A review by madgerdes
Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education by Kathleen F. Gabriel

informative medium-paced

3.75

Helpful enough - I appreciated that this book included numerous concrete strategies! For example, rather than just saying something like “have students assess their study habits at the beginning of the semester,” the book provided example activities and worksheets for this purpose. I’m not sure how well the chapter on specific learning styles holds up (I feel like I read an article about how OG learning style research tended to view learning styles through a deterministic lens, but maybe I’m imagining that), but the information in that chapter regarding ways to diversify activities to involve different types of learning still felt useful. The major flaw of this book wasn’t the content, but rather the fact that I’m reading it 17 years after it was published. Higher education classrooms have changed a lot in that time (especially post COVID and with the rise of generative AI), and maybe this is pessimistic of me but some of the strategies suggested in this book just don’t seem relevant anymore. I’m glad I read this though! I wish my graduate education contained more direct instruction on teaching and pedagogy, but this book did teach me a lot.