R. Murray Thomas, former professor and dean emeritus of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School, along with Dr. Marie Iding, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and a Gevirtz School alumna, have published the book Drop that Chalk! A Guide to Better Teaching at Universities and Colleges. Sadly, Thomas passed away during the final edits of this book at age 95.
The book is based upon their many years of teaching in higher education, Iding’s work with pre-service and practicing teachers, and research and knowledge about educational psychology. It is designed to be useful for graduate students, new faculty members and anyone interested in improving instruction. Drop that Chalk is intended as a companion-piece to their previous book Becoming a Professor: A Guide to a Career in Higher Education.
Dr. R. Murray Thomas was emeritus professor of educational psychology at UCSB where he also directed a program on international education. He began his career as a teacher for Kamehameha Schools and Mid-Pacific Institute in the 1940s, when he also served as crime reporter for The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and wrote press releases for UHM’s School of Tropical Agriculture. He then earned his doctorate from Stanford University. His professional publications exceeded 400, including 57 books for which he served as author, coauthor, or editor. He taught and conducted cultural research in American Samoa, Indonesia, and the United States.
Dr. Marie Iding has served on the faculty of the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa since 1991, when she was awarded her doctorate from UCSB’s Department of Education. She also earned a MA degree in education from UCSB in 1989, and her BA from Loyola Marymount University. She has served as Guest Researcher in Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway in 2005 and as Visiting Professor at the Computational Social Science Laboratory in the Center for Applied Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark in 2011. Iding has written a number of articles regarding learning with multimedia and on-line learning, and has taught and conducted research in the Pacific region including Hawaii, American Samoa, and Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia.