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What the Best College Teachers Do By Ken Bain ( Harvard University Press )
Release Date: 2004-04-30
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List Price: $24.50
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Product Description
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. (20040315)
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 An Amazing Book ( kschulte12 )
This book is excellent for all teachers, in grades K-12, not just college teachers. It gets at the essential elements of great teaching and teachers. I have given it to many of the teachers at my school.
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WHAT THE BEST COLLEGE TEACHERS SHOULD READ ( gfiero )
If you are a seasoned educator looking to improve your classroom performance and get greater academic results from your students, this book is for you. If you are a new teacher who would like to get on the right track to teaching success - without having to endure the painful learning curve that most teachers go through, this book is for you.
The book's author, Ken Bain, set out with the objective of capturing the collective scholarship of some of the most outstanding teachers in the United States with surveys and interviews that helped him document what they do, and how they think in an effort to conceptualize their practices. He defines "outstanding" teachers as those teachers who have achieved remarkable success in helping their students think, act and feel.
The conclusion of the book is directed to people who teach, but will benefit students and their parents as well. "What The Best College Teachers Do" should be required reading for all teachers (young/old or new/seasoned) who not only want to get better, but to become outstanding in their field.
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Teaching is harder than it looks. ( joan@independentreader.com )
Brief Summary: Ken Bain and his colleagues conducted a fifteen-year study of outstanding teachers from a variety of disciplines at two dozen institutions. The teachers they chose to study had all achieved remarkable success in helping their students make sustained, substantial and positive changes in the way they think, act and learn. The study looked at how good teachers prepare, what they expect from their students, how they conduct a class, how they treat their students, how they evaluate their students and themselves, and how they understand how students learn, and then play to those strengths.
There were several recurring practices and beliefs that seemed to be shared by the best teachers. They are looking to foster deep and lasting learning, rather than a kind of surface learning in which students remember something just long enough to pass the exam. They are learners themselves, constantly trying to improve their technique. They provide a safe environment which allows students to struggle and question new ideas. They plan their course backwards, beginning with the results they hope to achieve. They provide their students with clear and realistic goals. When their students have difficulty, they look for problems with their course rather than with their students. They make their classes as relevant as possible. Most importantly, good teachers seem to share the belief that teaching only occurs when learning takes place.
Sample Excerpt :Understanding that every student is an individual, the best teachers know that no single approach can work for all of them. As one teacher in the study said, "You don't teach a class. You teach a student." Bain further explains, "Simply put, the best teachers believe that learning involves both personal and intellectual development and that neither the ability to think nor the qualities of being a mature human being are immutable. People can change, and those changes - not just the accumulation of information - represent true learning. More than anything else this central set of beliefs distinguishes the most effective teachers from many of their colleagues."
Primary Strength: If a person was lucky, she might have five outstanding teachers in her lifetime who she would strive to emulate. Yet when I try to put my finger on the "what" and the "how" of what my outstanding teachers did, those qualities are elusive. But when I read this book, those great teachers of mine came to mind and I found myself thinking, "Yeah, they did that." Bain has taken on the herculean task of studying hundreds of successful teachers and then finding their common denominator, thus allowing each of us to study what the masters have in common and incorporating those skills into our own personal style.
Primary Weakness: Bain was vague about the "science" of his study. Some might like to know more about the source of his facts, how many teachers were studied where, and exactly how the studies were conducted.
Overall: Before I read this book, I knew that teaching was difficult. After reading this book, I realize that if you do it well, teaching is far more complicated than I ever imagined. It's like a juggling act with thoughts and minds, and you have to adapt your routine for every class. It confirms what I have always known: Not everyone can teach. It's not enough to know your subject cold, or to have the greatest lesson plan, or even to use the best techniques. You have to love the job. You have to respect your students and have faith that they want to learn, and they can learn. Because if you don't believe all of that, for even one day, they will know it. Your students will know it, and they will suffer.
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 Nothing substantial ( leprendun )
This book was completely unhelpful. It is filled with inspiring anecdotes of "what the best college teachers do" that illustrate some inspiring and earth-shaking revelations such as "treat your students like human beings" and "don't lecture for 2 hours at a time." All of his advice is abstract with few practical applications, and the rest is common-sense knowledge. Do not buy this book.
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a teacher's comments
Excellent; makes one realize much of what passes for learning in college classrooms is little more than memorization and even that fades quickly. It would be 5-star except it doesn't always explain How these college professors implement their concepts of better teaching.
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