A new book from Maryellen Weimer is always going to stimulate rewarding reflection on teaching. She is one of the most respected names in faculty development, the author of Improving Your College Teaching, co-editor of Teaching on Solid Ground: Using Scholarship to Improve Practice and long-time editor of the Teaching Professor newsletter.

Learner-Centered Teaching strikes a just balance between nobility of purpose and elevation of aspiration, on the one hand, and recognition of the real world we live in, on the other. Weimer is a practicing teacher, an exception to the generalization she offers about teaching development: "Those who do the research tend not to be faculty who daily face passive students who are taking required courses." She teaches speech communications at a regional university in Pennsylvania.

The five changes referred to in the title are: the balance of power in the classroom; the function of content; the role of the teacher; the responsibility for learning; and evaluation purposes and processes. The first of these is the most important (since the others follow from it) and the most challenging to faculty members. It challenges us to hand over a considerable amount of the power we wield in classrooms to our learners. Weimer begins with a summary of the reasons why, according to them (us), faculty continue to exercise power over students: (1) "students cannot be trusted to make decisions about learning"; (2) "faculty make the decisions about student learning because we always have"; (3) "we are motivated to control because teaching makes us vulnerable." But she points out that students make the most important decision: whether to learn.

As she points out later on, we have created a climate in which students need not take the initiative to learn, since we

rely (now almost exclusively) on extrinsic motivators to move them to action. We use regular quizzes to keep them up with the reading, extra credit points for looking up a reference, bonus points if all the homework problems are correct, and a check plus for every contribution in class. Our classrooms are now token economies where nobody does anything if there are not some points proffered.

One reason we continue to use these motivators is because in some sense they "work"; but, she asks, "are they creating intellectually mature, responsible, motivated learners-ones who when they receive an assignment can analyze it, break it into a set of separate tasks, move to complete those steps in a timely manner, and deliver a quality product? Are they effectively piquing student curiosity?"

The author goes on to offer suggestions for how we can change the balance of power in our classrooms. These are followed by more wisdom, including thoughts on the all-important issue of evaluation. In an appendix she includes a sample of a syllabus and learning log she uses in her own Speech Communications class, some "handouts that develop learning skills," and an extensive annotated reading list.

I appreciated the explanation (in a chapter called "Responding to Resistance") of how she responded to a student who wasn't happy about a learner-centered pedagogy and the assignments that operationalize it: "My goal is to design a course that promotes learning-a lot of learning, deep, enduring learning, and learning about the learning process. I understand that this is more work for students. I could tell you all the answers, but how does that prepare you for the future when you will be expected to figure things out on your own?" I appreciated equally the nuts and bolts-the specific assignments and the facts drawn from educational research. For instance: a 1996 study of 231 class sessions found that 28 percent of the students made 89 percent of the comments.

For anyone who has been persuaded by the argument, frequently and eloquently made in recent years, that we must change our paradigm to move its focus from teaching to learning, this book will provide two valuable things: further intelligent explanation of why that paradigm shift is the right course for higher education; and a direct and useful exploration of the consequences for the normal American university classroom.

Merritt Moseley
UNC Asheville