A Recipe with Which to Play: Reviewing Barkley's "Handbook"

This was a much easier read than I thought it was going to be. The word handbook tends to bring to mind dry, prescriptive, almost commandment-esque writing. Barkley's text was conversational and the lessons from research were interspersed with opinion and anecdote. I also greatly appreciate the 50 tips and strategies (T/S) and 50 student engagement techniques (SET); particularly how they are clustered and easily identified to later skimming and idea generation.

Perhaps my favorite part of this text was Barkley's recipe simile. I think this is successful because it reaffirms that good teaching is tough and that what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. It seems, too often, teaching is reduced to this idea of being easy, that anyone could teach given the inclination. It often seems prescriptive: give so many tests, assign homework, prepare slides from the book, lecture, grade, answer emails. But even as people dismiss it as easy, they also caution that it is time consuming--or perhaps my advisor realizes I'd fall down the rabbit hole of spending tons of time preparing for every lesson, in part because I like trying new things (and this book has definitely given me plenty to think about implementing once I have a class of my own).

As I was going through the SET chapters, I found my mind wandering to possible applications in the class I currently TA and will eventually (more than likely within a couple years) teach. How I could structure the class to cover everything that must be covered given there are multiple on-campus sections and they need to be structured similarly in terms of content and grade composition--this is what I've been told to this point, though I suppose I'll know for certain when I'm listed as the instructor--but also how I could possibly free up some time for deeper learning and engagement with the material. The course is an introductory MIS class with predominantly business students enrolled, many of whom are in their last year of the program. I think there could be a lot of potential for deeper engagement given the ubiquity of technology in our day to day lives, particularly in the workforce.

Before I go on a tangent about the class and what I think I might change and why, I'll return to Barkley.

The other aspect of the book I appreciated was its broad applicability. Yes, it is focused specifically on college classrooms, but many of the SETs could be implemented in K-12 with some creative reworking. There are techniques and T/Ss that are utile in either (or both) large and small class sections. 

Although I really enjoy this book and find it a valuable addition to my library, there are a couple of ways I think it could be improved.

The first is the placement of the anecdotes. Barkley includes these following the foundational chapters for the book, but references T/Ss and SETs within each anecdote. My issue here is that the reader hasn't had a chance to flip through the chapters on tips and techniques before seeing these references. I believe it would be more effective to have the anecdotes come at the end as a way to see how you can incorporate several tips and techniques in a complimentary fashion. Either that, or including a chapter at the end that serves as a return to the anecdotes and identifying the tips and techniques there. 

The second (and last) is the purpose statement of each SET. For each SET, Barkley provides some highlighted summary information (individual or group, duration, focus, online transferability), followed by a combination of description and purpose in paragraph form. In order to promote the ability to reference these chapters more easily, I feel the author should highlight the purpose of each activity in a sentence or bullet point before the description. It might also be beneficial to have a short description for those with longer ones. Although some of the titles are self-explanatory, many are rather vague.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and found it inspiring--or perhaps I'm just blinded by all the sparkly new possibilities before me.

Either way, this is bound to be a well-used, valued reference for me going forward, especially as I explore these techniques and start to creatively play with the recipes.