Praise for Geeky Pedagogy

“Reading this book felt like I was talking about teaching with my smartest, most well-read, and funniest friend.” James M. Lang, author of Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning

“Geeky Pedagogy essentially helps one ask and answer the paired questions of ‘Who am I?,’ and knowing that, ‘How should I teach?’ Neuhaus offers a lens through which to ask and answer these questions plus much much more. It’s a wonderful tool for reflection, even for experienced instructors.” John Warner, author of The Writer’s Practice and Why They Can't Write

“An original take on pedagogy, this is an ideal pick for the recent PhD graduate who is suddenly thrust into teaching their first 101 course.” Naomi Toftness, Library Journal

“Every college professor should read this book. It is useful, accessible, lively, and humorous. It is not ideological or pedantic but is instead a practical guide to becoming a better professor for those of us who never desired to read a book about pedagogy.” David Arnold, Columbia Basin College

“It’s a sharp, slim, and entertaining volume that can make better teachers of us all.” Stephen Pipare, University of New Hampshire

Intellectuals and bookworms who want to translate their scholarly expertise into authentic student learning | Anyone weary of teaching tomes rife with impenetrable jargon and smug edicts | Introverts who want to better understand the social interactions of teaching and learning | Diverse and multidisciplinary faculty learning communities | Humanities faculty who appreciate good narrative writing | STEM faculty seeking an intellectually engaging approach to teaching and learning | Contingent faculty, women and non-binary faculty, and faculty of color fed up with scholarship of teaching and learning that does not acknowledge disparate teaching realities | Graduate students building pedagogical expertise | Mid-career faculty who want to renew and energize their teaching practices | Teaching and learning centers looking for accessible books that encourage pedagogical growth and reflection

A Note from the Author, Jessamyn Neuhaus

Published in the critically acclaimed West Virginia University Press series Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (edited by James M. Lang and Michelle D. Miller), Geeky Pedagogy is an evidence-based, multidisciplinary, pragmatic, highly readable guide to the process of learning and relearning how to be an effective college teacher. It advances the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) by synthesizing a large amount of research into five easy-to-remember categories of pedagogical activity: awareness, preparation, reflection, support, and practice. These are not consecutive steps but rather a new conceptual model that offers readers a practical framework for drawing on and utilizing a wide range of proven best practices for continuing to build their knowledge about effective teaching and learning throughout their career. 

This is the first college teaching guide that encourages college faculty to embrace their inner nerd and to view themselves and their teaching work in light of contemporary discourse that celebrates increasingly diverse geek culture. I argue that many people teaching college classes, including myself, are some combination of geek, introvert, and nerd (GIN), and that numerous aspects of effective teaching and learning are shaped by characteristics many professional intellectuals/GINS share. I also stress that every individual’s unique teaching context shapes how any one college teacher enacts effective pedagogy and fosters student learning. I pay close attention to the myriad ways that employment status (contingent, tenure-track, tenured), campus culture, and embodied and social identities shape teaching and learning.

By positioning myself as a proud nerd, I create a sense of a shared undertaking with my readers. Most SoTL authors hope to invite readers to join “the teaching commons” and to enter into a broader scholarly conversation about teaching. Yet they often undermine this goal by handing down rigid dictates from on high about teaching, as if the person writing for teachers is not a teacher themselves and someone who also has to constantly learn and relearn effective pedagogy! In contrast, throughout Geeky Pedagogy, I deliberately refer to “us” and “we” when discussing college teaching. I share some of my own biggest teaching fails and hard-won accomplishments, and emphasize that we need not feel alone and isolated in our classroom struggles and triumphs.

Geeky Pedagogy fosters every reader’s self-efficacy and confidence in the classroom by portraying effective teaching as an achievable goal for anyone who wants to be an effective teacher, deliberately counteracting stereotypes about naturally gifted super teachers. One of the main reasons I wrote this book is because so many otherwise excellent SoTL books laud so many superlative teachers and detail such an overwhelming number of exemplar teaching techniques that instead of inspiring me as an educator, they leave me wondering if I should just give up on ever helping anyone learn anything. In contrast, Geeky Pedagogy seeks to inspire teaching self-efficacy and to that end, I portray effective teaching as something every educator can learn how to do and must keep relearning how to do throughout their career.

Geeky Pedagogy is funny, encouraging, and real—like a snarky friend sitting beside you cracking jokes about the vicissitudes of academia while empowering you to use your big smart brain for effective college teaching. Let’s geek out together about pedagogy!