LibGuides: Faculty Professional Development: Books &amp; eBooks

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Hundreds of thousands of eBooks you can access 24/7, on or off campus that support COM courses (must have a COM account to access off campus). Our eBooks collection is really multiple collections from different providers. The single largest collection is Ebook Central.

The print books in our Main Collection consists of books selected to support COM courses. The best way to find out what books we have is to search OneSearch.

Featured eBooks

Go to A-Z Databases: Books & eBooks to search for more eBooks. Must access on campus or login with your COM account for off campus access. Faculty can make a recommendation for the collection.

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Bandwidth Recovery : Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization Published in association with  This book argues that the cognitive resources for learning of over half our young people have been diminished by the negative effects of economic insecurity, discrimination and hostility against non-majority groups based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity, and other aspects of difference. Recognizing that these students are no different than their peers in terms of cognitive capacity, this book offers a set of strategies and interventions to rebuild the available cognitive resources necessary to succeed in college and reach their full potential. Members of these groups systematically experience conditions in their lives that result in chronic stress and, therefore, decreased physical and mental health and social and economic opportunity. The costs of the many kinds of scarcity in their lives - money, health, respect, safety, affirmation, choices, belonging - is seriously reduced "mental bandwidth," the cognitive and emotional resources needed to deal with making good decisions, learning, healthy relationships, and more. People who are operating with depleted mental bandwidth are less able to succeed in school, starting in childhood, and are much less likely to make it to college. For those who do make it, their bandwidth capacity often interferes with learning, and therefore, persisting and graduating from college. This book presents variety of evidence-based interventions that have been shown, through implementation in high schools and colleges, to help students to regain bandwidth. They are variously intended for application inside and outside the classroom and address not only cognitive processes but also social-psychological, non-cognitive factors that are relevant to the college environment as a whole. Beginning with an analysis of the impacts on mental and physical health and cognitive capacity, of poverty, racism, and other forms of social marginalization, Cia Verschelden presents strategies for promoting a growth mindset and self-efficacy, for developing supports that build upon students' values and prior knowledge and for creating learning environments both in and out of the classroom so students can feel a sense of belonging and community. She addresses issues of stereotyping and exclusion and discusses institutional structures and processes that create identity-safe rather than identity-threat learning environment. This book is intended for faculty, student affairs professionals, and college and university administrators, all of whom have an interest in creating learning environments where all students have a chance to succeed.
Building Your Academic Career Building Your Academic Career encourages you to take a proactive approach to getting what you want out of academic work whilst being a good colleague. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such a career, the routes in and the various elements that shape current academic working lives. In the second half of the book we deal in considerable detail with how to write a really good CV (résumé) and how best to approach securing an academic job or promotion.
Coming to Terms with Student Outcomes Assessment : Faculty and Administrators' Journeys to Integrating Assessment in Their Work and Institutional Culture "Assessment on college campuses has a sordid history, and it is fairly simple to find someone with a traumatic tale to tell. It is wise to respect that that reputation is deserved." "How do you modify the inner workings and culture of a massive institution with minimal resources and even less authority (other than GE course approvals), and thousands and thousands of talented people busy doing other things?" "The road to departmental assessment can seem both dramatic and apocalyptic, especially if one's departmental 'centre cannot hold,' and purpose falls apart. The Department of English and Linguistics is presently on this journey, slouching towards its own revelations of mission and fulfillment of purpose." "I have become more optimistic about the potential value of the process, even if some of my initial skepticism remains. This skepticism, however, has been valuable, forcing me to think in more concrete ways about what I do in the classroom." As these excerpts show, this is no conventional book about assessment. It presents the unvarnished first-person accounts of fourteen faculty and administrators about how they grappled, and engaged, with assessment and how - despite misgivings and an often-contentious process - they were able to gain the collaboration of their peers as the benefits for student learning became evident. This is a book for skeptical faculty, for those who have been tasked to spearhead their institution's call to create a culture of assessment; and, on campuses where assessment has been widely accepted and implemented, for those who now need to ensure this commitment will endure. For all these audiences, this book offers valuable advice, strategies, models and ideas.
