Timpson, William M. & Bendel-Simso, Paul. (1996). Concepts and Choices for Teaching: Meeting the Challenges in Higher Education. Reviewed by Maria Puzziferro-Biafora

Timpson, William M. & Bendel-Simso, Paul. (1996). Concepts and Choices for Teaching: Meeting the Challenges in Higher Education. Madison, WI: Magna Publications, Inc. 164 pp. ISBN: 0-912150-40-8 Reviewed by Maria Puzziferro-Biafora St. John's University, New York May 4, 1998 I. Introduction Concepts and Choices for Teaching, by William Timpson and Paul Bendel-Simso provides a theoretical, yet practical guidebook for higher education teachers who are aspiring to improve their pedagogy. While it is not a "handbook" in the traditional sense, it is an innovative collection of theoretical gems, practical strategies and ideas for improving teaching. The authors undertake this volume by asking the reader, "Just what is your responsibility to your students?" Essentially, that responsibility is to ensure that students learn, and this book helps teachers move toward the personal and professional goal of effective teaching. The format of Concepts and Choices for Teaching is most conducive to self-analysis. It guides the teacher on a self-exploratory journey of theoretical concepts and practical choices for improving teaching, each informed by references to the classic and current scholarly work in the field of teaching and learning. The book is divided into two parts. Part I, Theoretical Overview of Teaching and Learning, furnishes a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary overview of theoretical foundations of teaching and learning in higher education, spanning a comprehensive selection of perspectives - educational, psychological, social and move away from the "banking theory" of education, where the focus of instruction is to transmit knowledge and facts, with little interaction (Freire, 1968). A more pronounced focus on critical thinking and analysis benefits students by affirming personal freedom and growth, as well as contributing to a more creative and interesting classroom climate. This involves the management of a flexible course with ongoing feedback, a willingness to nurture risk-taking and the sustenance of active participation. Essentially, the instructor must begin to think of him/herself more and more as a facilitator, rather than an authority in the classroom. Just how much time should be dominated by participative activities? The rejoinder of Timpson and Bendel-Simso is simply, "That's a tough one which only you can answer." Reflection on research in the area of learning styles and teaching styles is another important concept for teachers. Understanding the theoretical underpinnings of student learning helps instructors facilitate a learning environment that is sensitive, cognizant, and appreciative of student needs. With this information, instructors can then make pedagogical choices that inform and enforce theoretical concepts, allowing them to reach more students more effectively. Timpson and Bendel-Simso draw upon a well-selected and relevant body of research to illustrate the concept of student learning. For example, the authors cite the work of Belenky et al (1986), who argue that intellectual development is enforced by instruction that enables students to develop hypotheses, reflect upon their own thinking and explore alternative points of view - a clear break from the banking model of teaching. The work of Gilligan (1982) is also cited, and offers important perspective about the generalizability of various learning theories to women, maintaining that majority theories of knowledge and moral development are based on the experiences of White males living in Western societies. Teachers must also understand complex cognition, and the work of Menges (1981), Gagne (1985), Slavin (1991), and others is presented to depict this concept. Complex cognition provides a foundation for concepts for teaching, such as higher-order rules, rule-example rule, and inductive thinking. This discussion of thinking styles provides teachers with the theoretical concepts needed to understand the process of thinking and how students interpret and understand the material delivered by the teacher. II. Choices for Teaching Part II, Teaching Strategies focuses on a broad and informative series of chapters summarizing strategies for effective teaching. These strategies provide teaching choices for instructors, and include approaches that span the dynamics of the entire teaching cycle, from preparing to teach to self-assessment. This is perhaps the most valuable section of the book, as it teems with ideas, innovations and discoveries. Preparing to Teach Throughout Concepts and Choices for Teaching, the authors repeatedly allude to the performer metaphor of instructional delivery. An oft referred to work in this volume, Teaching and Performing: Ideas for Energizing Your Class, by Timpson et al. is repeatedly recommended. This metaphor provides a useful way to think about preparing to teach. Just as theatrical performers warm-up, rehearse their lines and even conduct vocal warm-up exercises that contribute to the effectiveness and potency of their performance, the authors maintain so should teachers, and provide tips and strategies for doing so. Preparing to teach also involves an important set of decisions about goals and objectives, instructional material, and delivery methods. The instructor must clarify instructional goals and decide which goals are teaching goals and which goals are learning goals. The instructor can then consider how to best employ various teaching strategies to meet the considered goals. The planning and management of classroom time is an important preparatory reflection. Engaged learning time is the actual time spent in the process of teaching and learning of the entire class session. Ensuring that the maximum time is spent in engaged learning requires a careful and important choice about how classroom time will be spent. So how can instructors maximize engaged learning time? A useful framework for a class session plan is presented. This discussion is especially useful to new teachers. First, teachers may incorporate a "conceptual overview" when they want to reinforce the direction of the course. The conceptual overview, much like it is used in this book, provides a framework within which subsequent facts and details can be filled in. Second, effective presentations that are organized, clear and paced are integral to engaged learning. Third, monitoring understanding and attention levels during the class delivery is an important technique. For example, the instructor can ask, "Are there any questions?" The authors ap, however, that some students may be hesitant to reply publicly, so prudent use of this method is encouraged. Fourth, the use of modeling to explain difficult or abstract concepts is