Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Now in Paperback! "Insights and practical suggestions to college educators for whom teaching students is a major part of their professional responsibility.... [Brookfield] will become to the field of education what Peter Drucker has become to management: a scholar who educates and influences practitioners in the field through incisive and challenging writing."
-- Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education

"Readable, innovative, and perceptive. . . . The final chapters on the political realities and phenomenological truths of college teaching alone are worth the price of the book, especially for prospective, new, or veteran college, adult, or continuing education teachers."
-- Choice

Brookfield shows new and veteran teachers how to thrive on the unpredictability and diversity of classroom life. He draws from his own teaching experience and extensive research to identify critical areas in the teacher-learner relationship--such as building trust with students and overcoming resistance to learning.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Teaching: A Complex and Passionate Experience
• 2 Developing a Personal Vision of Teaching
• 3 Teaching Responsively
• 4 Understanding the Tensions and Emotions of Learning
• 5 Adjusting Teaching to the Rhythms of Learning
• 6 Lecturing Creatively
• 7 Preparing for Discussion
• 8 Facilitating Discussions
• 9 Using Simulations and Role Playing
• 10 Giving Helpful Evaluations
• 11 Overcoming Resistance to Learning
• 12 Building Trust with Students
• 13 Dealing with the Political Realities of Teaching
• 14 Some Truths About Skillful Teaching

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Brookfield (Teachers College, Columbia University; author of Developing Critical Thinkers, 1987, and Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning 1986) illustrates practically his major scholarly interests in this readable, innovative, and perceptive book on college teaching. Drawing on the extensive, but rarely acknowledged, insights of adult education and learning literature, as well as his own teaching experience, the author uses a conversational and anecdotal style to "grapple with the challenges and crises of college teaching." With "critical thinking" as an essential means of building a democratic society, Brookfield argues that the professional teacher grows into the truths of college teaching by developing and learning to adjust methods to better fit the ever changing contextual factors of the teaching-learning process. The central goal of "critically responsive teaching" is accomplished by using a variety of student and teacher feedback and responsiveness techniques to overcome student resistance to learning, to gain student trust, and to encourage students and teachers to meaningfully challenge the validity and propriety of "established" or habitual educational practices and ideas. Along with many practical classroom techniques, a substantial reference list, and useful index, the final chapters on the political realities and phenomenological truths of college teaching alone are worth the price of the book, especially for prospective, new, or veteran college, adult or continuing education teachers. -R. L. Brod, University of Montana

Author notes provided by Syndetics

STEPHEN D. BROOKFIELD is Distinguished Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. He has written widely on the topics of adult education, critical thinking, and teaching and has received numerous awards for his books, including the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education and the Imogene E. Okes Award for Outstanding Research in Adult Education.