The following books and articles were recommended by faculty who responded to our call for suggestions of "great books (and articles) on teaching." To add your own suggestions to this list, or register a different opinion, please e-mail OID

Nine Books Recommended by More Than One Person

Thomas A. Angelo & K. Patricia Cross
Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (Jossey-Bass, 1993).

• As the title implies, this is about classroom assessment and provides a wealth of ideas and techniques (50, to be exact) to use in a wide variety of classroom settings. (Sonia Zimmerman, Occupational Therapy)
• Also listed on a popular faculty development website as one of two "books that will almost certainly change your pedagogy."
• < http://php.indiana.edu/~nelson1/TCHNGBKS.html >

John Bean
Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (Jossey-Bass, 1996).

• It's an inspiring book in the sense that it helps us as teachers become more self-aware and also expands our "bag of tricks." It has expanded my repertoire as a teacher and made real changes seem possible. If I find out that X, Y, and Z don't work, I can remember, `Ah, there's S too!" (Jeanne Anderegg, Honors)
• Also recommended by Pat O'Neill (Economics), Sonia Zimmerman (Occupational Therapy), and used by Joan Hawthorne in the Extended WAC Workshop.

Stephen D. Brookfield
The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust and Responsiveness in the Classroom. Jossey-Bass, 1990.

• Described as a 'survival manual' with insight, inspiration, and down-to-earth advice to teachers, new and veteran; older, but holds its value well. (Sonia Zimmerman, OT)
• Also recommended by Chuck Miller (Philosophy and Religion)

Barbara Gross Davis
Tools for Teaching. Jossey-Bass, 1993

• There is nothing fancy about this book...it is literally a toolbox of suggestions/ideas about everything from preparing the course syllabus to discussion and lecture strategies, to homework assignments and tests/grading to evaluation and setting up office hours and advising students (and a few other things in between). Good for when you feel like you need to do something different. (Sonia Zimmerman, OT)
• Also recommended by Chuck Miller (Philosophy and Religion), especially for "those just starting to teach."
• There's an on-line version of this book--or parts of it. Click here

Paulo Freire
Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Continuum, 1989; and
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th Anniversary Edition). Continuum Publishing Group, 2000.

• These are two different titles mentioned by admirers of Freire. About Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Stanley Aronowitz wrote: "This book meets the single criterion of a 'classic': it has outlived its own time and its author's. For any teacher who links education to social change, this is required reading. Freire remains the most important writer on popular education and surely the virtual founder of the perspective known as Critical Pedagogy."
• Recommended by Glinda Crawford (Sociology), Sara Hanhan (Teaching and Learning /Provost's Office), and Chuck Miller (Philosophy and Religion).

Parker Palmer
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. (Jossey-Bass, 1998).

• From the inside cover -- "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". This is a 'thinker's book', guiding through the inner work of teaching. (Sonia Zimmerman, Occupational Therapy)
• Also recommended by Margaret Zidon (Teaching and Learning) and by several faculty reading it as part of a faculty study seminar this semester.

Sheila Tobias
They're Not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier Research Corporation, 1990.

• Tobias reports on a fascinating study of college science classes, conducted using a participant-observer methodology. Although her study and conclusions are applied specifically to the sciences, the same "outsider/insider" perspective could have important implications for courses across the curriculum. (Joan Hawthorne, WAC)
• Also recommended by Evguenii Kozliak (Chemistry)

Jane Tompkins
A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned. Addison-Wesley, 1996.

• From the book jacket: "In a memoir that begins with her earliest school days, proceeds through college and graduate school, and arrives at her hard-won professional successes, Tompkins shows how her education shaped her in the mold of a high achiever who could read five languages but had little knowledge of herself. As she slowly awakens to the needs of her body, heart, and spirit, she throws out the window all the conventions of classroom teaching and discovers what her students' lives are like." (Libby Rankin)
• Also recommended by Joan Hawthorne (WAC)

Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson
Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment (Jossey-Bass, 1998).

• This book presents a careful and thoughtful analysis of the ways in which teaching (as well as assessment) can be strengthened by a re conception of how we grade and what assessment means. (Joan Hawthorne, WAC)
• Also recommended by several members of the faculty study group on grading and listed on a popular faculty development website as one of two "books that will almost certainly change your pedagogy" (See http://php.indiana.edu/~nelson1/TCHNGBKS.html)

Other Interesting Titles Recommended By Faculty

Vonoba Bhavem "Education or Manipulation"
From: Button, J. (1991). The Best of Resurgence. Hartland Bideford, Devon, UK: Ford House Green Books.

• An article that has come to mean a great deal to me is the following. This article journeys into what for me is the heart of a critique of western models of education, with other (more indigenous) ideas given. It is likely to step on some toes. Some may want to go there and others not. (Glinda Crawford, Sociology)

Bligh, Donald.
What is the Use of Lectures? 2000.

