To Improve the Academy

A cross-disciplinary journal exclusive for faculty developers. If not all the articles in an issue are useful to you right now, their insights and recommendations will prepare you for when you do face the dilemmas they discuss. A priceless resource, a subscription to which is included in POD's yearly membership fee.

More on this journal at: To Improve the Academy

College Teaching

Each issue includes practical ideas and new strategies for successful teaching. An especially popular page, The Quick Fix, presents easy-to-implement techniques and tips. Special sections integrate scholarship on teaching and classroom practice.

More on this journal at: Heldref Publications

Journal on Excellence in College Teaching

For faculty at both universities and two- and four-year colleges, this journal reponds to Ernest Boyer's (1990) call for a forum to present the scholarship of teaching and learning. The Journal provides a scholarly, written forum for discussion by faculty about all areas affecting teaching and learning, and gives faculty the opportunity to share proven, innovative pedagogies and thoughtful, inspirational insights about teaching.

More on this journal at: The Electronic Journal Web site

Journal of Faculty Development

Covers professional development activities at 2-year and 4-year colleges as well as universities. Addresses both the practical and theoretical aspects of the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of individual and organizational development.

More on this journal at: New Forums Press

Journal on Graduate TA Development

Published three times a year, the JGTAD is a guide to the study of improved training, employment and administration of higher ed. teaching assistant development.

More on this journal at: ITL Publications

Innovative Higher Education

A useful journal whose editorial goals are: to present descriptions and evaluations of innovations and provocative new ideas, to focus on the effect of innovations on teaching and students; to be open to diverse forms of scholarship and research methods, and
to strike a balance between practice and theory by presenting manuscripts in a readable and scholarly manner to both faculty and administrators in the academic community.

More on this journal at: IHE Publications

National Teaching & Learning Forum

Began in 1991 as a joint venture with the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education, the National Teaching and Learning Forum has achieved critical acclaim and popular success with its wide-ranging approach: the contents range as widely as good conversation, from the latest findings of cognitive psychology on attention span and their practical implications for teaching to the relevance of Dante, Shakespeare and Milton to the lives of today's more gender-aware and ethnically diverse students.

More on this journal at: The NTLF website

New Directions in Teaching and Learning

A quarterly journal about issues effecting teachers in higher education. Each journal focuses on a topic or theme and includes chapters from many authors and viewpoints. Articles illuminate trends, priorities and values in higher education; many include rubber-meets-the-road practical advice.

More on this journal at: Jossey-Bass/Wiley

The Teaching Professor

More of a newsletter than a journal, the Teaching Professor is a nice, crisp publication discussing professional topics and instructional approaches that cut across disciplines. A staple at many faculty development centers.

More on this journal at: Magna Publications

The Job of Faculty Development (Start Here!)

A Guide to Faculty Development: Practical Advice, Examples, and Resources
Kay Herr Gillespie, Editor- Linda R. Hilsen & Emily C. Wadsworth, Associate Editors

According to AAHE, "It is difficult to think of this book as anything other than the definitive book on faculty development." Indeed, this is a must-have for any new faculty developer--providing everything from advice on administrative issues to model handouts your can use at your first workshop. It is difficult to overstate how helpful this book can be to a new faculty developer.

More on this book at: Amazon

Face to Face
Karron Lewis

A sourcebook of individual consultation techniques for faculty/instructional developers. Provides an overview of the skills and techniques needed for successful one-to-one consulting, lists of resources for information about faculty/instructional development, and detailed descriptions of a variety of individual consultation techniques with case studies to show the application of these techniques. Most chapters contain references for additional reading and many chapters contain samples of written handouts and materials used in the processes.

More on this book at: Amazon

Peer Review of Teaching
Nancy Van Note Chism

This tremendously useful, step-by-step book guides the reader through the process of developing constructive instructional feedback for one's peers--from evaluating the syllabus to observing in the classroom. Filled with worksheets and rubrics, this book even steps the reader through the process of developing a healthy peer review system, above and beyond the individual formitive or summative evaluation of a particular instructor.

More on this book at: Amazon

The Experience and Purpose of Teaching

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
Parker Palmer

A must-read for every faculty developer. Parker Palmer speaks to what we all feel as teachers: why we teach, the internal and external conflicts of which teaching consists, the pursuit of learning, knowing and teaching in community that we all desire. Good medicine for the burned-out.

More on this book at: Amazon

Practical Teaching Advice (Sorted in order of recommended acquisition)

Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers
Wilbert McKeachie, et al.

Now in it's 13th edition, Teaching Tips has been a resource for teachers and faculty developers for years. In addition to offering practical solutions, the authors usually spend some time describing the issue behind the problem. Filled with many specific tips and short reflective articles, it does not take long with this book to come up with new ideas or solutions for classroom quandaries.

More on this book at: Amazon

Tools for Teaching
Barbara Gross Davis

Tools for Teaching focuses more on brief practical suggestions, with fewer issue discussions than Teaching Tips. These two books complement each other wonderfully, and both demand a place on the faculty developer's shelf.

More on this book at: Amazon

Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject
Mel Silberman

Active Learning is a treasure trove of concrete, step-by-step techniques for approaching almost any teaching situation in almost any subject. It is a must-have for faculty developers looking for an instant toolbox.

More on this book at: Amazon

Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers
Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross

Classroom assessment techniques (CATs) are a wonderful way for instructors to get quick, no-anxiety feedback from their students. CATs are not quizzes or exams, they are short exercises (like the classic "one minute papers") that produce information for the instructor about what their students are "getting" or not.

More on this book at: Amazon

Effective Grading
Barbara Waalvord and Virginia Johnson Anderson

Classroom assessment techniques (CATs) are a wonderful way for instructors to get quick, no-anxiety feedback from their students. CATs are not quizzes or exams, they are short exercises (like the classic "one minute papers") that produce information for the instructor about what their students are "getting" or not.

More on this book at: Amazon

Understanding by Design
Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

You'll find this book highly-reviewed anywhere it is rated. The first half discuses exactly what we mean when we say we want our students to "understand" something, and the last half is full of useful guidance on designing a curriculum that really "has legs." If you work with teachers who want to redesign a course (or courses), this is a great tool to have at your side.

More on this book at: Amazon

Learning and Motivation in the Postsecondary Classroom
Marilla D. Svinicki

This refreshing book translates much of what educational psychologists know about how people learn into very readable language. It then extrapolates practical teaching advice from what the literature tells us. An enjoyable and very substantive peek "behind the curtain" at the state of educational psychology research today and how we can benefit from it in our own classrooms. The witty tone in this book makes it feel like you are having coffee with the author.

More on this book at: Amazon

Creating Significant Learning Experiences
L. Dee Fink

Fink lays out a compelling model that re-visions our goals in the classroom. This books is a real step toward re-humanizing the educational experience and making it as joyful as we all know in our hearts that it can be. Not for the inexperienced or conservative instructor.

More on this book at: Amazon

Online Education

The Online Educator
Marguertia McVay Lynch

A wonderful overview of the online learning enterprise--for both administrators and teachers. Comprehensive but not burdensome, this book provides a useful framework of current issues and approaches to online distance education from a very experienced source. Dr. Lynch also moderates DEOS-L, a substantive and lively listserv for those involved in teaching online. DEOS-L makes a nice companion to the POD list.

More on this book at: Amazon

E-Moderating
Gilly Salmon

Salmon presents an insightful and practical model of how the online student's needs change from the moment of first access, through online socialization and information exchange, into knowledge construction and further development. Anyone who has taken or taught an online course will recognize the validity of her model and will value the many practical "resources for practitioners" appendices.

More on this book at: Amazon