What the Best College Teachers Do

arrived on time and as described. could not ask for more.

If you teach in HE this is a gripping read. Nice style, sound conclusions IMHO as a National Teaching Fellow

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book as it is written by US authors from interviews conducted with US College professors. There are some differences between US and UK universities, and so I wasn't sure if the advice and inspiration would be fully relevant to me as an academic in a UK university, but I needn't have worried. All of the advice and inspirational examples are pretty relevant and the book makes for very inspired and interesting reading. The strengths of the book are that rather than just hearing about the author's views/advice on good teaching practice, the authoes conducted research with top-rated professors in the US across a range of disciplines and in the book they summarise this research with lots of examples, while trying to draw out more general advice from the examples that anyone teaching in HE could try to put into practice themselves. I found the examples were inspiring and thoughtful and I could see why they would help student engagment and learning. Could the book be better? Most certainly. At times it is hard to find exactly what you are looking for, and the book would have benefitted from better layout and structurung - mroe use of bullet point summaries or 'key points' boxes, that sort of thing. It would have also been great to have had a DVD with some video samples of the inspirational teaching or a link to a website where we could view video snippets, but that might have increased the cost of the book I guess. Overall, looking at this as an academic working in a British university, I found lots of interesting ideas to try out in my teaching, so from my perspective, this book delivered what it promised - I just wished that the wisdom was organsied a bit better.

Excellent book. Excellent service.

Teaching in a college, especially in the Higher Education sector of FE, gets scant attention in the main and this title is therefore rather welcome, recognising as it does that there are great college teachers out there - even if 'there' is the USA rather than the UK. Like another reviewer I did initially question whether there would be parity between the two sides of the Atlantic, and indeed whether I would be able to make use of the suggestions in my own practice. Also like the same reviewer I felt that such concerns had been groundless for there is plenty focused in the class of student centred approach to keep me happy, both philosophically and practically. This is a title I will recommend to colleagues and it will inform and inspire me in years to come, probably not only in offering new approaches but also in validating some of the key elements that I already undertake as part of my teaching work.

I am currently studying for a PGCertHE as a new-ish University lecturer, so I am currently very interested in anything related to HE teaching. One thing which is always a challenge as a new HE lecturer is that often you do things with your students which you feel work, but don't always understand WHY they work. I'm at the stage in my career where I lap up any 'how to do it' advice from experienced and well-respected lecturers. I want to be an inspirational teacher, and I want someone to tell me how to become one ;-) There were some differences between the US and UK educational systems, and some of the terminology was unfamiliar - however most of the time I got the 'gist'. I found the layout of the book quite old-fashioned; few images, diagrams or pictures, and mostly laid over to text. Given that the author says that the best teachers are able to take account of different learning styles, I would have hoped he had followed his own advice here. However, there was plenty of received wisdom here from a man who has clearly been inspirational to many, and that's good enough for me. He adds value to his comments by including opinions from other Professors across the US. In my opinion, there is the potential for this book to be successful in the UK market - but it'd do better here if the format and layout were reworked and terminology were made slightly more British.

The book presents a long term academic study of what the best university teachers do in the US system. While the evidence is collected from US institutions there are obvious parallels with the UK system. Here we have Oxbridge and not the Ivy League, we have the selective red-brick universities and the less selective post-1992 universities. What makes good teaching is the same both sides of the Atlantic and the author has carried out a very careful and selective study to focus on student learning. There are a lot of good suggestions in the book and it does provide a "blueprint" for developing university teaching. But it does not present a quick solution, because there never can be. Each class is different and so this is not a book of tools or case studies. This takes the approach at a higher level to produce teachers who can develop as they have to react to each new intake. This is exactly the approach taken by my qualification in teaching in Higher Education, but this does not appeal to all lecturers as some on the course were left frustrated by the lack of concrete advice, and instant solutions. This is quite a complex book and it is certainly not an easy read but it is not as impenetrable as much of the primary education literature. I think that it is a good addition to any new lecturer's bookshelf and it should be read by all Deans, Heads of Department and Heads of Teaching Committees. Why? Because this is what we should be doing, we need to appreciate the scholarship of university teaching more, but it is going to take a while to get there.

A must read, with tons of valuable practice suggestions for those leading adult classrooms!

