PREFACE

I met Linda Nilson in 1998 at a national meeting of faculty developers—the POD Network. I had recently read her new book, Teaching at Its Best, and I told her that it was the best book to support faculty members and their teaching I had ever read. As a new faculty developer, I bought copies for new faculty members to read and use as a guide. In the fourth edition of this book, Linda commented that she never dreamed she would be revising and updating the book nearly 20 years later. It is a tremendous honor to be asked to write a third, fourth, and now fifth edition of any book, but especially a book that impacts so many individuals. That is a testament to the foundational ethos of this book. It is not only a bestseller, but the inspiration for countless unsolicited emails from faculty members thanking Linda for helping them survive and thrive in their early years of teaching. I know what it means to them; I also struggled in my first years of teaching.

In the fall of 2021, I was asked if I would consider working on Teaching at Its Best, fifth edition. Linda was moving into phased retirement from writing, but her book had become so foundational that it was important work to continue. I eagerly accepted, and began working on what I consider one of the finest resources for anyone teaching a course in higher education. I believe what we have in this fifth edition is very special.

This edition, like its predecessors, is meant for a broad audience of both new and experienced faculty members who teach at all types of postsecondary institutions. It is especially useful for those teaching relatively young students in a traditional classroom or hybrid environment. Many of the strategies in this book transfer smoothly to online courses, but that is more by happy accident than design. As you read through the teaching strategies in this book, we hope you see that many elements of good teaching are effective regardless of the delivery modality. For example, creating a community conducive to learning is important in courses that are onsite, online, hybrid, hyflex, remote, or anything else. If humans come together to learn, community is important in facilitating that learning. In this book, you will see the community theme repeated across many concepts and teaching strategies.

One thing that every faculty member shares is a lack of discretionary time, and when time and resources are strained, professional development is among the first luxuries to be eliminated. Aware of that unfortunate aspect of teaching in higher education, we designed this new edition for people, like you, who likely don't have time to read a book from front to back with granular explanations of detailed nuances of teaching, students, and learning. To preserve your time, the writing is concise and informal, the paragraphs fairly short, the 27 chapters generously sectioned, and the table of contents detailed with chapter section headings. In addition, the five major parts are sequenced according to your likely chronological need for the material. Still, you can read the chapters in any order you find most helpful, and the text often cross-references other chapters that elaborate on a given subject. You can casually browse or quickly locate specific topics, and easily skip over with whatever you are already familiar. Everything about this book is designed to facilitate your use of new tools, resources, and strategies right away.

The research on college-level teaching, called the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), provides the foundation and inspiration for this book. This fertile body of literature continues to expand the toolbox for both classroom and technology-enhanced instruction. As with physical tools, you have to find the right tool for the job, but you can choose from among several right tools for any given teaching job. And realize that no tool works in every situation. This book offers plenty of alternatives for facilitating student learning, enhancing instructor-student rapport, managing the classroom, and assessing student achievement. And it avoids playing champion for certain methods over others and for the latest innovations over the well-proven ones. You will find the how-to's and why-do's for many teaching tools, along with their trade-offs, just as the research reports them. This is what you need to make your own choices and execute them with confidence.

Because quite a few colleges and universities use this book in extended new-faculty orientations and college teaching courses, you will find at the end of every chapter two Reflection Questions and one Concept Into Practice item. The Reflection Questions are designed to be conversation starters based on the information in the chapter. The Concept Into Practice items are activities to try and then discuss the results. Of course, you may certainly have a discussion pertaining to material in any chapter using the following general questions:

1. What common problems faced by faculty members does the chapter try to prevent or solve? How well do the recommendations in the chapter prevent or solve these problems?
2. What practices explained in the chapter do you already implement? What have your results been?
3. What new practices explained in the chapter do you want to try? What reservations, if any, do you have?
4. What practices explained in the chapter do you think wouldn't work well for you, and why? Would this be due to your students' expectations, values, knowledge or skill background, or level of maturity; or your class sizes, time pressures, or teaching style; or some other reason? Can you think of any ways around these roadblocks?

These general questions direct readers to the main purpose of this book: practical ways to maximize student learning, promote productive instructor-student relationships, and make the life of faculty members easier and more rewarding.

While preserving the most appreciated features of the fourth edition, this fifth edition has an extensive amount of new material, including a chapter on becoming an inclusive teacher. The material throughout the book focuses on teaching to help faculty members develop the best educational experiences possible. In addition, you will find extensive evidence-based updates on major topics and line-by-line editing to further improve the writing and flow of the information. Following is a synopsis of the book so that you can quickly get a sense of all that is included and perhaps even decide where you’d like best to begin.

Part One, “Teaching Preparation,” guides you through the decisions you have to make and the tasks you have to complete before the term begins. As understanding your students and how they learn anchors all your plans, this topic is featured in the first chapter. The section on how people learn brings in more principles and findings from cognitive and educational psychology, as well as more concrete implications for teaching. Chapter 2 on designing outcomes-centered courses provides extensive information on types of outcomes and how to write and sequence them. Four very well-established frameworks are provided to help guide you in developing outcomes as you design your courses. Chapter 3 gives you strategies for incorporating critical thinking into your course design. Most importantly, it clears the fog around critical thinking, a teaching topic that has been clouded by a polyglot of competing schools of thought that rarely, if ever, cross-reference each other. This chapter identifies common ground among them, presents lists of critical thinking outcomes suitable to various disciplinary groups, and lays out concrete questions and tasks from the different schools that engage students in critical thinking. Because instructional technology changes so quickly, Chapter 4 focuses on strategies for identifying when and which technology to use. As technology is changing at an ever-increasing rate, this chapter primarily focuses on how to think about technology, although some specific educational technology solutions are also included. Chapter 5, on the syllabus, focuses on creating an encouraging learning environment, elucidating the relevance of the course material, and explaining the alignment among the outcomes, learning experiences, and assessments. Examples of the graphic syllabus are also provided. Finally, Chapter 6 translates copyright guidelines into plain language to help you to understand what is permissible and how to get permission when it is needed. New to this edition is information on the growing area of Creative Commons.

Part Two, “The Human Side of Teaching,” deals with ways to bring out the best in your students. It opens with Chapter 7 on creating the ever-important positive learning community. The community you establish will impact nearly every aspect of the course, starting with the first day of class. Chapter 8 is a new chapter on the ongoing work of becoming increasingly inclusive in your instructional role. It includes strategies to make a course more inclusive and ways to reduce inequities in and out of the classroom. Chapter 9 on enhancing student motivation includes seven theories of motivation and 50 practical strategies related to student motivation. Chapter 10 contains extensive information to ensure students get as much as possible out of working in groups, whether they are short-term, ad hoc groups used in a single class or those used for long-term, team-based learning. Chapter 11 addresses the uncomfortable situation of classroom incivilities. This chapter contains a wide variety of approaches for preventing classroom incivility and...