Ken Bain (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1976) is a professor of History and the vice provost for Instruction and director of the Research Academy for University Learning at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey. He is the founding director of four major teaching and learning centers: the Center for Teaching Excellence at New York University, the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University, the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, and the Research Academy for University Learning (formerly the Teaching and Learning Resource Center) at Montclair State University.

He has long taken an interest in teaching and learning issues. Internationally recognized for his insights into teaching and learning and for a 15-year study of what the best educators do, he has been invited to present workshops or lectures at over 200 universities and events in recent years — in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

His recently-published book, What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004) won the 2004 Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for an outstanding book on education and society, and has been one of the top selling books on higher education. It has been translated into six languages.

In this interview, Mr. Bain shows us what separates good teachers from excellent educators.

KEN BAIN (KB): An effective teacher helps people learn deeply. The distinction between effective and excellence is found largely in the depth of learning that students achieve, the number of students who are reached educationally, and the difficulties and challenges that each faces in fostering deep learning. In other words, the differences are found in degree and consistency of success rather than in any fundamental difference in the criteria.

KB: This is a difficult question to answer in a short response. I spent much of chapter four trying to define what I meant by this concept. In general, I speak here of standards that are meaningful outside of the classroom, not the almost arbitrary standards that are sometimes imposed within the classroom.

For example, high demands, or standards, might be measured by the quality of a student’s reasoning, the kind of evidence that they are able to marshal in support of their reasoning.

It might also mean the depth of their understanding of important concepts, and their ability to engage in important conversations about those concepts.

In other fields, it might mean the quality of artistic work. But I am not talking about merely the ability to remember large quantities of information. Rather, I am speaking of the ability to think about implications and applications of important ideas, to examine arguments, and to take them apart, to distinguish between evidence and conclusions.

KB: A natural critical environment is the kind of environment we found that highly successful teachers create to foster deep learning among their students. In that environment, students would at least be able to do the following:

• They try to answer questions or solve problems they find interesting, intriguing, important, or beautiful;

• They can try, fail, receive feedback, and try again before anyone makes a judgment of their work;

• They can work collaboratively with other learners struggling with the same problems;

• They face repeated challenges to their existing fundamental paradigms;

• They care that their existing paradigms do not work;

• They can get support (emotional, physical, and intellectual) when they need it;

• They feel in control of their own learning, not manipulated;

• They believe that their work will be considered fairly and honestly;

• They believe that their work will matter;

• They believe that intelligence and abilities are expandable, that if they work hard, they will get better at it;

• They believe other people have faith in their ability to learn;

• They believe that they can learn.

I think this environment helps students to excel in school because it gives them a strong sense of control over their own learning, thus providing strong motivation to learn. It mimics the environment in which people learn naturally, but adds a critical learning component to it

We have lots of evidence that people learn most deeply when they are trying to answer questions that they, the learner, regard as important, beautiful, or intriguing. The irony of a formal education is that the learner often isn’t in charge of the questions. The most successful educators are able to ask questions in a way that other people will find intriguing.

KB: I think probably the biggest mistakes that are made in school are these:

• Assuming that people must memorize information before they can be asked to engage in higher order thinking about that information. In fact, the brain doesn’t work that way very well. People learn to remember better what they have thought deeply about.

• Assuming that the best way to foster learning is to take control of the student’s life; instead, educators must invest students with a strong sense of control over their own education. They must win their attention not with authority and threats of punishments or rewards, but by the intrigue they can raise in the minds of the students

• Assuming that intelligence is fixed and that students are good students or bad students rather than recognizing that intelligence is highly flexible. To realize our role as educators where we can have an enormous influence on how students perform academically.

KB: I’m currently working on that problem, and I’ll have more answers, I hope, in a year or so. For right now, I would say that students must assume control over their own education, and recognize that they have the power to expand their own ability with diligence and wise study.

They must also begin to understand that learning is not just about all that they can remember. If they think about implications and applications of ideas as they study, if they think about meaning and arguments as they read, they can achieve a great deal.

They must also recognize that learning is not easy, that deep learning comes in fits and starts and that it is that way for everyone. Even their teachers face problems in learning.

Finally, they need to raise interesting questions. Think about all of the good questions they can raise for themselves.

They might remember the story of Isador Rabe, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in the 1940’s. When someone asked him how he won such a prize. He said, "It is all due to my mother." Everyday, when I came home from school, he related, my mother would ask me, "Izzy, did you ask any good questions today." So students should ask questions, and keep asking questions no matter what the obstacles may be.