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Summer vacation can be the perfect time to brush up on teaching techniques and get inspired on how to elevate your students’ learning experience come September.
Take a look at a few book recommendations below you might want to download on your Kindle or throw in your bag before you hit the beach or pool.
Happy reading!
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Teaching for Conceptual Understanding in Science
Authors Richard Konicek-Moran and Page Keeley use their experiences, research findings, and practices to explore how to deepen students’ conceptual understanding of science. They define conceptual understanding as “making a cake from scratch without a recipe versus making a cake from a packaged mix.”
The book examines questions like: How does the nature of children’s thinking relate to teaching for conceptual understanding? And how does the use of instructional models support teaching for conceptual understanding?
Where to find it: NSTA Store (member pricing available)
Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
Two cognitive psychologists and a novelist (Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A McDaniel) offer a summary of their research on how people learn and the implications of that research for teachers. This is a great resource for educators and students who want to learn concrete techniques for learning more effectively.
Specifically, this book looks at critical thinking versus memorization, especially as memorizing information that is at students’ fingertips seems more and more pointless these days. Read a full review of this book in The Chronicle of Higher Education here.
Where to find it: Harvard University Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
What the Best College Teachers Do
This book is a mainstay for many educators. Longtime historian, scholar and academic Ken Bain analyzes the teaching attitudes and practices of a small group of outstanding teachers and explores multiple models for college educators to reflect upon, discuss, and emulate.
Advice includes prepare by thinking about the intended outcomes of your instruction and try to create a critical learning environment in which students rethink their assumptions, among others. Read more on Bain’s recent interview with NPR Education to learn more.
Where to find it: Harvard University Press, Amazon
Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative
Have you ever thought about how as children, most of us think we are highly creative, but as adults many of us think we are not. What gives?
This book from author Ken Robinson argues that people and organizations everywhere are dealing with problems that originate in schools and universities and that many people leave education with no idea at all of their real creative abilities. Robinson calls for different approaches to leadership, teaching and professional development to help us all to meet the challenges of living and working in the 21st century.
Where to find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wiley
The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact
This book primarily focuses on why the role of the principal must change as formalized achievement standards and new technology transform how schools are run.
Author Michael Fullan explains the three key roles that administrators must play in order to have the biggest impact on student achievement—the learning leader, the district and system player, and the change agent. He offers “action items” and throws out discussion questions throughout the book, so that it can be a useful tool in professional development and leadership courses as well.
Where to find it: Amazon, Wiley
How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching
Written for university teachers, this book offers overviews of key components of the teaching-learning transaction, like motivation, mastery, and feedback, among others. These principles provide instructors with an understanding of student learning that can help uncover why certain teaching approaches are effective.
Authors Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman highlight experiments and research findings that support practical suggestions for how faculty members can accommodate these findings in their courses and classroom practices.
Where to find it: Amazon, Wiley
Let us know what you think of any of these books. Do you have a suggestion to add to our list?
