Beyond the Lecture

I thought there wasn't much more left to write about college teaching... but Katie McAllister's focus on the instructor-student dynamic is fresh and unique and largely unexplored. It made me realize THIS is why I wanted to become a teacher! Not because I want to teach my student DNA--RNA--Protein .... okay, maybe little bit of that too.... but because of the relationships and interactions with students. There are several tools and resources for instructors to be systematic and thoughtful about their curriculum design. This book is a much needed tool for instructors who wish to (and need to!) be thoughtful about how they engage with their students. Katie McAllister has managed to pack a lot of practical suggestions into Beyond the Lecture. As a Professor with several years of teaching in an active learning environment, I read this book mainly looking to validate my approach, however I ended up taking lots of notes for new things to try. There is also a chapter dedicated to online learning, which is a completely different environment, but follows the same underlying principles. Make no mistake, when teaching online there are a multitude of distractions that will steal students' attention. Passive lecturing no longer works in this context. Instead one needs to use a broad array of different strategies to continually interact with the students. With some planning and thoughtfulness, technology can unlock a totally different classroom experience, where students actively grapple with the material in real time. Whether you're only able to add a few touches of interactivity, or if you're rewriting the entire syllabus into an active learning format, this book provides a framework for making the transition at any level. Some of the techniques work equally well in the classroom and online. Some of the techniques work well in small classes, and others in large classes. This book helps identify and categorize them all. I only wish that this book had existed when I had made the transition into teaching online! Packed with practical ideas, this book translates evidence-based research into applicable teaching tools. Strategies for meaningful eye contact have already helped me improve my connection with online students! Guidance on creating psychological safety online is particularly relevant to those of us rapidly transitioning from in-person to virtual classrooms.