Fall 1994

Book Review: Tools for Teaching
Barbara Gross Davis. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
Reviewed by Sid Brown, Graduate Student Associate, TRC and Department of Religious Studies

When I first opened Tools for Teaching to consider it for review, I rolled my eyes and reached for my bottle of Rolaids. Tools is self-conscious about the accessibility of its contents, and when I peeked inside I was suddenly back doing pabulum reading for an "Introduction to Whatever" class. The bold and underlined larger headings, the bold subheadings, the overly wide side margins, the brevity of each chapter all swung me back to ill-chosen, easy-to-read introductory textbooks. Yucko.

With that strong first impression in mind, know now that I am ordering my own copy of this thirty-dollar book. It's the most useful book I've seen on college teaching, one that can serve teaching assistants and beginning as well as more experienced professors. Not only are the contents indeed easily accessed, but they are well worth accessing. There are chapters on lecturing, discussion, writing skills, testing, instructional mediaÄeven one on "Teaching Outside the Classroom", featuring a section on "Guiding, Training, and Supervising Graduate Student Instructors." Each chapter holds practical, easily implemented hints on how to improve your skills so that your students improve theirs. Ten minutes spent with this book while motivated by a teaching problem will pay off immediately. Davis assumes that the beginning college teacher is busy, and bright enough to work out specific applications of general principlesÄexcellent assumptions.

Davis not only introduces interesting teaching techniques, she reminds us of just the sorts of things we are likely to forget or might ignore. Here Davis addresses general strategies of "Personalizing the Large Lecture Class":

• Be as flexible as your class plan will allow. Provide a 'warm' classroom environmentÄallow time to entertain students' comments and give immediate responses to their questions.
• Let your personality and interests come through...
• Be aware of the physical environment of the classroom...
• Make the space small. A large lecture room will seem smaller if you stand in front of the lectern, ... (125)

In these four short suggestions she notes not only what motivates many students, but also what may impede their learning. Often professors pay more attention to the accuracy of their lectures than to displaying their enthusiasm for the discipline. Students want to know what makes our work interesting; they can then focus on how it interests them. Davis also reminds us to be sure our students have enough light and fresh air, and are not being frozen or heated to distraction. While the teacher is performing and so has the adrenalin necessary to overcome such annoyances, students, necessarily more passive in a lecture class, can grow inattentive from straining to read the board or screen, from being smothered, from the constant thought-whine caused by a cold (or from the drowsiness caused by a hot) environment.

In "Creating a Sense of Community," another section in the "Personalizing the Large Lecture Class" chapter, Davis suggests efficient techniques for encouraging student-student and student-professor interaction. For example, while one can never expect a professor to learn all 200 students' names, Davis advises attempting to know some of their names rather than surrendering altogether: the "effect of this personal address carries over to all the students" (126). When encouraging professors to invite students to get to know one another, Davis reminds us that in "an impersonal classroom, students feel less responsibility toward other class members and the instructor ... [and are] less motivated to learn and less likely to do the required work" (126). Her short list of suggestions on encouraging student-student communication includes requesting groups of two or three students to work on possible test questions and asking students to write down the phone numbers of two other people in the class (126). To foster student-professor interaction, Davis suggests choosing (randomly) a few students each week and inviting them to lunch as a group (126). Choosing randomly gives professors the opportunity to nurture students who are more shy about introducing themselves and about expressing their ideas. For instance, a few capable, intelligent, and creative students are so awestruck by those who hold higher degrees that even when they consider graduate school, they avoid one-on-one discussions with people who have already been to graduate school. Getting to know small groups of students outside of class gives us the opportunity to offer the kind of help we are all here at the university to provide.

In fact, this book is filled with useful ideas. For example, Davis recommends using e-mail for soliciting and answering students' questions (see "Student Writing by E-Mail" in the September 1994 issue). She proposes using electronic information servers for the class syllabus, reading list, lecture notes, or solutions to problem sets. Also helpful are her list of principles for educating students about how they can contribute to a discussion group as well as her recommendations for helping students prepare for discussion. She suggests varying lectures by integrating them with demonstrations, group work, or audiovisuals.

So, despite the rather bad associations the reader may have with the format of Tools for Teaching, I urge you to check this book out of the Teaching Resource Center library or purchase your own copy. Anyone teaching will find it helpful.