Results by title

Teaching with Tenderness follows in the tradition of bell hooks's Teaching to Transgress and Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, inviting us to draw upon contemplative practices (yoga, meditation, free writing, mindfulness, ritual) to keep our hearts open as we reckon with multiple injustices. Teaching with tenderness makes room for emotion, offers a witness for experiences people have buried, welcomes silence, breath and movement, and sees justice as key to our survival. It allows us to rethink our relationship to grading, office hours, desks, and faculty meetings, sees paradox as a constant companion, moves us beyond binaries; and praises self and community care.

Tenderness examines contemporary challenges to teaching about race, gender, class, nationality, sexuality, religion, and other hierarchies. It examines the ethical, emotional, political, and spiritual challenges of teaching power-laden, charged issues and the consequences of shifting power relations in the classroom and in the community. Attention to current contributions in the areas of contemplative practices, trauma theory, multiracial feminist pedagogy, and activism enable us to envision steps toward a pedagogy of liberation. The book encourages active engagement and makes room for self-reflective learning, teaching, and scholarship.

Technical Theatre Education: A Vehicle for Critical Learning explores how the environment and process of producing theatrical or live entertainment events foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills. As a learning setting, the problem-based and experiential nature of designing and creating the sets, lighting, and costumes that support a production gives students ample opportunities to test theories, evaluate their growth, and experience the real-world consequences of success or failure.

How Cold War urgency, academic ambition, and federal power converged to make math the cornerstone of American education policy.

The Math Mafia by Emily T. Hamilton is a historical account of mathematics education reform in twentieth-century America and how that movement played a role in shaping the broader contours of national education policy. Hamilton contends that a cohesive and well-organized community of advocates was instrumental in the rise of standardized testing and curriculum reforms, as well as federal involvement in classrooms, especially during the Cold War. By positioning mathematics as central to national strength and security, these reformers established math education as a key area of federal focus.

The “mafia” at the center of Hamilton’s story includes mathematicians, educators, and researchers from universities, as well as members of government-funded organizations such as the National Science Foundation and various educational psychology circles. Prominent figures such as Edward Begle, who led the School Mathematics Study Group during the “new math” movement, played key roles. Other influential participants include federal education officials, advocates from professional organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and cognitive scientists, who contributed both research and theoretical frameworks that informed curriculum design and assessment methods.

The Math Mafia offers historians, educators, policymakers, and other interested readers a compelling perspective on the legacy of the math education reforms on federal education policy in the United States and is a welcome contribution to ongoing discourse around “teaching toward the test,” educational equity, school performance, and other hot-button issues in US education today.

• Support in the form of teaching tips, lesson plans, additional activities or role-plays, assessment suggestions, and resources for further exploration.
• Separate guidance for ESL and Legal English/Business English instructors that helps them select the material and activities best suited to their students’ interests and needs.
• Resources such as sample syllabi and activities with step-by-step instructions that make it easy to start teaching the textbook.
• An online companion site where instructors can download and send activities and role-plays directly to their students.

The most comprehensive theater instruction guide for all types of students

This best-selling book by Viola Spolin offers the most comprehensive theater instruction for all types of students, from small children to young adults. It includes over 130 theater games, plus exercises and instructional strategies. First developed by Spolin, the originator of modern improvisational theater techniques, these games have been tried and tested for over fifty years.

This volume pairs practical and theoretical insights on experimentation while advancing new models of transdisciplinary research, teaching, and institutional transformation.

Transdisciplinary Experiments explores how experimental approaches can reshape research, education, and institutions in higher education to respond to today’s complex and interconnected challenges. Grounded in the idea that experimentation can open up new possibilities, the volume examines how transdisciplinary teaching and learning can inspire change across disciplines, sectors, and cultures.

Multilingual learners bring a wealth of resources to the classroom in the form of their various languages. How can teachers tap into these resources as part of the learning process? How can we intentionally embrace linguistic diversity in our classrooms through the way we design learning? Despite the proliferation of research and writing about pedagogical translanguaging, many teachers do not feel equipped to effectively implement translanguaging approaches in their teaching.

Translanguaging provides a comprehensive introduction to the what, why, and how of translanguaging. The book synthesizes the research literature for a non-specialist audience, and builds on these insights by providing practical guidance for how students can be empowered to use all their linguistic resources—not just English or the language of instruction—to learn and thrive in school or college. Whether teachers of ESL or other subjects, all teachers will benefit from the practical guidance about translanguaging in this book and will be equipped to begin rethinking and redesigning their teaching to make more space for students’ multilingualism.