Customer Reviews

The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book as part of an effort to catch my breath during Spring Break in my first semester teaching a large college class. It left me feeling re-energized and excited about the new ideas I learned, and gave me new perspective on the whole undertaking. It is chock full of really useful and thought-provoking insights and suggestions. Reading the book basically got me ready to get back to teaching with renewed enthusiasm and confidence.

I would recommend this enjoyable and extremely useful book to any college teacher looking for new ideas and techniques--even a fresh attitude toward how they approach the classroom and their students.

I felt I was still unprepared for what stepping into a classroom might be like, even after having taken a short preparatory course for social science teaching in college. I will begin teaching in a matter of weeks, and this author has helped me tremendously by pointing out some my blind spots which have been created by years of graduate school. These include the differences between how graduate students and undergrads learn (less abstract and more examples) and that one must observe the campus and the classroom in order to gauge what are reasonable expectations in terms of reading comprehension and grading. He also presents helpful guides for syllabi construction and discussion groups.

I really felt like the author was speaking to me in terms of the way I think. A wonderful, useful read!

I really enjoyed this book because it truly helped me realize "the joy of teaching" that perhaps in my over-frenzied, over-worked state, I had missed out. While the book does have tips and ideas in it, it is primarily to help you become more reflective. It's very short and easy to read and it's a great place to start before moving on to more detailed or practical oriented guides like McKeachie's Teaching Tips. If you are short on time and there is only one book you can read before you start an academic position (or if you need some reenergizing) this is the book for you.

The title and several of the other reviews are misleading. This book is by far most useful as a practical guide for college instructors in the humanities. As a mathematics instructor, I found some useful information in this book, but many of the tips and techniques were irrelevant or inapplicable to my situation. I am not dissing a learning-centered approach; I read and enjoyed Ken Bain's "What the best college teachers do." There, I felt the material was presented with a mix of broad, theoretical ideas and very specific, discipline-grounded examples with examples ranging not just through the humanities, but also through the arts, social sciences, and physical sciences as well as mathematics. Here, while some lip service is paid to other disciplines, a good deal of the suggestions and material, particularly in the second half of the book, are only applicable within a particular range of disciplines (admittedly a broad one).

For example, chapter 7 deals with broadening the learning environment and has a number of suggestions for things to do during class besides lecture or discussion. I love the idea of doing this! Traditional math classes are lecture-driven to an incredible extent and I think this is a big part of why people outside the discipline have such a negative association with them. However, there is not one example presented in the chapter that fits with a low-level math class without a ton of shoehorning. The portion of chapter 8 on grading focuses heavily on grading essays. Only in very particular math classes will you ever have the opportunity to grade an essay.

The feeling of being aimed toward teachers in the humanities permeates the book, not just in the suggestions, but in the tone. For example, in the perfectly general section "Don't be a perfectionist" in chapter 10, Filene says "The lecture that impresses your colleagues will fly over your students' heads." The implication is that if you come up with a wildly original and nuanced idea, it may be too much for undergraduate students. If you are teaching a class on the history of the civil war or constitutional law (two examples Filene repeatedly employs), I can see how this implication makes sense. If I, on the other hand, am teaching a course in remedial algebra or anywhere in a calculus sequence, it is essentially impossible for me to give a lecture whose content impresses my colleagues. I may be able to impress them with the clarity of my exposition, but not with any deep content that will fly over anyone's head. This is one example that stuck with me because it was near the end of the book, but there were many moments like this throughout.

I do not think this is a bad book. On the contrary, every part of it felt well-researched, and the text as a whole was not flabby, which is a particular danger of this kind of book. However, I think it is marketed in a deceptive manner, and I was tricked into buying it when I am, I feel, clearly not the intended reader.

I bought this book two years ago - November 2009 - when I was looking for What the Best College Teachers DoI believe it came up in my Amazon search because Ken Bain wrote a review or introduction. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and continue to reference it two years later.

I wouldn't have titled it "The Joy of Teaching" because that makes me think of a "Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul" kind of text, full of student success stories that are heart-warming and valuable, but don't always meet our need for specific, real-life guidance. The word "practical" is the key word in the title. That's what this book is - practical. And accurate. Detailed and relevant also come to mind. It tells you what you can actually do the month before, week before, night before and minute before walking into your first lecture hall as a teacher.

A lot of time is spent on how to create a comprehensive, practical syllabus, and then what to do when that document fails to accomplish everything you hoped it would. Other topics include planning your class discussions, forming exam questions and how much time to spend on office hours.

It's targeted at new college instructors, but I think I appreciated the advice more as a fourth year instructor than I would have as a totally new teacher. Only someone who has already made many of the minor to moderate mistakes this book warns against, and suffered the major consequences, can fully appreciate the wisdom in these pages.

When I first bought it, I highlighted several pages. Now, I pick it up for a few minutes every quarter or so to scan one or two sections to try to center myself. Other times I use it as a checklist of those little things we can do at the start of each new term that can pay big dividends for our students.

If I were a department chair, this would be a welcome gift to each new hire. If I taught education majors, this would be required reading. In either of those situations though, it would be a brief introduction and overview. It is in no way a comprehensive training manual for teachers, and it never claims to be. Consider this book about 12 minutes of a 12+ hour conversation that any new teacher should get. Unfortunately, 12 minutes is often all many new teachers get. If that's the case at your institution, make sure your new teachers get this book.

This book provided a great overview of the challenges and rewards of teaching a college course. As a first time instructor, I gathered many ideas from this book. Provided guidance for preparing the class and teaching. I carried it with me for the first two months - I highly recommend it!

After grading your hundredth paper or reading endless homework assignments, it can be easy to forget the joy and rewards of teaching. This excellent guide renews the spirit of the teacher. Teaching really is a calling and this book affirms the joy that is available for those who share their life and knowledge with others. As well as the joy of learning from others! Teaching is really receiving from the students, watching them grow, and seeing the gifts of learning! Inspiring book for teachers!

this was so helpful, and gave me a lot of confidence about heading into the classroom.

Summarizes a lot of important themes, gives some useful tips and a comprehensive listing of useful web sites

I'm and Adult Education graduate student who purchased this book (along with McKeachie's- "Teaching Tips") for our Methods course. Our Prof selected severval books because there isn't one good book on the market yet for Methods that incorporates all that we are learning from these various books on life long learning. It is an excellant guide toting reciprocal learning between student and teacher. It is straight forward and down to earth without all that "academitius" we suffer from with the scientific reads. Been out of college for 3 decades and coming to read read a guide that is right to the point makes it a god send so you can turn around and apply it to your everyday work situations.