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, Ken 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.

Using empirical research this text gives faculty and graduate teaching assistants the tools for understanding why certain teaching practices work and how to adjust their teaching to changing classroom room and online environments.

Provitera McGlynn (psychology, Mercer County Community College) discusses tools and strategies for setting the right tone in college courses. She offers advice on making expectations clear, creating a welcoming environment, promoting civility, motivating students, and keeping them involved. The book emphasizes tools for use at the beginning of a course. An appendix discusses syllabus creation, and teaching resources are listed. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Teaching at Its Best This third edition of the best-selling handbook offers faculty at all levels an essential toolbox of hundreds of practical teaching techniques, formats, classroom activities, and exercises, all of which can be implemented immediately. This thoroughly revised edition includes the newest portrait of the Millennial student; current research from cognitive psychology; a focus on outcomes maps; the latest legal options on copyright issues; and how to best use new technology including wikis, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and clickers. Entirely new chapters include subjects such as matching teaching methods with learning outcomes, inquiry-guided learning, and using visuals to teach, and new sections address Felder and Silverman's Index of Learning Styles, SCALE-UP classrooms, multiple true-false test items, and much more. Praise for the Third Edition of Teaching at Its BestEveryone veterans as well as novices will profit from reading Teaching at Its Best, for it provides both theory and practical suggestions for handling all of the problems one encounters in teaching classes varying in size, ability, and motivation." Wilbert McKeachie, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, and coauthor, McKeachie's Teaching TipsThis new edition of Dr. Nilson's book, with its completely updated material and several new topics, is an even more powerful collection of ideas and tools than the last. What a great resource, especially for beginning teachers but also for us veterans!" L. Dee Fink, author, Creating Significant Learning ExperiencesThis third edition of Teaching at Its Best is successful at weaving the latest research on teaching and learning into what was already a thorough exploration of each topic. New information on how we learn, how students develop, and innovations in instructional strategies complement the solid foundation established in the first two editions." Marilla D. Svinicki, Department of Psychology, The University of Texas, Austin, and coauthor, McKeachie's Teaching Tips

The essential how-to guide to successful college teaching and learning The college classroom is a place where students have the opportunity to be transformed and inspired through learning—but teachers need to understand how students actually learn. Robert DiYanni and Anton Borst provide an accessible, hands-on guide to the craft of college teaching, giving instructors the practical tools they need to help students achieve not only academic success but also meaningful learning to last a lifetime. The Craft of College Teaching explains what to teach—emphasizing concepts and their relationships, not just isolated facts—as well as how to teach using active learning strategies that engage students through problems, case studies and scenarios, and practice reinforced by constructive feedback. The book tells how to motivate students, run productive discussions, create engaging lectures, use technology effectively, and much more. Interludes between chapters illustrate common challenges, including what to do on the first and last days of class and how to deal with student embarrassment, manage group work, and mentor students effectively. There are also plenty of questions and activities at the end of each chapter. Blending the latest research with practical techniques that really work, this easy-to-use guide draws on DiYanni and Borst's experience as professors, faculty consultants, and workshop leaders. Proven in the classroom and the workshop arena, The Craft of College Teaching is an essential resource for new instructors and seasoned pros alike.

The author of the best-selling What the Best College Teachers Do is back with more humane, doable, and inspiring help, this time for students who want to get the most out of college—and every other educational enterprise, too. The first thing they should do? Think beyond the transcript. The creative, successful people profiled in this book—college graduates who went on to change the world we live in—aimed higher than straight A’s. They used their four years to cultivate habits of thought that would enable them to grow and adapt throughout their lives. Combining academic research on learning and motivation with insights drawn from interviews with people who have won Nobel Prizes, Emmys, fame, or the admiration of people in their field, Ken Bain identifies the key attitudes that distinguished the best college students from their peers. These individuals started out with the belief that intelligence and ability are expandable, not fixed. This led them to make connections across disciplines, to develop a “meta-cognitive” understanding of their own ways of thinking, and to find ways to negotiate ill-structured problems rather than simply looking for right answers. Intrinsically motivated by their own sense of purpose, they were not demoralized by failure nor overly impressed with conventional notions of success. These movers and shakers didn’t achieve success by making success their goal. For them, it was a byproduct of following their intellectual curiosity, solving useful problems, and taking risks in order to learn and grow.