‘What The Best College Teachers Do’

Book Review and interview with author Ken Bain

By Carolyn Schurr Levin

Sometimes a book comes along that justifies repeated exploration years, even decades, after it was written.

“What The Best College Teachers Do,” by Ken Bain, is such a book.

What The Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain

Although it was published in 2004, its insights are uniquely applicable to journalism professors and college media advisers in 2017.

The book, which has become a top selling book on higher education, has been translated into 12 languages and was the subject of a television documentary series in 2007. It captures the collective scholarship of some of the best teachers in the United States by not just recording how they think but also conceptualizing their practices.

Bain’s premise is simple. During 15 years of study, he looked at what the best educators do to help and encourage students to achieve remarkable learning results.

Of course, that is what we all want – remarkable learning results. We strive, every week, to guide out students to achieve those remarkable results. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we don’t. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a roadmap toward that success? That is where Bain’s book comes in.

“I centrally focus on how people learn and how best to foster that learning,” Bain said in a recent telephone interview from his office at the Best Teachers Institute in New Jersey. The institute, according to its website, “collaborates with faculty and administrators to transform their curricula, courses, and even individual class sessions into powerful new learning experiences for their students.”

Continue reading “‘What The Best College Teachers Do’”

42 participate in Dallas photo Shoot-out

FIRST PLACE Jubenal Aguilar, Brookhaven College (Daniel Rodrigue, adviser) | Leonardo Garcia, a window washer with April Building Services, Inc., washes the skywalk outside the Sheraton while Christian Ortiz spots and holds the ladder. Garcia said he has been working in the window sashing business for over seven years. “I used to use to be afraid of going outside the tall buildings,” Garcia said. ”But it’s now more just fun than anything.”

Six student photographers earn shout-out during Shoot-out

At the Photo Shoot-Out during the College Media Association and Associated Collegiate Press convention in Dallas Oct. 25-29, 42 students participated in the on-site photography competition.

In the week since, 22 judges including professional photojournalists, college media advisers and others went through the entires still available for viewing.

The judges chose to recognize six photographers.

  • FIRST PLACE Jubenal Aguilar, Brookhaven College (Daniel Rodrigue, adviser)
  • SECOND PLACE Megan Burke, Missouri State University (Jack Dimond, adviser)
  • THIRD PLACE Don M. Green, Southern University (Heather Freeman, adviser)
  • HONORABLE MENTION AND CLASS FAVORITE Ryan Weier, Central Washington University (Jennifer Green, adviser)
  • HONORABLE MENTION Ryan Welch, Missouri State University (Jack Dimond, adviser)
  • HONORABLE MENTION Alexander Fu, Central Washington University (Cynthia Mitchell, adviser)

Dallas Morning News photographers Louis DeLuca, Tom Fox and Nathan Hunsinger as well as Seattle Times photographer Ellen Banner and New York Daily News photographer Todd Maisel.

The other judges included college media advisers, other professional photojournalists, freelance photojournalists, other photography instructors.

Aaron Babcock, Amber Billings, Becky Tate, Bretton Zinger, Carole Babineaux, Cary Conover, Clint Smith, Deanne Brown, Diane Bolinger, Edmund Low, Eric Thomas, Greg Cooper, Griff Singer, Ian McVea, Jane Blystone, Janis Hefley, Jed Palmer, Jim McNay, John Beale, John Skees, Kevin Kleine, Kingsley Burns, Kyle Phillips, Laurie Hansen, Lillie Schenk, Logan Aimone, Margaret Sorrows, Mark Murray, Matt Garnett, Matt Stamey, Mitchell Franz, Pat Gathright, Sherri Taylor, Stern Hatcher, Steve Dearinger, Tom Hallaq and Toni Mitchell.

After the photographers had more than two days to complete the assignment, “The Big D,” Kevin Kleine of Berry College, Sam Oldenburg of Western Kentucky and Bradley Wilson of Midwestern State provided a critique of all the images.

Dallas F2017