New Books in Education

Teachers are subject matter experts that can distill information into manageable chunks for their students. In Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience  [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780226839677](University of Chicago Press, 2025), Dr. James M. Lang insists that the skills teachers use in their classrooms can be transferred to a broader audience. This book provides a step-by-step guide to assist would-be authors in researching and developing a book. Teachers are familiar with creating a course syllabus and developing learning objectives. Dr. Lang posits that these skills can help create a book for audiences outside one’s subject matter expertise. He provides insight into the technical aspects of writing, including organization, writing style, and revision. By providing writing prompts at the end of each chapter, Dr. Lang provides the prospective author the opportunity to immediately begin his/her/their own writing journey. The book concludes with an appendix that provides a behind the scenes look at the publishing process. This is a must read for anyone interested in enhancing their writing, learning about the many parts of the publishing process, and hoping to provide their expertise to a larger audience. In addition to Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience, Dr. Lang is the author of Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2020), Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016) Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013), and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching (Harvard UP, 2008). He has written extensively for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Dr. Lang serves as an editor to the Oklahoma University Press, is a highly sought-after speaker, and consultant. He is active on LinkedIn and Instagram and may be contacted directly at jamesmlang7@gmail.com [jamesmlang7@gmail.com]. Dr. Anne-Marie Verenna is a Professor of Biology and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellow at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education]

In Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781478030539] (Duke University Press, 2024), Jennifer R. Nájera explores the intersections of education and activism among undocumented students at the University of California, Riverside. Taking an expansive view of education, Nájera shows how students’ experiences in college—both in and out of the classroom—can affect their activism and advocacy work. Students learn from their families, communities, peers, and student and political organizations. In these different spaces, they learn how to navigate community and college life as undocumented people. Students are able to engage campus organizations where they can cultivate their leadership skills and—importantly—learn that they are not alone. These students embody and mobilize their education through both large and small political actions such as protests, workshops for financial aid applications, and Know Your Rights events. As students create community with each other, they come to understand that their individual experiences of illegality are part of a larger structure of legal violence. This type of education empowers students to make their way to and through college, change their communities, and ultimately assert their humanity. Jennifer R. Nájera is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. David-James Gonzales [https://history.byu.edu/directory/david-james-gonzales] (DJ) is Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He is a historian of migration, urbanization, and social movements in the U.S., and specializes in Latina/o/x politics and social movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education]

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781682539224], (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students’ critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno’s groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler [https://christinagessler.com/], who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom [https://newbooksnetwork.com/teaching-about-race-and-racism-in-the-college-classroom#entry:103132@1:url] Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice [https://newbooksnetwork.com/transforming-hispanic-serving-institutions-for-equity-and-justice#entry:215429@1:url] We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States [https://newbooksnetwork.com/we-are-not-dreamers-undocumented-scholars-theorize-undocumented-life-in-the-united-states#entry:205111@1:url] Presumed Incompetent [https://newbooksnetwork.com/how-to-deal-with-structural-inequality#entry:39410@1:url] Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. [https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/up-partners/academic-life] And thank you for listening! Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award , and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education]

In his new book, The Community College Reform Movement: Contentions and Ideological Origins [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781032601380] (Routledge, 2025), political scientist Milton Clarke critically examines the rise of the higher education reform movement, often referred to as the “completion agenda,” which, since the early 2000s, has sought to restructure core aspects of the community college experience. Drawing on community colleges from across nine U.S. states as practical examples, this exploration examines the major higher education reforms, including dual enrollment, guided pathways, the demise of developmental education, corequisites, and performance-based funding. Against the popular view that support for such policies is tied to neoliberalism, this book argues for a more nuanced understanding of the complicated and often indistinct ideological foundation of the reform movement, demonstrating that supporters and detractors alike draw on similar concepts of equity, student success, and affordability. This complication is further clarified through an account of the history, process, functions, and institutions that paved the way for the advent of the higher education reform movement. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in the future of community colleges and higher education. A special resonance is expected among researchers, scholars, and educators working in higher education, educational reform, and educational policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education]

In The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780262551694] (MIT Press, 2025), Elliot Lichtman will teach you some of computer science’s most powerful concepts in a refreshingly accessible way: exploring them through word games, board games, and strategy games you already know. Learn recursion by playing tic-tac-toe, efficient search through puzzle games like sudoku and Wordle, and machine learning by way of the playground classic rock-paper-scissors. Finish the book, and you’ll come away with not only a deeper understanding of these foundational programming techniques but also a new appreciation for the amazing feats that can be accomplished using simple, readable code. Elliot Lichtman started teaching online classes in computer science when he was a freshman in high school. Small classes quickly grew into a series of larger and longer offerings, and from those, this book was born. Elliot is currently a junior at Yale University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education]