good

Is this book somewhat vague and light on how-to's? Yes, of course. Thank goodness. You can't survey everything from theater to calculus and expect to produce a how-to manual worth 5 minutes of your time. The two take-home points, and the big values, of the book are: 1. There is a general mode of learning that transcends disciplines. IT EXISTS. It's a single thing that comes in many, many varieties, but it's still one basic thing. And it's not a mystery or the lottery. The particular details that motivate students, and the skills and challenges they bring to the classroom, may change with the times, but people's basic cognitive (and, I would even say, spiritual) needs that are satisfied with real learning *do not change*. Halle-fricking-lujah. The target has stopped moving. 2. Therefore, there is a corresponding general model for effectively facilitating that learning. Unsurprisingly, good teaching is a path, a journey, that does not end. But, by repeatedly circling around to several basic pedagogical questions and concerns, the quality of your teaching will spiral upwards. It's a craft, and not just a skill like riding a bike. Through the various chapters, the author presents and discusses those general questions that you should concern yourself with to improve your craft. He compares and contrasts highly effective teachers with less effective teachers (and occasionally abysmal teachers) in terms of using vs. not using these general pedagogical principles, including copious specific examples from various disciplines. Methodologically, I like this book because: 1. It's basically a report of a study (formatted to be readable, interesting, and useful). It's not just some guy serving up opinion, soap-boxing, cherry-picking, or re-gifting the same pedagogical fruitcake that's been passed around for the last couple of decades. If you want to object on samples or bias or whatever, he gives you the info to make an informed objection. I think many of the critiques above respond to the book as if it was just another guy's opinion, but it's the results of a lengthy study. 2. It lays out the general framework for good teaching in terms of questions and principles - or, I would say, the principle of asking yourself a certain set of questions, repeatedly, for the rest of your teaching career. This enables you to exercise your expertise, creativity, and freedom of judgment as an instructor to do what works for you, your discipline, your students, and your institution. (I can't believe people object at the scarcity of how-to's in the book, given the scope implied by the title; do people just want to hand off the responsibility of thinking??) It also means that you only have to remember one set of guidelines no matter what kind of class you are asked to teach, now or in the future. What if you're a lab junkie and you get stuck with a freshman writing seminar (albeit in your field of science)? What if you co-teach a multidisciplinary seminar; are you content to only contribute to your portion of the class and hope someone else "knits it all together" for the students? You don't have to wing it. That's excellent. It enables us as instructors to do what we do best without demanding that we re-invent the teaching wheel every time we do something slightly different. Three cheers for principles. And yes, the author covers a lot of territory and ideas that are not new. But there's a lot of value in 1) having the principles and associated questions set down concretely, vs. letting them remain as nebulous, guilt-inducing ought-to's in the back of your mind, and 2) connecting the dots at the level of discipline-transcendent principles, and not just suggestions or rules of thumb. This allows you to have the confidence to just focus on a few things that are known to work vs. trying to implement a hodge-podge of nice ideas that other people claim you ought try. Because if you're not in education research yourself, who has time to do the research to produce these kinds of principles?

I've been on Amazon for more than 10 years. I've tried to buy some used books since I don't need them as part of my personal library. However, most of the books that I've bought here are brand-new ones. Most of the time the used books that I need are not available in my area making the shipping more expensive. This time I've finally found a book close enough to my city, I ordered it and got it. The book is in good condition.

First off, a little info about myself:I teach physics and engineering at the pre-U and undergraduate level. I have consistently received good teaching ratings from colleagues and students alike, and I have even garnered an award for teaching in the first two years of my career. When I purchased this book, I thought it was a simple "cookbook" to highlight the best practices. To my pleasant surprise, it is not. It is extremely well written and organised, and deceptively easy to read as it is filled with anecdotes. However, it is jam packed with valuable advice/practices which require insight and experience to fully appreciate. The book nevertheless puts forth convincing arguments as to why each practice is worthy of your consideration. The book also challenged, motivated, and convinced me to think about my teaching in ways many books don't (with the exception of another equally wonderful but complementary book by Susan Ambrose: How Learning Works). All of my best practices (some discovered by accident, and most from students' feedback) are highlighted in this book. How I wished I had read this book before I started teaching, it would have saved me from much grief and frustration. More importantly, since this book distills the best practices from many great teachers, I find myself fulfilling only a fraction of what a great teacher should be. The good news is, teaching can be learned, if one is willing to. My understanding of what teaching and learning means has been greatly expanded, and my students are reaping the benefits even now. One final note: though this book contains the best practices, it only has scant references to studies on the best teaching and learning practices by leading educational psychologists (experts who know how our brains are wired to learn). Nevertheless, practices highlighted in this book reflect major conclusions reported in educational journals. As such, for in-depth understanding of why certain practices work at the cognitive and emotional level, I recommend you get the book by Susan Ambrose: How Learning Works, which summarizes the most important findings on learning by researchers. I find both books complement each other nicely. All the best in nurturing the next generation! EDIT: After reading through some of the negative comments from reviewers, I am compelled to reiterate the following: This book is deceptively easy to read, but is filled with practical, life changing advice. For example, a common problem in learning is what Bain termed the plug and chug learning. Students absorb info and regurgitate it during exams resulting in shallow learning (and many teachers are responsible for this). How do we overcome this problem? Bain condensed 7 extremely good methods to overcome this problem (applicable in small class settings or in lecture halls) -- on the last paragraph of pg. 41! Only a single paragraph! And you see this pattern repeated many times over. Therefore, please read with attention to details and get ready when the "gems" pop up. It took me 4 days to complete a single chapter because I had to constantly understand, review and, more importantly, reflect upon what I have read.