What Our Best College Instructors Do

Reflections by students about meaningful learning experiences

What Our Best College Instructors Do: Reflections by students about meaningful learning experiences is written primarily by college students for faculty interested in adopting teaching strategies that students find engaging and meaningful. The student contributors represent a large cross-section of students at U.S. institutions of higher education today and their stories help raise awareness of three key takeaways about life-changing teaching:

1. Students want to be recognized as individuals and appreciated in the classroom.
2. Students value the connections instructors make between course content and “real life.”
3. Students want to be treated with respect and trust.

Twenty-two students trusted us with their stories and their reflections on good teaching. We honor that trust and hope that instructors who read this document gain as much insight about teaching from the students as we did. While we often write of students in the plural, each one of these students had an individual experience with learning and therefore a unique story to tell about good teaching. We hope readers will likewise ask their own students, “What do your best instructors do?” and use that feedback to continuously improve their craft as teachers.