What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain

Product Details

Synopsis

What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators.

The short answer is—it's not what teachers do, it's what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out—but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn.

In stories both humorous and touching, Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students' discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

Library Journal

For more than 25 years, college faculty have questioned how to become more effective teachers. Much of the support for their efforts to improve has come from centers for teaching excellence such as those that Bain has directed at institutions including Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, and New York University. Drawing on interviews with more than 60 exemplary college teachers from a number of disciplines and a variety of institutions, Bain identifies personal characteristics, pedagogical practices, assessment techniques, and other individual and institutional elements that can help anyone with a commitment to teaching and learning to become a more effective college teacher. In works such as Improving College Teaching and Learner-Centered Teaching, Maryellen Weimer has addressed the popular "myth" that good teachers are "born, not made." Like Weimer, Bain demonstrates that disciplined attention to relevant research and to effective practice can help scholars in any field become better teachers. Providing insight into how teachers can help students demonstrate significant gains in learning in a variety of ways, this volume will be of interest to any member of the college faculty. Recommended for all academic collections.-Scott Walter, Washington State Univ., Pullman Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Ken Bain is Vice Provost for Instruction, Professor of History, and Director of the Teaching and Learning Resource Center at Montclair State University.