This book might be of interest to some professors who are mid- to late career and who want to think about their teaching in a slightly different way. Or it would be an interesting read for a teaching circle focused on discussing ideas about teaching. For a new instructor, though, I would recommend other books that are more focused on developing your craft as a professor instead.

The author constructs this book around teachable moments and considers various topics, including technology, assigned readings and whether we teach to them or assume that students have read them, and also cheating.

Although I did find a few interesting ideas in this book, there was a lot that didn't work for me. He argues that writing a script for teaching and then reading from it is a good idea, but he abhors Powerpoint. He suggests that cheating is caused by the professor and the environment shaped by the professor, but ignores that some of that environment is not under our control. I understand that many of his statements are meant to provoke, but it felt as though those statements would be a better starting point for a discussion amongst a group of academics instead of in the form of a book.

Thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the University of Toronto Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Interesting and useful text for those looking to improve their teaching in a higher education setting.

Great book, especially for an aspiring college professor. I am in the beginning of my PhD program with aspirations to become a college professor, and I thought the timing of this book was excellent. It could have easily fit into a course I am currently taking. I also enjoyed this book as an educator.

Fantastic book! I wish I’d found Peter Lindsay’s The Craft of University Teaching when I became a college instructor years ago. From its teachable moments to its mirth--this book is a game changer!

As a college instructor with 5 years of instruction in general education and law courses, my 25 years of professional and practical experience only brought me so far. This book meets you where you are and has the transformative power to assist with honing the craft of instruction, all while laying the scaffolding for its reader to become a sound professional in the field of college/university teaching.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book takes a different tack from the usual books designed to assist instructors in planning and executing classroom lessons. Reflecting on the art and craft of teaching is just as important as planning for instruction. However, this aspect and action often takes a backseat to the intense nature of planning for and delivering lessons, as well as meeting student needs, advising, attending meetings, and all the other trappings of academia. The author encourages instructors to take a step back and engage in meaningful reflection on their own academic practice, with an eye to making it meaningful and rewarding for themselves as well as engaging and important for their students.

I received this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

This is the type of text I wish I'd had as a graduate student and as a young university educator. One skill we were not taught in grad school was teaching. You learned the ins and outs of your field but not how to impart that knowledge to students. And teaching is difficult. Keeping students stimulated and engaged in the subject takes techniques that most do not learn before being thrown to the wolves, rather it's learned on-the-job. This makes the first few years of teaching a distressing experience. This guide can help calm the fears by providing very useful techniques and strategies for educating university students. It would be helpful as part of a course on university teaching or, lacking such a class during graduate studies, this is a book all future and current educators should turn to for guidance to hone their craft.

I wish to thank University of Toronto Press and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

What are the characteristics of a good lecturer?

The real task of teaching is to demonstrate that the joy of learning can excite and seduce every bit as much as can the joy of research because, at the end of the day, there is no logical, conceptual, or analytic difference between the two, according to Peter Lindsay in his book The Craft of University Teaching. The author is an academic in the field of political philosophy, but he argues that the same principles apply to professors of chemistry, literature, history, law or any other field.

The book provides a range of reflections on the craft of university teaching derived from the author’s extensive experience, discussing questions such as: How should we assess an essay? What special allowances can we offer an individual student? How does one turn around a suicidally somnolent seminar? When do we teach too much and when do we teach too little? What is grading for? What is ethically responsible academic behaviour? What is the relationship between that behaviour and pedagogically sound practice?

I found myself agreeing strongly with the author on the importance of reflecting on the purposes, ethics and outcomes of teaching, but disagreeing with his argument that the main objective of teaching is to create the conditions in which students become enthusiastic about knowledge. In my opinion, my job as a lecturer is to help the students enrolled in my classes to acquire as high a level of understanding and interest in the subject matter as possible, and I should do all I can to excite their enthusiasm for further inquiry, but my level of success is measured by the knowledge and skill demonstrated by the students, not by their enthusiasm.

