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.

This is an accessible book based on rigorous research. It's not a book with details of specific methods or "How To"s, but the author is very clear about what the best college teachers don't do. They don't treat education as being about cramming knowledge and facts until benchmarks are met - a stereotypical transmission approach. But they also don't treat education as being about setting students tasks to do which hopefully help them learn for themselves - a stereotypical process approach. The best teachers use their own knowledge, understanding and uncertainties of their subject to help students get to know the topics from the inside. They adapt to individual learners and set tasks which help the students to own their own learning. There are many engaging examples of good practice in the chapters here, covering a variety of questions such as: What do they know about how we learn? How do they prepare to teach? What do they expect of their students? How do they conduct class? How do they evaluate their students and themselves? Overall, Bain joins his voice to may others who would promote universities where learning is valorised, rather than teaching or research. But the teachers, in these many examples, are more than technocratic manipulators of students' learning experiences and processes. They are expert learners in the field themselves, working alongside students in a joint enterprise. An engaging and stimulating book, probably mostly of interest to those engaged in higher education and practice.