Faculty Evaluation and Coaching Department
415.618.3855 | facultyevalcoach@academyart.edu
What do you think about as you prepare for your upcoming class or for a course you will teach next semester? What questions do you ask yourself?
Ken Bain, author of the book, "What the Best College Teachers Do," writes about finding a list of questions that he scribbled down as he was preparing to teach his first semester: "Where's the classroom? What textbook will I use? What will I include in my lectures? How many tests will I give?"
His questions are all important. However, as he found himself compiling results of a study he later conducted on 100 of the best college teachers he could find, the list of questions they ask themselves as they prepare to teach a class was quite different. He found 13 questions these teachers ask themselves as they prepare to teach a course. Here are four (with clarification from Faculty Development):
Teachers, of course, need to find their
As we move into the final days of the semester, reflect on specific students—one or two "stars," a couple who are passing, and two more who are not. Bear the questions above in mind as you reflect on your own teaching behaviors. Which were successful on each count, and which were not?
Answering these questions will put you on the path to another practice of the best college teachers: "[they] treat their teaching as they likely already 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." (p.21)
Based on Bain, Ken. What The Best College Teachers Do (2004). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. (pp 21, 48-67)