The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman)

Award-winning professor Peter Filene proposes that teaching should not be like a baseball game in which the instructor pitches ideas to students to see whether they hit or strike out. Ideally, he says, teaching should resemble a game of Frisbee in which the teacher invites students to catch ideas and pass them on.

Rather than prescribe a single model for success, Filene examines the advantages and disadvantages of various pedagogical strategies, inviting new teachers to make choices based on their own personalities, values, and goals. Filene tackles everything from syllabus writing and lecture planning to class discussions, grading, and teacher-student interactions outside the classroom. The book's down-to-earth, accessible style makes it appropriate for new teachers in all fields. Instructors in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences will all welcome its invaluable tips for successful teaching and learning.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Worth reading, 2008-08-11
I felt I was still unprepared for what stepping into a classroom might be like, even after having taken a short preparatory course for social science teaching in college. I will begin teaching in a matter of weeks, and this author has helped me tremendously by pointing out some my blind spots which have been created by years of graduate school. These include the differences between how graduate students and undergrads learn (less abstract and more examples) and that one must observe the campus and the classroom in order to gauge what are reasonable expectations in terms of reading comprehension and grading. He also presents helpful guides for syllabi construction and discussion groups.

I really felt like the author was speaking to me in terms of the way I think. A wonderful, useful read!


3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

wonderfully practical, 2007-07-11
this was so helpful, and gave me a lot of confidence about heading into the classroom.


3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Simple but useful, 2007-03-28
Summarizes a lot of important themes, gives some useful tips and a comprehensive listing of useful web sites


9 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

Another great guide!!, 2006-02-25
I'm and Adult Education graduate student who purchased this book (along with McKeachie's- "Teaching Tips") for our Methods course. Our Prof selected severval books because there isn't one good book on the market yet for Methods that incorporates all that we are learning from these various books on life long learning. It is an excellant guide toting reciprocal learning between student and teacher. It is straight forward and down to earth without all that "academitius" we suffer from with the scientific reads. Been out of college for 3 decades and coming to read read a guide that is right to the point makes it a god send so you can turn around and apply it to your everyday work situations.


19 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

Kicking and screaming teachers are in the 21st century, 2005-05-09
Having been a counselor in a Texas community college for the past thirty one years I can readily state that I am thrilled to still be able to gather new ideas from colleagues who are decades my junior.
Mr. Filine in his book assesses the current state of higher education for the masses without "dissing" those who labor in the profession and the same time slyly encourages us to reach out beyond the "way we taught."
Without explicitly stateing so I found between the lines that perhaps teachers are becoming superfluous unless we understand the context of the educational process in respect to technology, popular culture, and learning taking place quite literally at the speed of light. He alludes to this on p.56, "...(teachers) play a complementary part in the symphony of learning." This metaphore flashes to mind the spanish word for teacher, maestro.
Mr. Filene's chapter on mandatory class discussion addresses the universal entity that all students bring to class which is fear. By teachers confronting this head on we take a quantum step in the learning/teaching equation. Empowering the student is directly proportional to empowering the teacher and it is the key to the entire process.
I have a sign on my office door in two inch bold print that states, "UNAUTHORIZED LEARNING NOT ALLOWED." Fortunately in our electronic world it is not possible to adher to this dicate. To wit I stumbled across Mr. Filene's book by going on line, looking at the NY Times home page, clicking on the an educational story, referencing a book mentioned in said article, being exposed to another book on the Amazon site, and then thirty minutes and $50 later having to wait a whole three days for my three ordered books.
The tag line from _Glen Gary Glen Ross_ was "ABC", always be closing. The tag line from _the Joy of Teaching_ in my view is "ABL"...must I say what the L denotes.
Thanks for a great read.

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