recommended. Finally, closure is effective as a way to wind down and ensure that all teaching and learning goals for the session were accomplished. As a preparation strategy, Timpson and Bendel-Simso suggest the use of an "instructional map." This is a strategy to plot the interaction of course content and objectives with planned activities - it is a visual guide for the teacher to pre-plan the course session and the teaching and learning process. The authors advise that by writing in the mix of activities and plans for a given class, it becomes easier to combine them to meet instructional goals and objectives. Lecture and Discussion Lecture and discussion each meet a particular need in higher education. Lecture allows the instructor to share expertise with students, and discussion allows students to articulate, rethink and interactively reflect in the classroom environment. The decision as to when to lecture and when to promote discussion is yet another choice that instructors make for effective teaching. Essentially, the authors advise that it is fruitful to use lecture when the intent is to present new material to students. Discussion is best used when the learning goals for students are to apply principles, analyze ideas, and formulate and solve problems. What constitutes a good lecture? Self-awareness and "split- consciousness" are perhaps the most important. "Split- consciousness" is the ability to pay attention to both speech content and delivery concurrently, and the authors contend that this strategy may be at the very heart of all types of truly effective teaching. Other strategies and concerns for effective lectures include preparation, organization, engagement, assessing understanding, variety, attendance, and questions. What constitutes a good discussion? The primary benefit of discussion is its emphasis on individual thinking skills, the opportunity for students to translate information into their own words in a public arena, and reflect upon their own learning and reaction. Thus, good discussion sessions must engage all students in a dialogue, and be facilitated closely by the instructor to keep the discussion on track and focused on the learning goals. Encouraging Creativity and Promoting Discovery Creativity and creative processes are hard to define. However, creativity can be thought of in a series of stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. Essentially, these steps framework the creative process as gathering data and resources needed to study the problem, dwelling on various ideas an feelings about the problem, the birth of a solution or hypothesis, and analysis of the details of the hypothesis against the data. Essentially, creativity requires active learning and student involvement and can energize, engage students, and contribute to the overall effectiveness of teaching. Timpson and Bendel-Simso argue that if creativity is to be a driving force in postsecondary education, the pedagogical focus must be on risk-taking, passion for quality and passion for innovation. Teachers can achieve this by de- emphasizing passive learning, drill and practice and making room for activities that promote active learning within a social context. Concepts for creativity are drawn from the work of von Oech (1983) and Gordon (1961). von Oech (1983), in a popular book on creativity, A Whack on the Side of the Head, provides insight into mindsets that can discourage creativity. These include: insistence on the right answer; preoccupation with the "logical;" impulse to follow the rules; high value placed on practicality; pressures to stay on task; avoidance of ambiguity; fear of making mistakes; prohibitions against "play;" the encouragement of seriousness; and the assumption made by many that they lack creativity. Gordon (1961) is cited in order to demonstrate the importance of metaphorical thinking as a source of creativity. From this concept, Timpson and Bendel-Simso provide suggestions strategies for teachers to encourage creativity through metaphorical thinking. Asking key questions that encourage metaphorical thinking and reflection as a series through direct analogy personal analogy, to compressed conflict (connecting back to the original topic) can help foster creativity in student thinking. Group Learning In the context of an increasingly diverse campus community, cooperative and active learning are strategies that pose an efficient way to promote student learning, interaction and social skills. Learning groups ensure that students engage actively with the course material, reflect on their own ideas, and support each other's learning, as opposed to simply writing down notes - a choice that derives from the outmoded banking concept of teaching. What is the teacher's role in the group learning environment? Timpson and Bendel-Simso admit that cooperative and collaborative learning have their own inherent challenges and complexities. The success of this type of teaching choice is dictated by the quality of the group interaction, and requires the teacher to temporarily surrender the role of expert and take on the role of facilitator. In fact, teachers must learn to master the art of moving in and out of the various roles that they play in the classroom environment. In the early chapters, the authors encourage teachers to think about their teaching roles, as delineated by McKeachie (1990). Essentially the six roles that college teachers play are: Expert, Formal Authority, Socializing Agent, Facilitator, Ego, and Person. As teachers make choices and incorporate various teaching strategies, such as lecture and group learning, they must learn to move skillfully between the roles of Facilitator and Expert. Mastery Learning Mastery learning is an instructional strategy promoted by Bloom (1973), and designed to help students of varying abilities to learn in the same classroom environment. Mastery learning is based on the assumption that students must master material at one level before moving to the next level. Mastery learning may be impractical as a strategy for many courses, as it requires time and flexibility on the part of the teacher. This strategy also may lead to a situation where students move through the course at different paces and levels, and have such diversified learning outcomes that the class becomes disassociated. This can lead to frustration on the part of the students and the teacher. In essence, the adoption of such a strategy is a choice that teachers must make depending upon variables such as class size, learning goals, teaching goals and time. Peer Feedback and Coaching Teacher feedback is perhaps the most important instructional choice and process for the professional development of the teacher. The authors conclude this book with a final discussion of peer feedback, however it lacks a discussion of and model for student feedback, which seems equally important. Peer