What the Best College Students Do

What the Best College Students Do is the title of a book written by Ken Bain whose witty and anecdotal writing attempts to capture the key ingredients of successful learning in academia. Such ingredients can be assumed to apply to other educational settings as well. In an earlier book, the author's analytical inquiry has been devoted to uncovering the key ingredients of effective pedagogy. Not surprisingly, the best practices in the domain of knowledge acquisition and those in the domain of knowledge transmission share many commonalities. Consequently, What the Best College Students Do can be considered the flawless sequel of What the Best College Teachers Do, illustrating that learning and teaching, which are institutionally segregated in traditional educational settings, are closely intertwined. This viewpoint is supported by research evidence which shows that retrieval of existing information from memory (as in teaching) is a 'learning opportunity', which may not only consolidate memory records, but also change such records, adding information and creating new connections.

Several ingredients exist in the recipe that Ken Bain proposes for successful learning (and teaching) in academia (and everywhere else). Yet, a problem solving approach is the overriding theme that seems to define successful learning in students and successful pedagogy in teachers. Namely, when students adopt a problem solving approach, they tackle the novelty of a domain of knowledge packed into the curriculum of a course as an array of interesting puzzles that need to be solved. Solutions are not meaningless to the learner, but they can be applied to his/her life, making it more complete. Thus, discovering a domain of knowledge is not separate, but integral to self-discovery. Of course, one might argue that a journey of self-discovery excessively enhances selfishness and egocentrism, but it does not have to be so if the journey is undertaken with other students whose ability to...