bowen JA. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 2012. ISBN: 978-1-118-11035-5 - "Technology is profoundly changing education. If students are going to continue to pay enormous sums for campus classes, colleges will need to provide more than what can be found online and maximize "naked " face-to-face contact with faculty. This book shows how technology is most powerfully used outside the classroom and, when used effectively, how it can ensure that students arrive to class more prepared for meaningful interaction with faculty."
 

Humor as an Instructional Defibrillator: Evidence-Based Techniques in Teaching and Assessment

Berk RA. Stylus, Sterling VA, 2002. ISBN: 1-57922-063-0 - "Humor can be used as a systematic teaching or assessment tool in your classroom and course Web site. It can shock students to attention and bring deadly, boring course content to life. This book presents numerous evidence-based humor techniques lumped into four categories: (1) forms that rely on in-class delivery, (2) forms that can be inserted in print course materials, (3) print and non-print forms that can be used on a course Web site, and (4) forms that can be incorporated into any course tests."
 

Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning

Kaplan M, Silver N, Lavaque-Manty D, Meizlish D. Stylus, Sterling VA, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-57922-825-5 - "Research has identified the importance of helping students develop the ability to monitor their own comprehension and to make their thinking processes explicit, and indeed demonstrates that metacognitive teaching strategies greatly improve student engagement with course material. This book - by explaining principles that teachers in higher education can put into practice in their own classrooms - explains how to lay the ground for this engagement and help students become self-regulated learners actively employing metacognitive and reflective strategies in their education." Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning
 

Mindful Learning

Hassed C, Chambers R. Shambhala Publications, Boston MA, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-61180-242-9 - "Mindfulness-based techniques for educators and parents to help students decrease stress, increase resilience, enhance creativity and mental flexibility, manage study- and exam-related demands, and improve communication skills."
 

The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and Promotion / Tenure Decisions

Seldin P, Miller JE, Seldin CA. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco CA, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-470-53809-8 The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and Promotion / Tenure Decisions
 

Creating wicked students: Designing Courses for a Complex World

Hanstedt P. Stylus, Sterling VA, 2018. ISBN: 978-1620366974 – “This is a course design book centered on the idea that the goal in the college classroom―in all classrooms, all the time―is to develop students who are not just loaded with content, but capable of using that content in thoughtful, deliberate ways to make the world a better place. Achieving this goal requires a top-to-bottom reconsideration of courses, including student learning goals, text selection and course structure, day-to-day pedagogies, and assignment and project design. Creating Wicked Students takes readers through each step of the process, providing multiple examples at each stage, while always encouraging instructors to consider concepts and exercises in light of their own courses and students.” Creating wicked students: Designing Courses for a Complex World