feedback offers an ongoing system of mutual support and assistance, and can be adopted at any point in the career. In this final section, Timpson and Bendel-Simso advise teachers of several factors that are necessary in a successful peer coaching relationship and provide a working model for embarking on a peer coaching relationship. Factors that are necessary in the peer coaching relationship are: willingness to take risks and experiment with new ideas; essential trust between the peers; positive focus (i.e., a focus on what is good, as well as what is problematic) and; request of specific feedback, rather than general commentary. When planning for feedback and peer coaching, it is important to structure the experience so that important elements and goals are achieved. A working model is provided to guide teachers who will make the choice to engage in peer feedback. A pre-conference meeting is the first step and allows the instructor to set up observation dates, clarify goals, and decide how best to assess the feedback with a peer teaching coach. The team should set goals for the feedback, and the teacher must articulate carefully what type of feedback is requested, so that the peer coach/observer knows what to look for during an observation. The peer coach would then observe the teacher and record data, which were requested, and stay focused. The post-conference is the element where the observer and teacher meet to discuss the feedback, share relevant experiences and explore other ideas. Follow up feedback is also an integral part of the model, to continue the dialogue and opportunity for further improvement. III. Discussion It is true that teachers in higher education tend to work in isolation, and the demands of research, as well as institutional reward systems in favor of research, tend to facilitate poor or ineffective teaching. Consequently, higher education faculties from a variety of institutions are under fire from constituents such as students, parents, and political officials. This very reality makes this an important and valuable book, as it helps faculty examine and reexamine their teaching methodologies with the guiding focus that they have a responsibility to their students, and the essential goal is learning. Concepts and Choices for Teaching is a well-written and useful pathfinder to the discovery of the right mix of theoretical concept and practical choice, or art and science for effective teaching. It succeeds in providing a loose conceptual framework for teachers within which they can begin to examine their current teaching practices in their own contexts. The impact of this book, however, requires a personal commitment on the part of teachers to want to understand, reflect upon, and improve their teaching practices. The Exercises sections at the end of each chapter guide the reader on a journey that requires an open mind and a willingness to conduct self-analysis, both exploratory and critical. This is a book that should be shelved at faculty development centers, and provided to new teaching assistants, graduate students, and faculty. Because of its general and summary nature, however, it should be supplemented with other contemporary works that explore the learning theories, as well as practical teaching models and strategies offered by the authors in more detail. Some "experienced" faculty may find the style, approach and content too fundamental, though it may prove a useful resource for engaging in an informal, personal self-exploratory journey toward reinvigorating pedagogy. One aspect of Concepts and Choices for Teaching that would make the book especially useful is the expansion of the discussion of peer review of teaching. It is not until the final chapter that the authors provide models and strategies for engaging in a peer review relationship. The entire text itself could even be used as a guide for this purpose, because it presents frameworks and strategies that could be incorporated into the ongoing evaluative discussion between peer mentors. For this reason, even though the style of the book appears to be meant for personal reading, instructors who are engaging in a peer review relationship may find it beneficial to read the text and approach the Exercises sections with a partner. Supplementing the observations facilitated by the exercises with discussion and reflection can certainly strengthen the peer relationship by helping to clarify goals, expectations and understanding of new concepts and choices for teaching. The most valuable quality of Concepts and Choices for Teaching, however, is its adaptability and scalability for all teachers. As many college teachers are concerned with balancing teaching with other professional responsibilities, this book offers an "executive summary" of the range of possibilities and choices for improving teaching. The strategies that the authors provide, such as group learning, instructional mapping, preparation skills and self- reflection require a personal commitment on the part of the teacher, but are inspiring because they give teachers who want to refine their pedagogy a clear and intelligible place to start. In conclusion, I highly recommend Concepts and Choices for Teaching as an overview compendium of resources and strategies for improving pedagogy. It provides the inspired teacher practical strategies to embrace, as well as ideas and direction for further reading and professional development. References Belenky, Mary Field, Blyte McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule. (1986). Women's ways of knowing: The development of self, voice and mind. New York: Basic Books. Bloom, Benjamin S., et al. (1973). Every kid can: Learning for mastery. Washington, D.C: College University Press. Friere, Paulo. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Seabury Press. Gagne, Robert. (1985). The conditions of learning and theory of instruction. 4th ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Gilligan, Carol. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gordon, William J.J. (1961). Synetics: The development of creative capacity. New York: Harper and Row. McKeachie, Wilbert J. (1990). Teaching tips: A guidebook for the beginning teacher. Lexington, MA: DC Health Company. Menges, Robert. (1981). Instructional methods. The modern American college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Slavin, Robert. (1991). Educational psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. von Oech, Roger. (1983). A whack on the side of the head: How to unlock your mind for innovation. New York: Warner. About the Reviewer Maria Puzziferro-Biafora is the Faculty Technology Coordinator at St. John's University, and a doctoral student in the Program in Higher Education at New York University. Her professional interests include faculty development issues and programs, and technology in higher education.