Teaching What You Don't Know

By Therese Huston

Book Overview

Your graduate work was on bacterial evolution, but now you're lecturing to 200 freshmen on primate social life. You've taught Kant for twenty years, but now you're team-teaching a new course on "Ethics and the Internet." The personality theorist retired and wasn't replaced, so now you, the neuroscientist, have to teach the "Sexual Identity" course. Everyone in academia knows it and no one likes to admit it: faculty often have to teach courses in areas they don't know very well. The challenges are even greater when students don't share your cultural background, lifestyle, or assumptions about how to behave in a classroom.

In this practical and funny book, an experienced teaching consultant offers many creative strategies for dealing with typical problems. How can you prepare most efficiently for a new course in a new area? How do you look credible? And what do you do when you don't have a clue how to answer a question?

Encouraging faculty to think of themselves as learners rather than as experts, Therese Huston points out that authority in the classroom doesn't come only, or even mostly, from perfect knowledge. She offers tips for introducing new topics in a lively style, for gauging students' understanding, for reaching unresponsive students, for maintaining discussions when they seem to stop dead, and -yes- for dealing with those impossible questions.

Original, useful, and hopeful, this book reminds you that teaching what you don't know, to students whom you may not understand, is not just a job. It's an adventure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674066170
• ISBN13: 9780674066175
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Fresh Perspective: Illuminating and Energizing

Therese Huston has sculpted a gift for every teacher in every discipline and field of study. Her profiles and case studies cover the complete continuum of experience, ranging from the first-term instructor to the most seasoned veteran. I also found her book to be illuminating for approaching material we do know with a fresh perspective. Indeed, this material can be very helpful for teaching courses instructors have taught many times before, primarily because (as was once said of General Motors) "nothing fails like success." New findings, changes in the economic/political/social environment, and changing student demographics all reinforce the need to look at every teaching assignment with "beginner's mind" rather than as a comfortable veteran. Therese Huston's book is an energizing experience that all teachers should read and discuss with colleagues.

One of the best books on college teaching

Therese Huston has written one of the best books on teaching in higher education. She synthesizes diverse research to offer practical advice and to ask provocative questions. She also writes beautifully, making this an unusually thoughtful book that is a pleasure to read. My only quibble is that the title might lead some faculty to think this book is not for them. That's unfortunate because this book should be widely read by faculty. As Huston explains, many of us occasionally teach on the boundaries of our expertise, and all of us teach students who we don't fully know.

Great way to turn adversity to advantage -- and prevent early burnout, midcareer brownout or latecar

What a pleasure it is to read Huston's work. Besides the accessible writing style and funny wit, I'm pleasantly shocked to learn my ignorance can actually help my students, as I can share "the fervor of the uninformed." But then there are concrete ways to compensate, like scheduling the syllabus to let me start from my strengths. It's also packed with concrete classroom methods like the three-way interview, where students make connections between content and their personal experience. But even more important, the whole book is undergirded by solid research and principles. Like how most students learn not by hearing first about theory, but by first experiencing some dramatic encounter--whether with facts, visuals or a "live" experience. From there, you weave in technical terms and theories and give them practice at using them in life. I'm recommending this book not only to all new faculty, but to anyone concerned about midcareer brownout or late career rustout. It's bound to prompt change--and joy!

Reassuring, strategic, and delighfully written

This one of very few academic books that wasn't written so turgidly that I had to reread passages to understand them. In fact, the book is hard to put down. Huston has a delightful writing style. Take special note of Chapter 6, in which Huston describes the Millennial Generation in a balanced way and (gently) drives home the point that we academics are the oddballs, not our students. If you are teaching outside of your specialized areas, this book will calm your anxieties--Huston will point out the pedagogical advantages you hold over the seasoned expert--and give you intelligent strategies for tackling the task ahead.

Witty, thoughtfully written and insightful at every page turn!

A must-read for anyone teaching what they don't know, what they used to know, or what they think they ought to know. The author assures us that if you find yourself in this predicament, you are far from alone! The practical tips, appealing examples, and witty, approachable style of the prose will leave you feeling like you've spent an hour at tea with a close mentor. Highly recommend!