From What the Best Teachers Do by Ken Bain:
"Ultimately, I hope this book will inspire readers to make a systematic and reflective appraisal of their own teaching approaches and strategies, asking themselves why they do certain kinds of things and not others. What evidence about how people learn drives their teaching choices? How often do they do something only because their professors did it? Ideally, readers will treat their teaching as they likely treat their own scholarship or artistic creations: as serious and important intellectual and creative work, as an endeavor that benefits from careful observation and close analysis, from revision and refinement, and from dialogues with colleagues and the critiques of peers. Most of all, I hope readers will take away from this book the conviction that good teaching can be learned. (Chapter 1, p. 21)"
Whether or not you’ve read the book, please join us for our first discussion related to What the Best College Teachers Do. On Wednesday, September 27, from 12-12:50 in room 5-091, we’ll use the following questions to prompt our discussion of how we prepare to teach our classes:
According to Ken Bain, the best teachers assume that learning matters only if it changes a student’s thoughts, actions, and feelings. How do we define important learning and prepare to help students realize it?
Bain also states that the best teachers help students to learn in ways that make a lasting, positive influence on how they think, act, and feel. What and how do we help MCC students learn for the long term rather than engage in “bulimic education” (p. 41), "feed-purge cycles" with a short range focus?
Bain’s research indicates that the best teachers create authentic tasks that interest students and challenge them to reconsider their thinking and prior learning. How do we define and create authentic tasks?
Julie Damerell
Transitional Studies
09/20/2006 |