How to bounce back from teaching disasters? Snafu Edu might just have the answer

November 2025

Recommended by Anabel Livengood, Senior Educational Developer  

Neuhaus, J. (2025). Snafu Edu. Teaching and Learning When Things Go Wrong in the College Classroom. The University of Oklahoma Press. 

As she reminds us: “Teaching effectively is an ongoing process of accruing new knowledge, trying new things, assessing the result, reflecting on what worked well and what didn’t, revising your pedagogical practice, and repeat.” (p. 83) Snafu Edu helps you to do exactly that – it encourages you to reflect on your teaching practice and to build onto your own already existing teaching strategies. In her book, Neuhaus identifies five major root causes of classroom snafus (inequity, disconnection, distrust, failure, and fear), analyzes why and how they might negatively impact both our teaching experience as well as the learning experience of our students, and provides repair strategies for each of these areas.  

I want to leave you with two mini pieces of advice from her book. First: Surround yourself with fellow educators who you can have those conversations with when things don’t go as planned. Why? Teaching is not, contrary to popular belief, a solitary undertaking, and building our own village of instructors we can confide in and seek advice from is crucial for our own well-being and professional development. And secondly, remember to STIR – Stop, Think, Identify, Repair when you find yourself in an unpleasant teaching situation (no worries, she explains this strategy in detail). So, I hope you will find Snafu Edu helpful for when (not if!) it becomes necessary to pull in additional advice and it will help you to continue creating classrooms in which equity, connections, trust, success, and agency are thriving.  

To access the full collection of teaching-related recommendations, visit CFC’s We Recommend.

McGuire, S. Y. (2023). Teach students how to learn: Strategies you can incorporate into any course to improve student metacognition, study skills, and motivation. 

The suggestions in her book cover a wide range of topics:   

• identifying where and how students formed their current study habits,  
• developing a growth mindset that embraces challenges and mistakes as learning opportunities,  
• teaching students specific strategies for reading textbooks effectively,  
• showing students how to approach and work through assignments systematically, 
• creating study groups that follow the proven study cycle method,  
• connecting course content to Bloom’s taxonomy levels,  
• understanding different teaching styles and how they affect student learning,  
• as well as developing strategies for underprepared students by adapting teaching methods to meet varying skill levels and backgrounds. 

While Saundra McGuire’s tips were written from the perspective of teaching STEM courses, lessons learned apply to all courses. If you have ever asked yourself, “How can I support my students’ learning?”, this book is for you!  

To access the full collection of teaching-related recommendations, visit CFC’s We Recommend.

Norell, E. A. (2024). The Present Professor. The University of Oklahoma Press.

Norell reminds us that our presence in the classroom – our ability to be grounded, authentic, and fully engaged – can make all the difference for our students. But being present isn’t just about showing up with good slides or a clear syllabus. It’s about doing the inner work: noticing the insecurities, stresses, and habits we’ve learned to hide in academic spaces that often reward knowledge over vulnerability. By addressing those inner struggles, we create more room for teaching that really transforms students – and, honestly, transforms us too. 

What I appreciate most about this book is that it doesn’t stop with theory. Norell offers practical strategies and research-backed insights that help us think critically about what presence looks like in our own teaching. For anyone wrestling with how to make their classroom more inclusive and supportive, her message is refreshingly simple: if we want students to feel safe and empowered to learn, we have to give ourselves that same permission. 

In a time when higher education feels stretched and uncertain, The Present Professor reads like both a guide and a companion. It encourages us to take a breath, to look inward, and to remember that the best teaching begins with the person we bring into the room. 

To access the full collection of teaching-related recommendations, visit CFC’s We Recommend.

Chambers, B. (2021). A psalm for the wild-built (First ed.). Tordotcom, a Tom Doherty Associates Book. 

To access the full collection of teaching-related recommendations, visit CFC’s We Recommend.