Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed

Academia is not, by and large, a kind place. Individualism and competition are what count. But without kindness at its core, Catherine Denial suggests, higher education fails students and instructors-and its mission-in critical ways. Part manifesto, part teaching memoir, part how-to guide, A Pedagogy of Kindness urges higher education to get aggressive about instituting kindness, which Denial distinguishes from niceness. Having suffered beneath the weight of just "getting along," instructors need to shift every part of what they do to prioritizing care and compassion-for students as well as for themselves. A Pedagogy of Kindness articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions outline nothing less than a transformational discipline-one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.

If teachers want an inclusive, engaging classroom, they must learn their students' names. Sound advice, but rarely does it come with practical guidance-which is precisely what this book offers. Eschewing the random tips and mnemonic tricks that invariably fall short, Michelle D. Miller offers teachers a clear explanation of what is really going on when we learn a name, and a science-based approach for using this knowledge to pedagogical advantage. Drawing on a background in the psychology of language and memory, Miller gives a lively overview of the surprising science of learning proper names, along with an account of why the practice is at once so difficult and yet so critical to effective teaching. She then sets out practical techniques for learning names. In her discussion of certain factors that can make learning names especially challenging, Miller pays particular attention to neurodivergence and the effects of aging on this form of memory. A Teacher's Guide to Learning Student Names lays out strategies for putting these techniques into practice, suggests technological aids and other useful resources, and explains how to make name learning a core aspect of one's teaching practice. This concise guide provides teachers of all disciplines and levels an invaluable tool for creating a welcoming and productive learning environment.

In a world where stress is unavoidable-where political turmoil, pandemic fallout, and personal challenges touch everyone-this book offers guidance for cutting through the emotional static that can hold teachers back. A specialist in pedagogical strategies with extensive classroom experience, Elizabeth A. Norell explains how an educator's presence, or authenticity, can be critical to creating transformational spaces for students. And presence, she argues, means uncovering and understanding one's own internal struggles and buried insecurities-stresses often left unconfronted in an academic culture that values knowing over feeling. Presenting the research on how and why such inner work unlocks transformational learning, The Present Professor equips educators with the tools for crafting a more authentic presence in their teaching work. At a time of crisis in higher education, as teachers struggle to find new ways to relate to, think about, and instruct students, this book holds a key. Implementing more inclusive pedagogies, Norell suggests, requires sorting out our own identities. In short, if we want to create spaces where students have the confidence, comfort, and psychological safety to learn and grow, we have to create spaces where we do, too. The Present Professor is dedicated to that proposition, and to helping educators build that transformational space.