Some books college teachers need to read
Maryanne Wolf: Reader Come Home - about how digital reading is changing our brains. I think this is extremely important in something I do, open educational resources, which are almost completely digital and which we are assuming are experienced by students just like traditional physical textbooks, only without the costs. They are not. I have a dog in this fight, having authored a successful OER (http://www.exploringpublicspeaking.com)
Angela Duckworth: Grit - about her extensive work on the "grit scale." I haven't quite figured out why this is so ground-breaking except that she has a lot of her primary research behind it. I was annoyed by her example of all these top-tier successful people. One can be successful without going to the Naval Academy, winning political races, or being awarded the Nobel Prize.
Ellen Langer: Mindfulness - not about meditation, but critical thinking and reflection. I liked it much better than I thought I was and need to revisit it.
Carol Dweck: Mindset - Like Grit, it's been criticized because school systems have treated it as if it answers every single question in the universe. It is a corrective to the talent myth and falls into the nature/nurture debate. I will always fall on the side of nurture, as long as nurture includes one's human will.
I do not recommend these books because I agree with them or think their ideas are some kind of received, revealed truth, but because they are influencing academia, even if they don't entirely stand up to scrutiny.
Angela Duckworth: Grit - about her extensive work on the "grit scale." I haven't quite figured out why this is so ground-breaking except that she has a lot of her primary research behind it. I was annoyed by her example of all these top-tier successful people. One can be successful without going to the Naval Academy, winning political races, or being awarded the Nobel Prize.
Ellen Langer: Mindfulness - not about meditation, but critical thinking and reflection. I liked it much better than I thought I was and need to revisit it.
Carol Dweck: Mindset - Like Grit, it's been criticized because school systems have treated it as if it answers every single question in the universe. It is a corrective to the talent myth and falls into the nature/nurture debate. I will always fall on the side of nurture, as long as nurture includes one's human will.
I do not recommend these books because I agree with them or think their ideas are some kind of received, revealed truth, but because they are influencing academia, even if they don't entirely stand up to scrutiny.
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