Throwback: Higher Teaching: A Handbook for New Post-secondary Faculty by John Oughton

Higher Teaching: A Handbook for New Post-secondary Faculty by John Oughton is a reference book distilled from the author’s years of experience teaching at the post-secondary level. Initially, Oughton’s motivation in teaching was fairly pedestrian, believing that, “You just do your classes and they leave you alone otherwise. You can write poetry when you’re not teaching.” However, somewhere along the line, “[he] realized what a privilege this job is. I could support, influence, and sometimes inspire a couple of hundred people every year.” Oughton’s desire to improve his effectiveness as an educator by actively pursuing knowledge and the skills required to hone his craft to greater effectiveness is the personal process he intends to share with other educators. Higher Teaching is therefore meant as a reference tool for those new to the profession.

The author addresses eighteen specific topics in his handbook that are divided between “Practice and Theory,” and “Background.” His chapters encompass the broad panoply of items he considers essential knowledge for the uninitiated. While teachers in the K-12 public education system are required to complete teacher training at faculties of education that include mandatory in-class instruction as modelled by master teachers, Oughton’s book is intended as a “how-to” primer for those walking into the classroom with no formal teacher preparation. As such, the book serves a very particular audience with a specific mandate – to improve the classroom work of post-secondary instructors. Yet at the same time, there are basic “just good teaching” pointers included in this volume that might serve as a useful reminder to instructors at any level.

Oughton does not condemn the “mixed-bag” faculty offerings but instead offers a way forward for any individual choosing to improve their performance.

Traditionally, the halls of academe were filled with those primarily interested in their own research, but who accept teaching responsibilities as the price of admission, so to speak, to the venerable tenured career path on college and university campuses. Such individuals may condescend to teach their students from the lofty heights of their own superior and much-elevated status. And while some may be naturally gifted, even inspirational instructors, others merely pass on information. Oughton does not condemn the “mixed-bag” faculty offerings but instead offers a way forward for any individual choosing to improve their performance.

The importance of the course outline forms the first chapter. Oughton outlines the ways in which a
course outline is critical to an instructor’s day-to-day success and unpacks several strategies for
achieving this. He also includes a timely and cautionary note:

In these litigious times, it’s important to recognize that the outline is also a kind of contract
between the student on the one hand, and the institutions and teacher on the other… Graduates have sued after they began a job and then were told they would either have to be let go, or at least retrained, because they couldn’t adequately perform one or more of these outcomes that they supposedly had mastered.

Chapters follow on meeting a first class, teaching strategies, lesson planning and online teaching. Also covered are classroom management, teacher presence, instructional tools, managing groups,
assessment and evaluation, academic integrity, what to do to keep a teaching job and how to
consistently improve one’s instructional performance. Through it all, Oughton has thoughtfully
compiled notes on the many aspects of the teaching profession. Sage advice accumulated over many years in the trenches is the hallmark of this book. For instance, boundary issues are addressed in the chapter on classroom management. Acknowledging, for example, that adult students can be vulnerable just as children can, he offers the following:

Students you develop some rapport with – especially those who feel isolated, or unsupported at home – may divulge problems with relationships, finances, visa status, abuse, and addiction. Listen, if you have time, but caution them that you cannot help with these issues; that is a counsellor’s job. Refer them to the appropriate person or office, and walk them there if they are in crisis.

The over-arching meta-narrative for this text has to do with intentionality. Oughton is intentional in his quest to improve his skills as an instructor, and is equally purposeful in the blueprint he has devised for those who wish to benefit from his experience. A commendable resource for new teachers touching upon key aspects of the job. Recommended.

John Oughton lives in Toronto and has retired as Professor of Learning and Teaching at Centennial College in Toronto. He is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Counting Out the Millennium, the mystery novel Death by Triangulation, and over 400 articles, reviews and interviews. John’s studies include an MA in English Literature, where his teachers included Irving Layton, Frank Davey, Eli Mandel and Miriam Waddington, and non-credit courses at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where he worked with Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs and Robert Duncan. John is the a long-time member of the Long Dash Poetry Group. He is also a photographer and guitar player.

Publisher: Guernica Editions (April 1, 2021)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 150 pages
ISBN: 9781771835954

Lucy E. M. Black

Website

Lucy E.M. Black (she/her/hers) is the author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, Eleanor Courtown, Stella’s Carpet and The Brickworks. Her new short story collection, Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth will be released October 2024. Her award-winning short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada. She is a dynamic workshop presenter, experienced interviewer and freelance writer. She lives with her partner in the small lakeside town of Port Perry, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island, First Nations.