Ronald Barnett and Svana Bjarnason offer some summer reading to teach you a lesson

How do subject specialists - often unfamiliar with educational theory and practice - come to understand more about their role as teachers, responsible for facilitating student learning? How do they work through the educational jargon?

What follows is an aide memoire for those new to teaching and those with considerably more experience who are critically examining their teaching practices.

Numerous books, journals and other publications about research and practical guides are on offer. It would be rash to suggest that those selected here form the Great Books list. What they do provide is an entree to contemporary thinking and practice, and offer a relatively balanced perspective between theory and practice.

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• Learning to Teach in Higher Education

Grounded in empirical research, it focuses on understanding student learning while addressing the key question: how to teach to enhance student learning?

Chapters on a broad range of topics follow a logical sequence from understanding the basis of teaching and learning, through to design strategies for effective learning and assessing for understanding. Brief case studies provide insight into how one might improve teaching in higher education.

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• Rethinking University Teaching: a framework for the effective use of educational technology

Laurillard argues for a change in perspective and approach to the design, development and implementation of educational technologies.

The book is far from being steeped in technological jargon (although at times it can be quite dense). It provides a thoughtful and insightful perspective on the ways in which technological media might play a role in developing the student experience. Part two identifies the various media predominantly in use. Not simply a reference text for those keen on new technologies, it presents a cogent analysis and application of theory in both teaching and learning.

• Effective Teaching in Higher Education

Brown and Atkins address issues including laboratory work which is not always included in other works. Each chapter provides a theoretical underpinning of the topic at hand, ranging from lecturing skills to project supervision, as well as providing a series of activities to help teachers develop their own skills in the areas in question. Ample sign-posting allows readers to easily dip in to those sections of most interest to themselves.

• Improving Student Learning: theory and practice

The content is drawn from a symposium which included professional researchers, teachers and educational developers. This diversity is reflected in the 16 chapters, providing insight into issues such as assessment and student learning, learning on professional courses and course design for improved learning.

• Learning to Effect

This edited book provides a comprehensive look at the relationships between curriculum development and change as they relate to student learning.

It covers curriculum changes from four perspectives: institutional, professional, course and national. Contributing authors provide a critical review of various initiatives involving curriculum change, and consider issues such as professional education, course design, and credit accumulation and transfer.

• Transferable Skills in Higher Education

Along with the advent of mass education has come the idea of transferable skills. This book provides helpful case studies from a variety of disciplines using projects involving profiling.

Curriculum issues are also addressed specifically through approaches which enhance transferable skills development. This is largely a practical book but it also offers much insight into the debate around competence-based skills and their place in higher education.

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• Changing the Higher Education Curriculum

It is often easy to lose sight of "grey publications" - works published as booklets or reports but not as books. This is one that deserves a wider audience.

It provides case studies and a critique of three Open University courses which incorporated National Council for Vocational Qualifications core skills as a primary focus. The process is outlined in detail, which provides a step-by-step analysis of the thinking and actions behind the introduction of curricula studies in higher education.

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• Assessment for Learning in Higher Education

This edited publication is mainly based on presentations given at a SEDA conference in 1994 and draws on assessment theory, but is presented in an accessible style.

It is a practical book with short, sharp chapters addressing specific aspects of assessment including that of seminar work and issues relating to learning contracts.

As implied in the title of the book, the premise of the work is that assessment should build and contribute to student learning.

Other helpful guides are found in a practical series provided through the Bristol Technical and Education Services.

Written primarily by Graham Gibbs, Sue and Trevor Habshaw, the "53 Interesting Things'' series include things to do in your lectures, things to do in seminars and tutorials, and ways to assess your students.

Another such series, offered through the Kogan Page imprint, goes under the theme of "500 tips''. It includes tips for research students, teachers, tutors and on assessment. The authors are Sally Brown, Phil Race and Brenda Smith.

Of equal importance to those embarking on the profession, and certainly to those who have been teaching for longer, are the journals which are directly related to teaching and learning in higher education.

The Society for Research into Higher Education provides two volumes under the Carfax imprint. These are Studies in Higher Education and Research into Higher Education Abstracts.

The first presents a broad perspective on higher education including a significant book review section, while the latter provides a regular survey of the international periodicals relevant to theory and practice in higher education.

Another, relatively new, publication is Teaching in Higher Education, again a Carfax journal, which began publication in 1996.

Ronald Barnett is professor of higher education and dean of professional development at the Institute of Education. Svana Bjarnason is an independent research consultant in higher education and a doctoral student at the University of London.