Linda B. Nilson - Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors

1. Chapter 2: Outcomes-Centered Course Design
2. Chapter 5: The Complete Syllabus
3. Chapter 11: Matching Teaching Methods with Learning Outcomes
4. Chapter 20: Helping Students Learn How They Learn
5. Chapter 23: Making the Most of the Visual Mode

1. Chapter 1: Understanding Your Students and How They Learn
2. Chapter 2: Outcomes-Centered Course Design
3. Chapter 11: Matching Teaching Methods with Learning Outcomes
4. Chapter 13: Leading Effective Discussions
5. Chapter 20: Helping Students Learn How They Learn
6. Chapter 23: Making the Most of the Visual Mode
7. Chapter 27: Grading Student Assessments
8. Chapter 28: Defining and Documenting Teaching Effectiveness

Linda B. Nilson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nilson, Linda Burzotta, author.

Title: Teaching at its best: a research-based resource for college instructors / Linda B. Nilson.

Other titles: Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series.

Description: Fourth edition. | San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass, 2016. | Series: Jossey-bass higher and adult education series

Identifiers: LCCN 2016015848 (print) | LCCN 2016020998 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119096320 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781119107804 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781119107798 ePub) | ISBN 9781119107804 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119107798 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: College teaching. | Effective teaching.

Classification: LCC LB2331 .N55 2016 (print) | LCC LB2331 (ebook) | DDC 378.1/7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015848

Cover design: Wiley

Cover image: aon168/iStockphoto

The Jossey-Bass
Higher and Adult Education Series

To all North American faculty committed to teaching at its best

Linda B. Nilson is the founding director of Clemson University's Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation. Her career as a full-time faculty development director spans over 25 years. Along with four editions of Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors (1998, 2003, 2010, 2016), she has authored three other books: The Graphic Syllabus and the Outcomes Map: Communicating Your Course (Jossey-Bass, 2007); Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students' Self-Awareness and Learning Skills (Stylus, 2013); and Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Faculty Time (Stylus, 2015). Her current book project is Online Teaching at Its Best with coauthor Ludwika A. Goodson.

She has also coedited several books: Enhancing Learning with Laptops in the Classroom (with Barbara E. Weaver, Jossey-Bass, 2005) and volumes 25 through 28 of To Improve the Academy: Resources for Faculty, Instructional, and Organizational Development (with Douglas Reimondo Robertson, Anker, 2007, 2008; with Judith E. Miller, Jossey-Bass, 2009, 2010). To Improve the Academy is the major publication of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education.

Her other publications include articles and book chapters on a range of topics: validity problems with student ratings, ways to measure learning in a course, the instability of faculty development careers, teaching with learning objects and mind maps, designing a graphic syllabus, improving student-peer feedback, teaching large classes, fostering critical thinking, and graduate student professional development.

Dr. Nilson has given well over 450 webinars, keynotes, and live workshops at conferences, colleges, and universities nationally and internationally on dozens of topics related to college teaching and academic career success. Her repertoire of speaking topics spans every chapter in this book, as well as early faculty career management and scholarly writing and publishing.

Before coming to Clemson in 1998, she directed the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University and the Teaching Assistant Development Program at the University of California, Riverside. At the latter institution, she developed the disciplinary cluster approach to training teaching assistants (TAs), a cost-effective way for a centralized unit to provide disciplinary-relevant instructional training. Her entre into educational development came in the late 1970s while she was on the sociology faculty at UCLA. After distinguishing herself as an excellent instructor, her department selected her to establish and supervise its Teaching Assistant Training Program. As a sociologist, she conducted research in the areas of occupations and work, social stratification, political sociology, and disaster behavior. Her career also included a few years in the business world as a technical and commercial writer, a training workshop facilitator, and the business editor of a regional magazine.