Spring 2013 Book Club

The CETL Book Club provides an opportunity for professional development through cross-disciplinary dialogue about provocative issues related to teaching and learning. Says Fall 2010 Book Club participant Bill Wresch, Associate Dean of the College of Business, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could get together with a small group of friends once in a while and talk about what really matters—our teaching? That's the Book Club—a chance to read  a book with profound ideas about teaching and learning, and then talk about it with other people who share our struggles. What a great way to spend a few hours."

Spring 2013 Book Club Details

Wednesdays (2/20, 3/13, 4/3, 4/24 & 5/1) from 10:20 to 11:20 a.m.

In the Pollock Alumni House

We're sorry, registration for the Spring Book Club is now closed. Check back in Fall 2013 & watch for the CETL Updates via email every Thursday.

Spring 2013 Book

This Spring the Book Club will be reading What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain (2010). Registration is limited to eight participants, so please register early. Books will be provided.

About the Book (From the Amazon.com Description)

The first thing they should do? Think beyond the transcript. The creative, successful people profiled in this book—college graduates who went on to change the world we live in—aimed higher than straight A’s. They used their four years to cultivate habits of thought that would enable them to grow and adapt throughout their lives.

Combining academic research on learning and motivation with insights drawn from interviews with people who have won Nobel Prizes, Emmys, fame, or the admiration of people in their field, Ken Bain identifies the key attitudes that distinguished the best college students from their peers. These individuals started out with the belief that intelligence and ability are expandable, not fixed. This led them to make connections across disciplines, to develop a “meta-cognitive” understanding of their own ways of thinking, and to find ways to negotiate ill-structured problems rather than simply looking for right answers. Intrinsically motivated by their own sense of purpose, they were not demoralized by failure nor overly impressed with conventional notions of success. These movers and shakers didn’t achieve success by making success their goal. For them, it was a byproduct of following their intellectual curiosity, solving useful problems, and taking risks in order to learn and grow.