Thank you for your interest in this reading discussion. We have reached maximum registration. If you would like to buy your own book (or use the open source ebook online) and participate, please email Karen Spira at spirak@wfu.edu.

Joy-Centered Pedagogy in Higher Education (2025) features a collection of 15 essays about the role that joy, playfulness, curiosity, laughter, and fun play in the college classroom. Focusing on topics as diverse as joyful silence, embodied learning, unlearning failure, and student-authored stand-up comedy, the volume offers inspiration and practical guidance for reorienting teaching around joy in order to become more welcoming, inclusive, effective, and fulfilled instructors.

Let’s meet to discuss and experiment with joy as a unique lens for understanding teaching and learning.

This book group will meet six times this semester on Wednesdays (1/28, 2/11, 2/18, 2/25, 3/4, & 3/18) from 3:30-4:30 pm in ZSR 665 (Faculty Commons Classroom inside the Faculty Commons space in the ZSR Wilson Wing). We will provide the book for the first 15 registrants. These discussions are very popular so we ask that you register only if you are available to attend all sessions.