A Mostly Useful Resource that Fails One of Its Objectives: A Reivew of Nilson's "Teaching at Its Best"

Teaching at Its Best is a resource for anyone teaching college classes, regardless their level of experience--though it's positioned as particularly useful to new professors and those wishing to improve. Its content is based on educational research and experience, covering the gamut from planning and teaching the course to grading and evaluations. It is unlikely to be exhaustive, but it manages to feel like it is.

This brings me to my primary issue with the book. In the preface (page XV in the third paragraph), Nilson writes:

...I wrote this new edition for people who don't have time to read a book--like you.

If that is an objective, it is one Nilson, in my opinion, fails to meet. This objective makes it sound like the book should be easy to skim, that the main points of each chapter are easily identified and neatly summarized at the end.

The biggest failure is that there are no end-of-chapter summaries, followed closely by introductions that are less often illuminating as to the chapter's content than is helpful. While the chapters are thoroughly sectioned and sub-sectioned, many of these are still written to be read. If you tell me right from the start that this book is for people who don't have time to read a book, it should be written as though the person has a day to pick up on the most important parts and highlights of each chapter.

That said, I do find many of the chapters useful, if not also reminiscent of the Barkley book from last month. Chapter 6 I especially appreciated as this is a topic I hear mumblings about in department offices but no one actually seems to discuss. I also found tables 11.1 and 11.2 useful in summarizing teaching methods; it's an easy tool I can refer to later for guidance and inspiration.

Chapter 24 on feedback was a winner for me, but I also feel like feedback is not discussed enough. I took it upon myself a couple years ago to learn more about giving and receiving feedback because I recognized I was particularly poor at the latter. I wouldn't say I'm great by any means, but I am better than I had been.

Two aspects of grading that resonated with me were the discussions on bonus points (page 102) and the virtual token system (page 314). On the former, I like that Nilson suggests bonus points should be for those actually putting effort into the class. In one of the classes I TA for, the students have been asking for bonus points, but the ones requesting them don't participate in class--even when the topic is something they're familiar with, like the Internet and myBama--and don't appear to put much effort into their coursework. I acknowledge they probably aren't very motivated to start, but I don't agree with rewarding low motivation with bonus points.

That said, I like the appeal of the latter, because it fits with my desire to be somewhat flexible. (In general, I'm not sure how I feel about the recommended specification grading approach; I want to like it but it seems impractical in application--though that may be my inexperience talking.) In part, I like the game aspect to it--this may be a business school thing, but I have found many of my classmates over the years to be competitive at times. I also like that it allows students an easy way to request an extension, redo, or make-up without my having to wait for documentation they gave to another professor because they waited beyond the acceptable time frame to inform us they were ill/concussed/at an appointment/etc.

Switching gears again, I did find some of the chapters uninteresting or unhelpful, and, at times, far too prescriptive. Chapter 4 I found to be the least useful because of Nilson's approach. She essentially tells us teaching should be low tech, at both the beginning and the end. thus negating any argument to the contrary. It also left me feeling like she included it more out of necessity than genuine interest in classroom technology, which discounted her credibility on the topic.

What I enjoyed about Bain and Barkley (see previous book reviews) is they were suggestive and took an approach of "everyone is different so here's some ideas, but do you." Nilson seems to do the opposite, particularly in Chapter 8 when discussing motivation. She suggests that the more of the 55 items you implement, the more motivated your students will be (on average); but that becomes more like a checklist for someone to tick off only to find it isn't that easy. I am untrusting of anything that even hints at being prescriptive.

There are also times when the student in me disagreed (rather strongly) with some of the recommendations. In Chapter 12, she provides a section on note taking that reads overly idealistic, particularly as, in my personal experience, distilling a lecture into its important parts doesn't happen in class; it requires time to let the content soak in and be carefully considered. Similarly, the reading tips offered in Chapter 21 are ones I've heard since elementary school; I have tried implementing them at various points in my education and always abandon them because I have not found them to be beneficial; they mostly just double the amount of time I spend on reading, which is already long enough.

I would say 80% of the chapters I found to be useful and insightful. I don't believe this is a book that will be easy to quickly reference for suggestions in the future, though it may be worthwhile to read some of the chapters more thoroughly when time permits. Perhaps my opinion will change on some of these points as I transition from a predominantly student role to more of a faculty/educator role.