Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Virtual Bookshelf

In Smart Teaching Stronger Learning, a team of renowned cognitive scientists from around the world share innovative research-based teaching strategies that significantly transform student learning. This approachable resource distills key principles from the science of learning, with concise chapters for busy educators and leaders in K-12, higher education, and beyond.

Geeky Pedagogy is a funny, evidence-based, multidisciplinary, pragmatic, highly readable guide to the process of learning and relearning how to be an effective college teacher. It is the first college teaching guide that encourages faculty to embrace their inner nerd, inviting readers to view themselves and their teaching work in light of contemporary discourse that celebrates increasingly diverse geek culture and explores stereotypes about super-smart introverts.

An indictment of the grading system in American schools and colleges--and a blueprint for how we can change it. One of the most urgent and long-standing issues in the US education system is its obsession with grades. In Failing Our Future, Joshua R. Eyler shines a spotlight on how grades inhibit learning, cause problems between parents and children, amplify inequities, and contribute to the youth mental health crisis. Eyler, who runs the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, illustrates how grades interfere with students' intrinsic motivation and perpetuate the idea that school is a place for competition rather than discovery. Grades force students to focus on rewards and distract them from exploring ideas or pursuing interests beyond what they'll be tested on. In fact, grades significantly impede the learning process. They are also significantly affecting children's physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation have spiked, and academic stress tied to grades is a leading cause of this escalation. Eyler shares success stories of grading reform efforts that are already under way as an antidote to the harms caused by the practices currently used in educational institutions. Equal parts scathing and hopeful, Failing Our Future aims to improve the lives of students by encouraging them to define success on their own terms. Parents, educators, policymakers, and students will find in these pages a rallying cry for change and a blueprint for how to implement reforms in our homes and classrooms.

Flipped learning is an approach to the design and instruction of classes through which, with appropriate guidance, students gain their first exposure to new concepts and material prior to class, thus freeing up time during class for the activities where students typically need the most help, such as applications of the basic material and engaging in deeper discussions and creative work with it.
While flipped learning has generated a great deal of excitement, given the evidence demonstrating its potential to transform students' learning, engagement and metacognitive skills, there has up to now been no comprehensive guide to using this teaching approach in higher education.
Robert Talbert, who has close to a decade's experience using flipped learning for majors in his discipline, in general education courses, in large and small sections, as well as online courses - and is a frequent workshop presenter and speaker on the topic - offers faculty a practical, step-by-step, "how-to" to this powerful teaching method.
He addresses readers who want to explore this approach to teaching, those who have recently embarked on it, as well as experienced practitioners, balancing an account of research on flipped learning and its theoretical bases, with course design concepts to guide them set up courses to use flipped learning effectively, tips and case studies of actual classes across various disciplines, and practical considerations such as obtaining buy-in from students, and getting students to do the pre-class activities.
This book is for anyone seeking ways to get students to better learn the content of their course, take more responsibility for their work, become more self-regulated as learners, work harder and smarter during class time, and engage positively with course material. As a teaching method, flipped learning becomes demonstrably more powerful when adopted across departments. It is an idea that offers the promise of transforming teaching in higher education.-provided by publisher

Shows where and how exemplary teaching is practiced in US higher education and charts a course for cultivating teaching improvement throughout all types of institutions.  Great College Teaching highlights where and how exemplary teaching is practiced in U.S. higher education and charts a course for cultivating teaching improvement throughout all types of institutions.  As Corbin M. Campbell reveals in this incisive work, although teaching quality is rarely reflected in college rankings such as those produced by U.S. News and World Report, this metric has implications not only for student outcomes such as subject-matter knowledge and preparation for careers but also for college prestige, educational equity, and even democracy.  Campbell draws from a multi-institutional observational study that covered more than 700 higher education courses in a range of contexts, from regional public universities to highly ranked private universities, from small liberal arts colleges to large flagship universities. She examines what each type of institution typically excels at and where they often fall short.  In mapping the terrain of teaching quality in higher education today, Campbell parses out the best practices of exemplary teaching institutions, in which evidenced-based practices such as equity-based and culturally relevant teaching support student learning, and teaching-supportive institutions, in which policies and cultures prioritize teaching and promote faculty development.  This clear-eyed work provides options for enacting real, sustainable teaching improvements by using individual, collegial, and organizational levers to shift perceptions and priorities around teaching. The actionable practices and policies suggested in Great College Teaching can be adopted by academic leaders, administrators, and faculty developers to improve teaching within a spectrum of academic contexts, across multiple disciplines, and for various course settings. 