Discussion in the College Classroom : Getting Your Students Engaged and Participating in Person and Online Keep students engaged and actively learning with focused, relevant discussion Second only to lecture as the most widely used instructional strategy, there's no better method than classroom discussion to actively engage students with course material. Most faculty are not aware that there is an extensive body of research on the topic from which instructors can learn to facilitate exceptional classroom discussion. Discussion in the College Classroom is a practical guide which utilizes that research, frames it sociologically, and offers advice, along with a wide variety of strategies, to help you spark a relevant conversation and steer it toward specific learning goals. Applicable across a spectrum of academic disciplines both online and on campus, these ideas will help you overcome the practical challenges and norms that can undermine discussion, and foster a new atmosphere of collaborative learning and critical thinking. Higher education faculty are increasingly expected to be more intentional and reflective in their pedagogical practice, and this guide shows you how to meet those expectations, improve student outcomes, and tackle the perennial problem of lagging engagement. Thoroughly grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning, this book gives you concrete guidance on integrating discussion into your courses. You'll learn to: Overcome the challenges that inhibit effective discussion Develop classroom norms that facilitate discussion Keep discussion focused, relevant, and productive Maximize the utility of online student discussions The kind of discussion that improves learning rarely arises spontaneously. Like any pedagogical technique, careful planning and smart strategy are the keys to keeping students focused, engaged, and invested in the conversation. Discussion in the College Classroom helps you keep the discussion applicable to the material at hand while serving learning goals.
Engaging Images for Research, Pedagogy, and Practice This book introduces practitioners and researchers of student affairs to the use of images as a means to gaining new insights in researching and promoting student learning and development, and understanding the campus environment. Visual research methods can surface and represent ideas in compelling ways and augment the traditional written word and numerical data methodologies of social science research. The purpose of this book is to provide informative, rich examples of the use of visuals to understand and promote college student development research, pedagogy, and practice. With the increased accessibility of cameras, the ability to engage in image production has become widely available. Individual--including college students, faculty, and administrators--narrate the social world in new ways using visuals. While on the one hand students are using images to mobilize around social issues on campus, on the other, institutionally produced visual artifacts send messages about institutional culture and values. In promoting visual literacy, this book offers new opportunities for student development administrators and faculty to utilize the visual sensory modality and image-based artifacts to promote student success and belonging which are critical outcomes of higher education. The book is divided into three sections: research, pedagogy, and practice. The first makes the case for adding visual methods to the researcher's toolbox, describing past uses and outlining a theoretical approach to visual methods and methodologies in higher education research. The pedagogical section demonstrates different and creative ways for educators to think about how subjects--such as social justice--might be taught and how educators can draw upon new, changing modalities in their existing pedagogies and frameworks; and it illustrates how visual-based pedagogies can prompt students to new understandings about the content of their course of study. The concluding section describes how student development professionals can also utilize visual methods to provide students with out-of-classroom learning opportunities and as a means to stimulate student reflection and identity development. It also explores how visual methods can serve a way for practitioners to reflect on their professional practice and use of theory in their work. Intended for higher education educators, researchers, and practitioners who teach, research, and promote college student development and learning, this book could also be used in student affairs and higher education courses and professional development workshops.
Faculty Development and Student Learning : Assessing the Connections Colleges and universities across the US have created special initiatives to promote faculty development, but to date there has been little research to determine whether such programs have an impact on students' learning. Faculty Development and Student Learning reports the results of a multi-year study undertaken by faculty at Carleton College and Washington State University to assess how students' learning is affected by faculty members' efforts to become better teachers. Extending recent research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) to assessment of faculty development and its effectiveness, the authors show that faculty participation in professional development activities positively affects classroom pedagogy, student learning, and the overall culture of teaching and learning in a college or university.
From Equity Talk to Equity Walk : Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education A practical guide for achieving equitable outcomes From Equity Talk to Equity Walk offers practical guidance on the design and application of campus change strategies for achieving equitable outcomes. Drawing from campus-based research projects sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California, this invaluable resource provides real-world steps that reinforce primary elements for examining equity in student achievement, while challenging educators to specifically focus on racial equity as a critical lens for institutional and systemic change. Colleges and universities have placed greater emphasis on education equity in recent years. Acknowledging  the changing realities and increasing demands placed on contemporary postsecondary education, this book meets educators where they are and offers an effective design framework for what it means to move beyond equity being a buzzword in higher education. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. This indispensable guide presents academic administrators and staff with advice on building an equity-minded campus culture, aligning strategic priorities and institutional missions to advance equity, understanding equity-minded data analysis, developing campus strategies for making excellence inclusive, and moving from a first-generation equity educator to an equity-minded practitioner.   From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: A Guide for Campus-Based Leadership and Practice is a vital wealth of information for college and university presidents and provosts, academic and student affairs professionals, faculty, and practitioners who seek to dismantle institutional barriers that stand in the way of achieving equity, specifically racial equity to achieve equitable outcomes in higher education.
