What the Best College Students Do

Professor Ken Bain became famous for his book What the Best College Teachers Do, which describes the techniques and approaches that bring out the best in students who search for more than mere grades. Bain’s follow-up book, What the Best College Students Do, continues that study of the most powerful ways to benefit from higher education. Bain was previously the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of the District of Columbia and founded several schools dedicated to excellence in teaching. He is president of the Best Teachers Institute, which researches and teaches the approaches that inspire and encourage deep learning in students. Bain believes strongly that a college education should encourage not a race for top grades but a curiosity-driven, open-ended and open-minded search for knowledge and understanding a view to improving people’s lives. 

Paul Baker taught theater at Baylor University and Trinity University in Texas, where he developed an innovative course in creativity, Integration of Abilities, that engaged students in new ways of thinking about knowledge, problems, and learning. At Baylor, he designed a theater whose stages surround an audience seated in swivel chairs. Integration of Abilities students also sat in these chairs, where they learned to examine creative challenges from the perspectives of line, space, motion, time, and silhouette.