After decades of turbulence and acute crises in recent years, how can we build a better future for Higher Education? Thoughtfully edited by Laura Czerniewicz and Catherine Cronin, this rich and diverse collection by academics and professionals from across 17 countries and many disciplines offers a variety of answers to this question. It addresses the need to set new values for universities, trapped today in narratives dominated by financial incentives and performance indicators, and examines those “wicked” problems which need multiple solutions, resolutions, experiments, and imaginaries. This mix of new and well-established voices provides hopeful new ways of thinking about Higher Education across a range of contexts, and how to concretise initiatives to deal with local and global challenges. In an unusual and refreshing way, the contributors provide insights about resilience tactics and collective actions across different levels of higher education using an array of styles and formats including essays, poetry, and speculative fiction. With its interdisciplinary appeal, this book presents itself as a provocative and inspiring resource for universities, students, and scholars. Higher Education for Good courageously offers critique, hope, and purpose for the practice and the trajectory of Higher Education. -- provided by publisher

What the latest science of learning tells us about inspiring, effective, and inclusive teaching at the college level. College instruction is stuck in the past. If a time traveler from a century ago arrived on today's campuses, they would recognize only too well the listlessness of the lecture hall and the awkward silence of the seminar room. Yet we know how to do better. Cathy N. Davidson and Christina Katopodis, two of the world's foremost innovators in higher education, turn to the latest research and methods to show how teachers at every kind of institution can help students become independent, creative, and active learners. The New College Classroom helps instructors in all disciplines create an environment that is truly conducive to learning. Davidson and Katopodis translate cutting-edge research in learning science and pedagogy into ready-to-use strategies to incorporate into any course. These empirically driven, classroom-tested techniques of active learning--from the participatory syllabus and ungrading to grab-and-go activities for every day of the term--have achieved impressive results at community colleges and research universities, on campus, online, and in hybrid settings. Extensive evidence shows that active-learning tools are more effective than conventional methods of instruction. Davidson and Katopodis explain how and why their approach works and provide detailed case studies of educators successfully applying active-learning techniques in their courses every day, ensuring that their students are better prepared for the world after college.

Academia is not, by and large, a kind place. Individualism and competition are what count. But without kindness at its core, Catherine Denial suggests, higher education fails students and instructors--and its mission--in critical ways. Part manifesto, part teaching memoir, part how-to guide, A Pedagogy of Kindness urges higher education to get aggressive about instituting kindness, which Denial distinguishes from niceness. Having suffered beneath the weight of just "getting along," instructors need to shift every part of what they do to prioritizing care and compassion--for students as well as for themselves. A Pedagogy of Kindness articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions  outline nothing less than a transformational discipline--one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.  

It's hard to learn when you're under stress, and a lot harder when your teacher is struggling with stress, too. In a world where stress is unavoidable--where political turmoil, pandemic fallout, and personal challenges touch everyone--this timely book offers much-needed guidance for cutting through the emotional static that can hold teachers back. A specialist in pedagogical strategies with extensive classroom experience, Elizabeth A. Norell explains how an educator's presence, or authenticity, can be critical to creating transformational spaces for students. And presence, she argues, means uncovering and understanding one's own internal struggles and buried insecurities--stresses often left unconfronted in an academic culture that values knowing over feeling. Presenting the research on how and why such inner work unlocks transformational learning, The Present Professor equips educators with the tools for crafting a more authentic presence in their teaching work. At a time of crisis in higher education, as teachers struggle to find new ways to relate to, think about, and instruct students, this book holds a key. Implementing more inclusive pedagogies, Norell suggests, requires sorting out our own identities. In short, if we want to create spaces where students have the confidence, comfort, and psychological safety to learn and grow, we have to create spaces where we do, too. The Present Professor is dedicated to that proposition, and to helping educators build that transformational space.  

