The CTL's Teaching & Learning Book Club

The CTL's Teaching & Learning Book Club is back with this semester's pick: Hitting Pause: 65 Lecture Breaks to Refresh and Reinforce Learning, by Gail Taylor Rice. Hitting Pause balances an evidence-based framework with practical, easy-to-adapt classroom ideas. The first half of the book details how active-learning "pauses" inserted between segments of lecture can boost student motivation and cognition while allowing instructors to better assess learning, gauge the classroom environment, and catch their breath! The second part of the book offers rationales, instructions, and further suggestions for 65 activities that instructors can easily adapt to their own teaching contexts. Our book club discussions on February 28 and April 4 (RSVP here) will focus on part I of the book, and we will also have a chance to flip through and consider the activities suggested in Part II.

The Teaching & Learning Book Club was established in 2015 to spark cross-disciplinary conversation around both emerging and tried-and-true pedagogical approaches, as well as broader explorations of the purpose and promise of higher education. Whether we end up entertaining novel ideas, trying out new approaches, or affirming practices we're already engaging, we always enjoy sharing our perspectives and classroom experiences among colleagues.

The book club strives to promote conversations around diverse dimensions of teaching, learning, and higher ed. Among other titles, past readings have included: Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, by Peter C. Brown et al; Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, by Saundra Yancy McGuire; The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, by Cathy N. Davidson; and Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, by bell hooks.

We enthusiastically invite you to add your voice to the conversation! RSVP here.