Teaching Within the Rhythms of the Semester - Hardcover

by Donna Killian Duffy (Author), Janet Wright Jones (Author)

The authors model practices that instructors at every level may use to get off to a good beginning, maintain motivation in the mid-semester doldrums, and achieve successful closure at the And. Each chapter opens with a vignette that illustrates challenges teachers encounter and the ways both they and their students respond to them.

Front Jacket

Teaching Within the Rhythms of the Semester is a unique and far-reaching guide to teaching and learning that is organized around the ebbs and flows of energy that occur within the time frame of a course. It combines a lively and innovative balance of theory and application with practical techniques for creating successful learning experiences at each stage in a semester.Writing in a clear, straightforward, and highly engaging manner, Duffy and Jones discuss ways of teaching and ways of learning. They model practices that instructors at every level may use to get off to a good beginning, maintain motivation in the mid-semester doldrums, and achieve successful closure at the And. Duffy and Jones offer an excellent synthesis of the principles behind effective teaching. Each chapter opens with a vignette that illustrates some of the challenges teachers encounter in the classroom and the ways both they and their students respond to them. These realistic and engaging narratives are followed by a discussion of the educational, cognitive, and affective theories at work, as well as concrete suggestions--more than one hundred throughout the book--for similar classroom situations.

Back Jacket

Makes an original and valuable contribution to the field. The use of case studies or vignettes allows one to enter a professor's teaching life and view the lessons that emerge from his or her struggles and successes in teaching. --Mary Deane Sorcinelli, director, Center for Teaching, University of Massachussetts, AmherstA unique and far-reaching guide to teaching and learning that is organized around the ebbs and flows of energy that occur within the time frame of a course. Each chapter opens with a vignette that illustrates some of the challenges teachers encounter in the classroom and the ways both they and their students respond to them. These realistic and engaging narratives are followed by a discussion of the educational, cognitive, and affective theories at work, as well as concrete suggestions--more than one hundred throughout the book--for similar classroom situations.

Author Biography

DONNA KILLIAN DUFFY is professor and co-coordinator of the Activating Learning in the Classroom (ALC) program at Middlesex Community College, Bedford and Lowell, Massachusetts. JANET WRIGHT JONES is professor emeritus of Middlesex Community College and former co-coordinator of the ALC program. In 1991, Duffy and Jones received the International Award for Teaching Excellence presented by the International Conference on Teaching Excellence at Austin, Texas, as well as awards for Teaching Excellence at Middlesex Community College.