Book Review of Small Teaching by , James M. Lang,

Abstract

Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. By James M. Lang. 2016. Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-1118944493

I have read multiple books about teaching that are amazing, inspiring, and thought provoking…and make me feel like I need to do a major course overhaul to implement the concepts and suggestions provided. Even if these concepts and suggestions are backed up by a bibliography that takes up one-third of the book's page count, it is still discouraging to realize that I have to wait sometimes months to make changes. And then my initial enthusiasm starts to wear off over time as the semester progresses, my students do all right in my current course setup. Not to mention that I remember that summer, the best time for me to do this major course overhaul, is also when major grant cycles hit, the food science conference season ramps up, and a number of other tasks pop up. And then it is August, the semester is about to start, and I realize that all of these splendid course changes I was planning have to wait until I have more time to do something about them.

This book is different. This book lets you make changes to your course right now, even if you are super-busy, even if you have two weeks left in the semester, and even if your classes are so full of content that you have no idea how to fit anything else in.

Most books on teaching strategies focus on large teaching, or big changes you should make to your course that are generally supported by at least some literature. Small teaching, on the other hand, are small changes or quick activities that you can incorporate into any course to boost student learning. Lang compares teaching to baseball, which is where the “small” and “large” terms are derived. “Small ball” is a focus on just moving forward, getting runners on base, moving ahead one base at a time. It is not as flashy and exciting as someone hitting a grand slam, but it works. The same goes for teaching. Small teaching does not require an entire course overhaul, but it is effective in boosting student learning.

Lang divides the book into three main parts. The first part focuses on boosting student knowledge of course content and discusses retrieval of knowledge already learned, prediction of what will happen in a scenario, and immediately seeing if that prediction was accurate. It also covers interleaving concepts and skills, which involves presenting application problems or conceptual questions in a random order rather than the order in which a student learned the material. In the second part of the book, Lang discusses student understanding of the material. This involves having the students connect seemingly disparate pieces of knowledge into a cohesive whole, practicing their new knowledge and skills to build their fluency and mastery, and explaining course concepts in their own words to themselves and their peers. Lang focuses on inspiration of both students and instructors in the third part of the book. He discusses how to motivate student interest and engagement in the course material and how to encourage students to grow as learners. He also discusses how instructors can build their teaching and facilitation skills, encouraging them to be lifelong learners.

One of the things I loved about this book was how approachable the content was and how well everything was organized. Every chapter starts with an introduction of the topic, followed by a supporting pedagogical theory section for support. Next is my favorite section: models. Each chapter contained multiple detailed examples of how to use the concepts, which is great for instructors who like the idea but are not sure how to incorporate it into their course. So many seminars and books neglect this section, but just as our students are always clamoring for more and more example problems to help them understand and practice our course material, we should also ask for examples of how to make teaching and learning strategies work properly in our courses. The “working properly in our courses” is key here, and so Lang follows up the models with guiding principles for adoption of the strategies into any course. Knowing that readers are likely busy (and forgetful), Lang has a section called Quick Small Teaching that provides a summary of the key points of how to use the strategies in each chapter. Finally, each chapter ends with overall conclusions, summing up Lang's remaining thoughts on the chapter content.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in improving student learning in their course but does not feel like they have the time for a complete course overhaul or is wary about changing too much too fast. Many of the techniques, such as asking students at the beginning of class to remind you of what was covered in the last class or providing an example to show how the concepts in your class relate to a class students have previously taken or will take, require only a few minutes of time and can be dropped right into any course structure with few, if any, modifications to the course setup. Instructors who already use these techniques will likely find new or better ways to use them that are prompted by the examples provided. Additionally, Lang mentions multiple other books on educational learning during his discussion of the concepts, such as Make It Stick (Brown, 2014), What the Best College Teachers Do (Bain, 2004), and How Learning Works (Ambrose, Lovett, Bridges, DiPietro, & Norman, 2010). If you have already read these books, or any of the others Lang mentions, you will enjoy the tie-ins with the information in Small Teaching. If you have not read these books, consider this the start of (or addition to) your summer reading list.