Import Test : Books

Book Recommendations

Matt Scales — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:46:29 GMT

I would like to recommend two books which present interesting models of students' reflective thinking and epistemology, as well as useful teaching and assessment guidelines:

(1) King, Patricia M. & Kitchener, Karen, S. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

(2) Baxter Magolda, Marcia B. (1992). Knowing and Reasoning in College: Gender-Related Patterns in Students' Intellectual Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Jack Mino
Holyoke Community College

In Praise of Failure

Matt Scales — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 12:00:00 GMT

A number of years ago at a small community college in North Carolina, a college president urged his faculty to be willing to risk failure. He believed that only by experimenting with new teaching strategies could his faculty meet the demands of a new population of students and a new era. He realized that experimentation increased the odds of failure. What he may not have fully realized is the level of risk he was asking of his faculty. The teaching persona is built around being an “expert” and within the confines of the classroom, being competent and in control. Failure, or the risk of failure, does not coexist comfortably with the traditional role of being a teacher. In his chapter “Hailing Failing and Still Sailing” from Information Anxiety, author Richard Saul Wurman addresses this issue in a thoughtful way. Below are several quotes borrowed from this section of his book. "You learn balance by losing it"

So you think that you're a failure do you? Well, you probably are. What's wrong with that? In the first place, if you've any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure. Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free. --Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

"Jonas Salk spent 98 percent of his time documenting the things that didn't work until he found the thing that did."

"Every exit is an entry somewhere else" --Tom Stoppard

"How often I saw where I should be going by setting out for somewhere else." --R. Buckminster Fuller

"My definition of failure is delayed success."

The Courage to Teach

Matt Scales — Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:00:00 GMT

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. Palmer (1997, Jossey-Bass) A book that speaks to many teachers regarding the personal aspects of being a teacher, The Courage to Teach provides a framework and sets the tone for the "Teaching in Community" program at Northern Essex Community College. The TIC program is an excellent model for creating a community of practice among faculty. I hope the entire cluster has the opportunity to learn more about this approach during our time together.

"This book is for teachers who have good days and bad -- and whose bad days bring the suffering that comes only from something one loves. It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts, because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life." - Parker J. Palmer [from the Introduction]

"To go on this journey with Parker Palmer into the uncharted territory of 'the self' in teaching is not only to experience the joy of viewing teaching from a thrilling new perspective. It is also to be in the presence of a great teacher who, by sharing himself so openly and honestly, engages us in the very kind of teaching he so eloquently describes." (Russell Edgerton, director of educational programs, Pew Charitable Trusts, and past president, American Association for Higher Education)

"I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy. When my students and I discover uncharted territory to explore, when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us, when our experience is illumined by the lightning-life of the mind--then teaching is the finest work I know. // But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused--and I am so powerless to do anything about it--that my claim to be a teacher seems a transparent sham. then the enemy is everywhere: in those students from some alien planet, in that subject I thought I knew, and in the personal pathology that keeps me earning my living this way. What a fool I was to imagine that I had mastered this occult art--harder to divine than tea leaves and impossible for mortals to do even passably well! " - Parker J. Palmer (from the opening chapter)

The following link contains several excerpts from the book: http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/gfloren/palmer.htm#top