Book Review: Beyond the Asterisk

Shotton, Heather J., Lowe, Shelly C., & Waterman, Stephanie J.  2013.  Beyond the Asterisk:  Understanding Native Students in Higher Education.  Sterling, VA:  Stylus.  176 pages.

This book encourages its readers to “move beyond the asterisk” that so often typifies higher education’s response to Native American students.  The focus is on student affairs, and the essays present a variety of ways to recruit, engage, and retain Native students.  Specific strategies include Native Living-Learning centers, Native American fraternities, and sororities, Native American student centers, special presidential advisors, and increasing the number of Native staff in student affairs offices.

New Book Review!

Edmundson, Mark.  2013.  Why Teach?  In Defense of a Real Education.  New York:  Bloomsbury USA.  222 pages.

This series of essays by Mark Edmundson argues forcefully for the importance of the liberal arts.  Filled with wisdom, wit, and a bit of curmudgery, it provides a highly personal view of what education could, and should be.

The book both fascinated and aggravated me.  Well worth reading, he plays the role of the curmudgeon a little too well, and this tone in the end detracted from many of the interesting points he makes.  He is a wonderful writer, however, and perhaps the book should be read a little at a time (the essays are completely self contained, so this is certainly an option).  The book will be in the library by mid-December.

New Book Review!

Bowen, Jose Antonio.  2012.  Teaching Naked:  How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning.  San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.  326 pages.

Technology is radically altering education.  This book looks at how instructors, departments and universities can make the best use of technology.  This author introduces a new way to think about pedagogical technology and places a premium on the human dimension of higher education.

Review: More Quick Hits: Successful Strategies by Award-Winning Teachers

Stocking, Holly et al., eds. 1998. More Quick Hits: Successful Strategies by Award-Winning Teachers. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 144 pages.

This is a sequel to Quick Hits (see Cordell et al.), and consists of a number of short, encyclopedia-type entries on various types of teaching techniques. It’s not quite as good as the original, and is now dated in how it treats technology. There are still good ideas here, however, if you are willing to browse.

As always, books provided in our reviews are (or soon will be) available in the library.

White Paper Review: How to Effectively Assess Online Learning

Hi folks, a new review has been added to the book reviews in the column to your left.  Check out:

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Orlando, John.  (2011).  How to Effectively Assess Online Learning.  Madison, WI:  Magna Publications.  49 pages.

This White Paper examines assessment generally and then examines assessment techniques that are particularly effective for online learning.

Thanks!

Bruce

New Book Review

Hi folks, a new review has been added to the book reviews.  This book will be in the library within a few weeks!

Wright, Esther.  (1999).  Why I Teach:  Inspirational True Stories from Teachers Who Make a Difference.  Roseville, CA:  Prima Publishing.  193 pages.

This great little book contains 40 short stories from elementary and secondary teachers.  Many are deeply emotional.  This is a great read for recharging your batteries!

Psychological Science in the Public Interest

Hi folks, this resource was shared by Michael Granaas.  Thanks Mike!

The Association for Psychological Science has a "Psychological Science in the Public Interest" series.  Their most recent publication in that series addresses effective learning techniques.

Here is a link:  http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/learning-techniques.html

New Book Review

Hi folks, a new entry has been added to our annotated book reviews, the following will be available at the I.D. Weeks library by the end of the semester:

Wolverton, Mimi.  1994.  A New Alliance:  Continuous Quality and Classroom Effectiveness.  ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 6.  Washington, DC:  The George Washington University School of Education and Human Development.  125 pages.

This report provides an early history of higher education’s implementation of Continuous Quality Improvement.  It describes the principles of this philosophy, and provides seven case studies that examine how different types of universities have attempted to use this model.