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Burtchaell, James Tunstead. (1998).
Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities
from Their Christian Churches.
Grand Rapids, MI : William B. Eerdmans.
This book is mostly history, as Burtchaell visits 17 college of 7
different denominations to chronicle their religious life. He chooses
to concentrate on major denominations: Congregationalists,
Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics and
Evangelicals; picking at least two colleges for each. The
author does a remarkably thorough job, looking not just at
the administrative decisions the colleges made but also at
the student and professorial life of the campuses. His essays
about each campus, while following a roughly chronological
format, do not follow a single framework which would facilitate
comparison.
In a final chapter Burtchaell attempts to pull together the
lessons this exercise has provided. He points out that many
church affiliated schools were not founded so much to advance
religious beliefs as to provide an education for the children
of believers. He emphasized the poor quality of the religious
education many of these schools provided. Many did not integrate
religious studies into the curriculum, but treated religion as a
separate discipline, studied in isolation if at all. Burtchaell
makes clear that he finds the weakening of bonds between church
and college unfortunate, and hopes that his research will lead
readers to the in-depth analysis he feels is necessary to
reverse the trend.
Pages: 806
Price: $45.00
ISBN: 0-8028-3828-6
Reviewed by Kate Corby, Michigan State University
Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail our Children.
(1999). New York, NY : Marlowe.
With page after page of tabular data showing gender differences on
course-taking, standardized tests, sports participation and college
plans, Gender Gaps is less readable that its predecessor How
Schools Shortchange Girls (1992). In Gender Gaps, an AAUW
Educational
Foundation team takes the recommendations of the earlier report and looks
for progress in the intervening six years. It also looks at emerging issues
such as technology in the classroom and American demographic changes that
bring larger numbers of some ethnic and racial groups into the schools.
As did the 1992 report, this volume includes an extensive bibliography
(22 pages) of research relevant to girls and education, in this case
published in the last six years. Anyone interested in issues related
to girls in schools will find this a valuable synthesis of current
research.
Pages: 208
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 1056924-665-3
Reviewed by Kate Corby, Michigan State University
Gilkey, Susan N. & Carla H. Hunt. (1998).
Teaching Mathematics in the Block.
Larchmont, NY : Eye on Education.
Eye on Education publishes a number of books on block scheduling.
Teaching Mathematics in the Block is one of the first to focus
on a single subject. Choosing one of the "boring" subjects that students
find hard to love, even in 50-minute intervals, is a good test of the
block scheduling concept. The results are mixed.
In their preface, authors Gilkey and Hunt admit that their original
goal of presenting "ideas, possibilities, reproducible masters,
resources—anything and everything," was unattainable within
the covers of a
single work. They chose to organize the book conceptually, from broad
to specific. They begin with a brief discussion of the pros and cons
of block scheduling in general and move on to curriculum planning,
lesson plans, instructional strategies, technology, and assessment.
Appendices offer more lesson/lab plans, resources, websites, and
references. The enthusiasm and experience of the authors is evident
throughout, there are basic suggestions and innovative ideas. They include
many of their favorite strategies, some going back into the 1980s. Overall
the book has a kind of hodgepodge feel.
There is little transition between sections and different math levels
and courses are discussed throughout. A suggestion for a typical
geometry session might be followed by a sample algebra activity, forcing
the reader to switch gears to put the suggestions in context. There
is a detailed Table of Contents, but no index. The authors aim to
impart an overall understanding rather than specific strategies, but
readers are apt to tie their understanding to the specific example and
be frustrated when they cannot quickly find the information within
the complex structure. In short, the authors may still be trying to do
too much in one book, leaving too much of the work of integration to the
reader.
Pages: 186
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 1-883001-51-x
Reviewed by Kate Corby, Michigan State University
Schwartz, James E. and Robert J. Beichner (1999).
Essentials of Educational Technology.
Needham Heights, MA : Allyn & Bacon.
This book begins with a very basic overview of the types of
technology that have proved helpful in the classroom: spread sheets,
word processers, graphics and Internet connectivity. It then goes
on to look at how these technologies might be utilized in specific
types of classroom: social studies, science, math, and language arts.
By necessity, each of these sections is brief and generic. There are
no specific software recommendations or details of implementation. This
means that the text might serve as a sort of "consciousness raising"
exercise for those not technologically literate, but it would not be
adequate to permit readers to formulate an action plan and begin to
utilize a new technology. It's not clear just who would find this
book ideal. The authors
aim it at pre-service teachers and faculty development for in-service
teachers, but either group would require substantial additional
materials to truly begin to use technology in the classroom.
That noted, there are aspects to the book that add value beyond
the practical content. The book is built around an overarching
discussion of the "Delta principle," the authors' name
for the progressive influence of new technologies from facilitating
existing tasks, to doing new tasks, and finally to reconceptualizing
the task—doing things in ways that would not be possible without the
new technology. This concept could be used to effectively introduce
the importance of new technologies to resistant established teachers.
Some of the examples the authors use, such as automobiles or the printed
word, are excellent vehicles for making this point forcefully.
Pages: 212
Price: $24.00
ISBN: 0-205-27700-4
Reviewed by Kate Corby, Michigan State University
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