ABSTRACT
When Brookfield (1990) described teaching as “the educational equivalent of white-water rafting” (p. 2), he was referring to the emotional ups and downs that college faculty typically experience. Most veteran psychology teachers know exactly what he meant. We have all had days when our classroom is alive with the excitement of effective teaching and eager learning, as well as days when planned demonstrations and activities don’t work, when students are mystified by even the most carefully crafted lectures, and when the process of handing back exams turns ugly. Actually, we would take Brookfield’s metaphor a step further, because for most new psychology faculty, teaching is the equivalent of white-water rafting without a guide. As mentioned in Chapter 1, unlike our colleagues in elementary and secondary education, psychology faculty enter the classroom with little or no training in the theory and practice of teaching. We tend to teach by default, doing the best we can, and often following the examples (good and bad) set
by our own teachers. The results can be mixed, at best. As one observer bluntly put it, “Many faculty are not effective in the classroom because they don’t know what they are doing or why” (Weimer, 1988, p. 49).