• In a very approachable and thoughtful manner, this books examines the nature of teaching and learning in a classroom lecture (how do students learn, how much information do they retain, how to enhance their attention and motivation), and the "uses and abuses" of the lecture format. It is a practical guide for making lectures more engaging and effective so that they (as the back cover notes) "contribute maximally to student learning." (Anne Kelsch, History)

William Cronon.
'Only Connect': The Goals of a Liberal Education," The Key Reporter (Phi Beta Kappa) Winter 1998-99 vol. 64, no. 2.

• I like this brief philosophical piece because it brings me back to the ideals of teaching and reminds me of broader goals. Cronon also articulates abstract, seemingly amorphous ideas in a straight forward, meaningful way. For example, he defines a liberal education as one that "aspires to nurture the growth of human talent in the service of human freedom."(Anne Kelsch, History)

R.F. Delderfield.
To Serve Them All My Days.

• A novel, not a manual,which I find inspiring for its advocacy of human values and individual recognition in schooling. Dramatized on Masterpiece Theatre 15-20 years ago. (Gary Towne, Music) [It's available in the Grand Forks Public Library]

Peter Elbow
"Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process," from Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching. Oxford University Press, 1987.

• "My argument is that good teaching seems a struggle because it calls on skills or mentalities that are actually contrary to each other and thus tend to interfere with each other." This is the first sentence of Elbow's essay (first published in College English in1983). Until I read this essay, I couldn't quite separate teaching and grading in my head. When I have trouble doing that (which I still do, nearly 20 years later), I always go back to Elbow, who is one of the wisest and smartest teachers I know. (Libby Rankin, English and OID)

Peter Elbow
Writing Without Teachers, 2nd ed. Oxford U Press, 1998.

• It has wonderful suggestions for anyone who uses peer group critiques in their classrooms, regardless of their discipline. It is a "user-friendly" approach to writing for people who don't write much. In fact, Elbow talks about how he dropped out of grad school at one point because his writer's block was so bad he couldn't finish his dissertation. In the writing classroom the student gets all kinds of support, peer groups, teacher feedback, but in other disciplines a student is so often on his/her own. The freewriting would be a great tool to use at the end of a class to get the students writing about an upcoming research assignment. (Kathy King, English)

Mildred Sandison Fenner,
How You Can Tell a Teacher From a Machine. Indianapolis: American Industrial Arts Association, 1963. (9 pages).

• This was an address presented at the 25th anniversary convention of the American Industrial Arts Association in 1963. It is an articulate reminder of the powerful influence that teachers have on our students. Fenner underscores the importance of the "human element" in teaching. "No matter what impact technology has on schools of the future, boys and girls will still need teachers who understand, respect, and motivate them." . . . "Much teaching takes place across a sort of bridge of feelings, a bridge of relationships between teacher and pupil." As society becomes even more technologically oriented, this message is perhaps even more relevant than it was 38 years ago when Fenner wrote it. (Kathy Norman, Music)

Howard Gardner,
"Educating the Unschooled Mind." Presented as a Science and Public Policy Seminar, Washington, D.C., 14 May, 1993.

• Gardner argues that we have educated for facts and skills rather than understanding-- which is fine if our primary purpose is to prepare students for short-term success on standardized tests but is less satisfying if the aim is for students to be able to live, work, and think effectively throughout their adult lives. (Joan Hawthorne)

David W. Johnson, Roger, T. Johnson, Karl A. Smith,
Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Interaction Book Company, 1991.

• Presents basic elements of cooperative learning, research supporting it, and practical techniques for implementation. (Sonia Zimmerman, OT)

Craig E. Nelson,
"On the Persistence of Unicorns: The Trade-Off between Content and Critical Thinking Revisited." Content and Critical Thinking: Arguments from Inside. Vol. 86, Issue 31, pp. 168-184.

• Nelson applies the Perry scheme for cognitive development to the teaching and learning of college students, offering strategies that teachers can use to help students think more critically. (Joan Hawthorne, WAC).
• [Another version: "Skewered On The Unicorn's Horn: The Illusion Of A Tragic Tradeoff Between Content And Critical Thinking In The Teaching of Science. In L. Crowe, Ed.: Enhancing Critical Thinking in The Sciences , Society of College Science Teachers, 1989.]

Mary Rose O'Reilly
The Peaceable Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1993.

• Recommended by Glinda Crawford, Sociology.

James V. Schall
"What a Student Owes His Teacher" and "On Teaching the Political Thought of Plato," from Another Sort of Learning. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988; and
"On Teachers and Teaching," from A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000.

• I like these pieces because they challenge/inspire me to push myself (and my students) to become better learners. (Patrick O'Neill, Economics)