This is a fairly short book, and anyone involved in delivering tertiary or adult education programs will find value in reflecting on the questions which the author raises.

Students may give you some feedback on how entertaining your lectures were, but how should you measure your own effectiveness as a teacher? This book gives a range of questions to reflect upon.

Thought-provoking discussion of various teaching dilemmas, including cheating, and suggestions for how to think about solving them for your own, individualized teaching persona. Teaching as craft, Lindsay suggests, means teaching as an end in itself, teaching people to want to learn. Advice I liked: “When teaching abstract concepts, start with concrete examples; in fact, it is best to reverse the common order used to explain a concept. … every step [in the conventional order] is an effort to remedy the confusion created by the previous one: the definition seeks to capture the word, the explanation seeks to clarify the definition, and the examples seek to concretize the explanation. Instead of each step preparing students for the next one, each is reduced to doing damage control for the preceding one.” Likewise, Lindsay is no fan of rubrics: “if an assignment can be reduced to a set of boxes for my checking, it hardly seems worth my trouble to read it.” Nor is he a fan of technology in the classroom, unless it works for a particular teacher as a tool to generate excitement about learning.

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: History of the massive white violence in the Belgian Congo (and surrounds) that claimed ten million lives at the turn of the twentieth century in search of profit and control. It’s a chilling story, including cautionary elements about Leopold’s excellent press manipulation, as well as some significant heroes, including an African-American preacher/activist and a shipping accountant-turned-activist who noticed that cargoes weren’t going out with enough trade goods to account for the riches they brought back.

This book is a well written and often funny presentation about University teaching. The use of examples called “teachable moments” in the introduction sets the stage for the rest of the chapters. Everyone who has ever taught at the University level would be familiar with the situations and feelings presented, especially if they cared about their students actually learning! The following six chapters are each building on the idea of the difference in the objective versus subjective aspects of teaching. Or as some would describe it the science and the art of teaching. Chapter one is a sort of introspective about the craft (art) and the goals that professors set for themselves. One salient argument is about the idea of “covering material” or the “motivation to learn” material. The question can be stated "is there antithesis between covering and motivating?"

Chapter 2 takes a slightly different tack and one that again any professor is aware of or even any student at probably any level is aware of although may not be able to articulate –success is determined by who we are rather than what we do. The author looks at rubrics as being to routined for real learning to take place. Looking at “best teaching practices” may be only a short/temporary fix and could be seen relating to the objective/science of teaching. Lindsay might even suggest if you are not interested in the material or even the student to “fake it.”

In the very next chapter (3), the author seems to shift focus and seems to argue that teaching is not about personality. But learning and success may be heavily dependent on what we assign. This gives focus to what a professor thinks is important. We need to create that which excites.

Chapter 4 looks at the use of technology and the author admits to being both a technophobe as well as a luddite when technology is mentioned. Several interesting points of view concerning online classes and the ubiquitous PowerPoint slide decks are presented. He makes the point that technology consumes more time than it deserves.

Plagiarism and its reason is among the focal areas in Chapter 5. It is not enough to see what plagiarism is (through the examples provided) but to analyze why and to dig deeper in the various types. An appendix is provided on what plagiarism is and methods to help avoid it.

The last chapter is sort of a rehash of the many factors involved in the craft/art of teaching. The author seems to suggest that how we might approach changes in what we do colors anything and everything we do as professors. This discussion is only a beginning as we craft people need practice to become more perfect in our craft/art.

For any faculty member or administrator this would be a great professional development piece and could easily form the basis in community of practice seminars. I’d give it a big thumbs up for both the depth and sensitivity that is used as well as being well written and entertaining at the same time it is thought-provoking.

What I found most interesting were the insights shared here, from the student essays to the approach to various situations that came up in Academia that challenged the author's way of thinking. Thanks NetGalley for the eARC, this would be a great read for those who teach, who aspire to teach and in one way or another ask themselves questions about the craft of teaching at the university level.