The High Impact ePortfolio Practice : A Catalyst for Student, Faculty and Institutional Learning At a moment when over half of US colleges are employing ePortfolios, the time is ripe to develop their full potential to advance integrative learning and broad institutional change. The authors outline how to deploy the ePortfolio as a high-impact practice and describe widely-applicable models of effective ePortfolio pedagogy and implementation that demonstrably improve student learning across multiple settings. Drawing on the campus ePortfolio projects developed by a constellation of institutions that participated in the Connect to Learning network, Eynon and Gambino present a wealth of data and revealing case studies. Their broad-based evidence demonstrates that, implemented with a purposeful framework, ePortfolios correlate strongly with increased retention and graduation rates, broadened student engagement in deep learning processes, and advanced faculty and institutional learning. The core of the book presents a comprehensive research-based framework, along with practical examples and strategies for implementation, and identifies the key considerations that need to be addressed in the areas of Pedagogy, Professional Development, Outcomes Assessment, Technology and Scaling Up. The authors identify how the ePortfolio experience enhances other high-impact practices (HIPs) by creating unique opportunities for connection and synthesis across courses, semesters and co-curricular experiences. Using ePortfolio to integrate learning across multiple HIPs enables students reflect and construct a cohesive signature learning experience. This is an invaluable resource for classroom faculty and educational leaders interested in transformative education for 21st century learners.
How Humans Learn : The Science and Stories Behind Effective College Teaching Even on good days, teaching is a challenging profession. One way to make the job of college instructors easier, however, is to know more about the ways students learn. How Humans Learn aims to do just that by peering behind the curtain and surveying research in fields as diverse as developmental psychology, anthropology, and cognitive neuroscience for insight into the science behind learning. The result is a story that ranges from investigations of the evolutionary record to studies of infants discovering the world for the first time, and from a look into how our brains respond to fear to a reckoning with the importance of gestures and language. Joshua R. Eyler identifies five broad themes running through recent scientific inquiry--curiosity, sociality, emotion, authenticity, and failure--devoting a chapter to each and providing practical takeaways for busy teachers. He also interviews and observes college instructors across the country, placing theoretical insight in dialogue with classroom experience.
Increasing Student Engagement and Retention in e-Learning Environments Increasing Student Engagement and Retention in e-Learning Environments: Web 2.0 and Blended Learning Technologies examines new research on how online and blended learning technologies are being used in higher education to increase learner engagement in an era of increasing technological convergence and dependence. These enabling technologies are reshaping and reframing the practice of teaching and learning in higher education. Through case studies, surveys, and literature reviews, this volume will examine online and blended technologies are being used to improve academic literacies in students, to create engaging communities of practice, and how these technologies are being used to improve learner motivation and self-empowered learners. This volume will also discuss a framework for adopting and deploying these technologies.
Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone : Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education Advocates for the rights of people with disabilities have worked hard to make universal design in the built environment "just part of what we do." We no longer see curb cuts, for instance, as accommodations for people with disabilities, but perceive their usefulness every time we ride our bikes or push our strollers through crosswalks. This is also a perfect model for Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework grounded in the neuroscience of why, what, and how people learn. Tobin and Behling show that, although it is often associated with students with disabilities, UDL can be profitably broadened toward a larger ease-of-use and general diversity framework. Captioned instructional videos, for example, benefit learners with hearing impairments but also the student who worries about waking her young children at night or those studying on a noisy team bus. Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone is aimed at faculty members, faculty-service staff, disability support providers, student-service staff, campus leaders, and graduate students who want to strengthen the engagement, interaction, and performance of all college students. It includes resources for readers who want to become UDL experts and advocates: real-world case studies, active-learning techniques, UDL coaching skills, micro- and macro-level UDL-adoption guidance, and use-them-now resources.
Redesigning Courses for Online Delivery: Design, Interaction, Media and Evaluation This volume examines key considerations for effective online course redesign. Using a 4-phase approach, Redesigning Courses for Online Delivery informs thinking, inspires creativity, and structures decisions to drive the development of high quality online learning experiences. Both scholarly and practical, it provides a comprehensive approach to redesign useful to novices and veterans alike.
Teaching Excellence in Higher Education : Challenges, Changes and the Teaching Excellence Framework The introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework heralds an era of unprecedented scrutiny and focus on the quality of teaching in universities in England. This book offers inter-disciplinary, evidence-informed discussion around notions of excellence in higher education teaching. It will act as a key stimulus for institutional and sector-wide debates and a reference point for initiatives around the TEF agenda. Drawing on the authentic, grounded experiences of practising HE professionals and complemented by a range of recent case studies, this book offers insight into the pursuit of capturing excellence in the complex and wide-ranging context of HE teaching. It will consider what the repercussions of TEF might mean to those involved in learning and teaching in the sector and how this might impact institutional policy and practice.