Teaching for Learning is a comprehensive, practical resource for instructors that highlights and synthesizes proven teaching methods and active learning strategies. Each of the 101 entries describes an approach and lists its essential features and elements, demonstrates how the approach may be used in various educational contexts, reviews findings from the research literature, and describes techniques to improve effectiveness. Fully revised and updated to reflect the latest research and innovations in the field, this second edition also features critical new content on adapting techniques for use in online courses.

What Teaching Looks Like delves into higher education-the challenges faced by students, faculty, staff, and administrators alike from all variety of institution types and across campus sectors-in a way that has not been done before. By weaving together a unique collection of documentary photographs of modern teaching and learning at US colleges and universities with research-based discussion of the state of engaged learning, the book teaches readers to think through and with photographs in new ways, offering insights and perspectives with the potential to change teaching, administrative, and support practices for the better. The project not only reflects the state of how US institutions educate the next generation of thinkers and innovators, it informs what we could aspire to do as educators and reveals experiences and perspectives of today's students in ways that are only accessible through photographs.The ultimate intent of this book is to make both faculty and administrative work visible, both to audiences internal to our colleges and universities as well as to external stakeholders and decision makers of today and tomorrow, and in doing so, understand and value this work more effectively. It is vital for those whose work is concentrated within one area to see, understand, and empathize with their colleagues from other campus sectors. It also remains necessary for those outside of higher education to visualize and understand the work that faculty, administrators, and students are engaged in day-to-day. Some decision makers continue to hold on to antiquated images and stereotypes of those who work in the education system. The images and discussion in the book challenge these outdated stereotypes.

Award-winning teachers offer practical tips for addressing inequities in the college classroom and for making all students feel welcome and included. In a book written by and for college teachers, Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy provide tips and advice on how to make all students feel welcome and included. They begin with a framework describing why explicit attention to structure enhances inclusiveness in both course design and interactions with and between students. Inclusive Teaching then provides practical ways to include more voices in a series of contexts: when giving instructions for group work and class activities, holding office hours, communicating with students, and more. The authors finish with an opportunity for the reader to reflect on what evidence to include in a teaching dossier that demonstrates inclusive practices. The work of two highly regarded specialists who have delivered over a hundred workshops on inclusive pedagogy and who contribute frequently to public conversations on the topic, Inclusive Teaching distills state-of-the-art guidance on addressing privilege and implicit bias in the college classroom. It seeks to provide a framework for individuals and communities to ask, Who is being left behind and what can teachers do to add more structure?

This powerful, practical resource helps faculty create an inclusive dynamic in their classrooms, so that all students are set up to succeed. Grounded in research and theory (including educational psychology, scholarship of teaching and learning, intergroup dialogue, and social justice theory), this book provides practical solutions to help faculty create an inclusive learning environment in which all students can thrive. Each chapter focuses on palpable ideas and adaptive strategies to use right away when teaching. Thefirst chapter consider professors' intersecting personal and social identities and their expectations for themselves and their students. Chapter 2 considers students' backgrounds, including class, race, disability, and gender, and focuses on what students bring to the classroom, exploring their basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and belonging; their approaches to learning; and their self-doubts and uncertainties. Chapter 3 draws on universally-designed learning in combination with educational design rooted in social justice and multiculturalism todescribe ways to design spaces in which students flourish academically. Two chapters focus on classroom dynamics. Chapter 4 primarily focuses on preparationfor having difficult conversations in the classroom, considering how instructors can create a shared understanding between themselves and their students. Chapter 5 focuses on in-the-moment strategies to both createand managediscomfort about sensitive and controversial topics while supporting students of various social identities (such as gender, race, disability). In the closing chapter, the author integrates all the elements in the preceding chapters, and also presents more general college-wide programs to help faculty develop and improve their teaching.

"This book uniquely offers the distilled wisdom of scores of instructors across ranks, disciplines and institution types, whose contributions are organized into a thematic framework that progressively introduces the reader to the key dispositions, principles and practices for creating the inclusive classroom environments (in person and online) that will help their students succeed"-- Provided by publisher.