With more than 250 books, articles, and other items listed, most with short annotations of one or two sentences, WikiPODia’s Annotated Bibliography on Academic Development in Higher Education presents one of the most impressive lists available of articles and books on teaching, learning, and faculty development.

Two particularly notable items on the list are shorter bibliographies (also available on WikiPODia) on Book Recommendations on College Teaching and Teaching/Learning Community Reading List, which should prove useful for those looking for readings beyond our core readings and more core readings lists.

Sections of the bibliography cover Academic Development Centers and Instructional, Professional, and Organizational Development. Subsections deal with Learning Theories, Definitions of Good Teaching, Scholarship of/on Teaching and Learning (SOTL), and a dozen or so other topics. The bibliography would be a good stop for those looking for research in these areas.

Even without a specific research agenda in mind, it should prove worthwhile to take a few minutes to browse the entire list in order to find a few articles or books to read in full (perhaps mentally tucking titles away to return to later), if not just to see the range and focus of work included.

Going a step further and reading select annotations may offer a few insights. Consider, for instance, the following nuggets (quotes from bibliography, not the sources described):

• faculty who take steps to improve their teaching may change their practices and beliefs less than they think they do (Polich 2007);
• the famous “Bloom’s taxonomy” has been thoroughly assessed and updated in the twenty-first century (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001);
• “caring about learners and learning is the most important characteristic” in effective teaching (Murray 1995);
• “faculty work long hours” (Meyer 1998);
• institutional efforts to improve the standing of teaching probably won’t work unless “tied to real changes in the reward structure” (Wolverton 1998); and
• those preparing doctoral students to be professors “must prepare these students for roles, responsibilities, and challenges that may be very different from their own” (Austin 2002).

The bibliography was put together by members of POD (the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education), one of the most important organizations in North America for supporting teaching and learning in higher education. WikiPODia, where the list is hosted, is one of POD’s venues for sharing resources, along with its Listserv and Conference.

Hat tip to Dakin Burdick for pointing out the bibliography on the POD Listserv