Featured Print Books

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Building Bridges: Engaging Students at Risk Through the Power of Relationships
Don't Quit Your Day Job: An Educator's Guide to Student Engagement Using a 30-day guidebook approach, this book explores what makes students tick through stories, anecdotes, and practical suggestions. By the end of the journey, teachers will feel confident about their ability to assess and address the motivational needs of their students. They¿ll walk away with many easy-to-use ideas that will transform their teaching and jack up the level student engagement in their classrooms.
How Full Is Your Bucket? Educator's Edition: Positive Strategies for Work and Life Organized around a simple metaphor of a dipper and a bucket  How Full Is Your Bucket? shows how even the smallest interactions we have with others every day profoundly affect our relationships, productivity, health and longevity. Coauthor Donald O. Clifton studied the effects of positive and negative emotions for half a century, and he and his colleagues interviewed millions of people around the world. Their discoveries contributed to the emergence of an entirely new field: Positive Psychology.
Learner-Centered Innovation: spark curiosity, ignite passion and unleash genius What if education could be better--for students and for educators? Our changing world demands creative thinkers and collaborative problem solvers, but too often, schools stifle growth and discovery in favor of getting through the curriculum or preparing for "the test." Learning opportunities and teaching methods must evolve to match the ever-changing needs of today's learners. When we tell kids to complete an assignment, we get compliance. When we empower learners to explore and learn how to make an impact on the world, we inspire problem solvers and innovators. This required change in education involves more than providing training for administrators and teachers to implement new curriculum or programs and resources; it demands that we, as teachers and leaders, create an environment where learners at every level are empowered to take risks in pursuit of learning and growth rather than perfection. This book is for you if you are wondering . . . What if learners were valued for their diverse talents and not just our traditional model of "smart"? What if I could create new and better experiences for those I serve? What if I could inspire students to learn, to discover their passions, and to share their ideas with the world?
Quit Point: Understanding Apathy, Engagement, and Motivation in the Classroom How Full Is Your Bucket? Educator's Edition: Positive Strategies for Work and Life
The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion Historically we have constructed our classrooms with the assumption that learning is a dry, staid affair best conducted in quiet tones and ruled by an unemotional consideration of the facts. The field of education, however, is beginning to awaken to the potential power of emotions to fuel learning, informed by contributions from psychology and neuroscience. In friendly, readable prose, Sarah Rose Cavanagh argues that if you as an educator want to capture your students' attention, harness their working memory, bolster their long-term retention, and enhance their motivation, you should consider the emotional impact of your teaching style and course design. To make this argument, she brings to bear a wide range of evidence from the study of education, psychology, and neuroscience, and she provides practical examples of successful classroom activities from a variety of disciplines in secondary and higher education.  
Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide to Lecturing, Presenting, and Engaging Students Your students aren't reading. They aren't engaged in class. Getting them to talk is like pulling teeth. Whatever the situation, your reality is not meeting your expectations. Change is needed. But who's got the time? Or maybe you're just starting out, and you want to get it right the first time. If so, Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide to Lecturing, Presenting, and Engaging Students is the blueprint. Written for early career instructors, this easy-to-implement guide teaches you to: -Think like advertisers to understand your target audience-your students -Adopt the active learning approach of the best K-12 teachers -Write a syllabus that gets noticed and read -Develop lessons that stimulate deep engagement -Create slide presentations that students can digest -Get students to do the readings, participate more, and care about your course Secrets like "focusing on students, not content" and building a "customer" profile of the class will change the way you teach. The author, Dr. Norman Eng, argues that much of these approaches and techniques have been effectively used in marketing and K-12 education, two industries that could greatly improve how college instructors teach. Find out how to hack the world of college classrooms and have your course become the standard by which all other courses will be measured against. Whether you are an adjunct, a lecturer, an assistant professor, or even a graduate assistant, pedagogical success is within your grasp.
Teach Like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator Based on Dave Burgess's popular "Outrageous Teaching" and "Teach Like a PIRATE" seminars, this book offers inspiration, practical techniques, and innovative ideas that will help you to increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life as an educator. You'll learn how to tap into and dramatically increase your passion as an teacher. Also, learn how to develop outrageously engaging lessons that will draw students in like a magnet and how to transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students. This groundbreaking inspirational manifesto contains over 30 hooks specially designed to captivate your class and 170 brainstorming questions that will skyrocket your creativity. Once you learn the Teach Like a PIRATE system, you'll never look at your role as an educator the same again.