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by: Derek Bok  List Price: $19.95 Amazon.com's Price: $13.57 You Save: $6.38 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 378.73 EAN: 9780691136189 ISBN: 0691136181 Label: Princeton University Press Manufacturer: Princeton University Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 434 Publication Date: December 26, 2007 Publisher: Princeton University Press Studio: Princeton University Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, former Harvard President Derek Bok examines how much progress college students actually make toward widely accepted goals of undergraduate education. His conclusions are sobering. Although most students make gains in many important respects, they improve much less than they should in such important areas as writing, critical thinking, quantitative skills, and moral reasoning. Large majorities of college seniors do not feel that they have made substantial progress in speaking a foreign language, acquiring cultural and aesthetic interests, or learning what they need to know to become active and informed citizens. Overall, despite their vastly increased resources, more powerful technology, and hundreds of new courses, colleges cannot be confident that students are learning more than they did fifty years ago. Looking further, Bok finds that many important college courses are left to the least experienced teachers and that most professors continue to teach in ways that have proven to be less effective than other available methods. In reviewing their educational programs, however, faculties typically ignore this evidence. Instead, they spend most of their time discussing what courses to require, although the lasting impact of college will almost certainly depend much more on how the courses are taught. In his final chapter, Bok describes the changes that faculties and academic leaders can make to help students accomplish more. Without ignoring the contributions that America's colleges have made, Bok delivers a powerful critique--one that educators will ignore at their peril. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Wonderful!President Bok obviously understands colleges and what ails them. Though no polemic, this book takes to task both the prevailing wisdom about higher education (Liberal professors are undermining student thinking) and the myth that students just want to use a college education to get to a great graduate school. There is much wisdom here for all sectors of education. Thank you, President Bok. Rating: - A wonderfully thoughtful book on higher educationDerek Bok is one of the most thoughtful observers (and participants) in higher education today. As president of Harvard for 20 years (1971 - 1991) he had many opportunities to see first hand how an elite university works--or doesn't. Many years ago I read his book "The State of the Nation", which I found to be a reasonable analysis of many of the difficult issues facing the country. In "Our Underacheiving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More", Bok ... Read More Rating: - Too Little Interest in Improvement Among Faculty MembersUnless you are a glutton for punishment, chances are that you'll never read all of the major critiques of undergraduate education in the United States. It would take a true masochist to follow up all of that reading with a look into the latest research on how and when undergraduates can learn more at college. But only someone with a true love for the subject would also consider what colleges should be trying to accomplish for students, professors, and society. Meet Derek Bok, veteran of two decades ... Read More Rating: - Responsible TeachingResearch Professor Derek Bok's "Our Underachieving Colleges" (2006, hardback) presents a new way of thinking about education in American colleges. Understanding that his presentation could create academic criticism, Bok builds his argument upon a substantial foundation of convincing research (with 49 pages of endnotes). Suggesting that American undergraduate education produces a global affect that results in stiff foreign competition, Bok challenges U.S. colleges to reorganize, with candid ... Read More Rating: - Excellent, complex look at the problems of undergrad educationIn this book, Derek Bok does an incredible job of laying out the shortcomings in undergraduate education. However, he does this without failing to acknowledge the good being achieved. As a former college president Dr. Bok speaks from a position of authority on the subject. The problems he identifies he backs up with thorough, thought provoking research. He does not just leave the problems as they stand but offers helpful, realistic suggestions for improvement. The greatest strenght of Dr. Bok's book is ... Read More 
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