Effective
Teaching
What Constitutes Good Teaching?
Both
students and faculty members gave high rankings to the following seven
categories (although students placed somewhat more emphasis than faculty
on instructor's stimulation of interest and their elocutionary skills).
The following phrases from survey questions used by researchers serve
to define the seven categories.
Culturally Effective Communication
Communication
is an essential skill utilized by any teacher. It is important to be
a culturally competent communicator. It is also important to identify
the belief systems of both the student and teacher to spot blocks to
communication:
Do's and Don'ts of Inclusive Language
The
intent of this [article] is to highlight a few areas where we still
find exclusivity or a sense of hierarchy in the use of language to place
one group of people below others, creating or perpetuating negative
social stereotypes.
Six Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communications
It
is not only what you say in the classroom that is important, but it's
how you say it that can make the difference to students. Nonverbal messages
are an essential component of communication in the teaching process.
Ten Resources for Six Ways to Improve Your Nonverbal Communications
This
website is talking about brief descriptions and content outlines of
the ten packages that are resources for instructors teaching students.
Enhancing instructor’s teaching effectiveness
There
are some principles proven to enhance teaching and learning.
Good teaching: The top ten requirements
Explain
the top ten requirements
Effective
Lectures
Explain what kinds of factors it need to be a effective lectures
Effective Teaching
It explains Premises of Teaching, Selecting the Instructional Format,
and Teaching & Learning: Points to Consider. Effective teaching
should be thought of as helping students earn, and every student encounter
should be thought of as a student's opportunity for earning.
Creating a Teaching Portfolio: Is It Worthwhile?
With my teaching portfolio neatly in hand, it's easy to say I'm glad
I have one. Although a teaching portfolio is never complete, I have
a usable document that I can maintain and modify for different occasions.
Here are some thoughts about my experiences for those who are trying
to decide if they should do one.
Fast Feedback
Much
more effective are fast feedback activities that take place during the
semester. Informal sampling of students' comprehension of the subject
matter will enable you to gauge how and what students are learning.
And informal requests for constructive criticism will help you identify
which teaching methods best contribute to your students' understanding
of the material. There are few strategies.
How to Make Your Speaking Easier and More Effective
Audience Analysis, openings and closings, preparation, how to delivery,
handling questions, and how to get feedback.
Beating The numbers Game: Effective Teaching In Large Classes
Fortunately, there are ways to make large classes almost as effective
as their smaller counterparts. Without turning yourself inside out,
you can get students actively involved, help them develop a sense of
community, and give frequent homework assignments without killing yourself
(or your teaching assistants) with impossible grading loads.
Effective Teaching (PDF file)
To
situate this information within the general context of effective teaching,
this chapter discuss what is meant by effective teaching, how teachers
can continue to develop their instructional strengths through seeking
and using feedback, and how, given the pressures on instructors to perform
well in several roles, they can balance it all.
Guide Notes is improving the effectiveness of your lectures
Guided
notes (GN) require students to actively respond during the lecture,
improve the accuracy and efficiency of students' note-taking, and increase
students' retention of course content.
Teaching Tips for Science Labs
Even
in the most structured labs there are ways to help your students learn
through inquiry by helping them exercise their investigative skills.
Here are a few tips you may want to consider when designing or conducting
your next science lab:
The "Change-Up": A Good Pitch to Have in Your Teaching Repertoire
Keep
in mind that change-ups need not consume large amounts of class time;
many can be completed in five minutes or less. Although some instructors
are loathe to spend precious classroom minutes on what might appear
to be an ancillary project, the time used is more than compensated for
by the increased retention rates your students will enjoy.
Generating "Irrefutable" Statements
Students
bring to any discipline some prior perceptions, opinions and biases
which, left unidentified and unchallenged, can hinder the development
of their critical thinking. Yet these same perceptions, when elicited,
identified and confronted, offer thought-provoking discussion topics
and can help define a relevant class agenda.
Notes from the Undergrads . . . Teaching Tips from Thoughtful Students
The
students' opinions about note taking and teaching .
What Do Students Know About Course Content When They Begin?
To
engage your students in thinking critically about your course material,
to discover how much they know already (or think they know), and to
encourage them to discuss with their peers, try a test of background
knowledge on the first day. This classroom assessment technique is a
collaborative learning activity that builds upon a true-false, ungraded
quiz and takes about 30 minutes of class time.
Teaching Idea: Why Do Students Drop a Course?
When
Allan Megill, Professor of History, e-mailed the TRC to talk about analyzing
why some students dropped his undergraduate course, we were intrigued
by his interest in this elusive information. Together we devised a process
to encourage students to respond anonymously, by mail to the TRC, in
answer to the following questionnaire:
Teaching Techniques
In
the section on planning and design, you were encouraged to think of
ways for students to achieve the objectives of the course and to free
yourself from thinking exclusively of lecturing as a teaching method.
In this section we will survey the appropriate uses of the lecture,
briefly examine some alternative teaching methods, and suggest ways
to organize the class period.
The Relationship
Between Student and Teacher
good
teaching also requires the development of a personal interest in students,
so teachers must balance detached professionalism with personal friendship.
Perhaps the traditional ideal of "Mark Hopkins on one end of a
log and a student on the other" remains the best goal for us all.
The
Grind
This
week's tips focus on strategies you might recommend to your students
to help maintain an energy level that can sustain their efforts during
the grind part of the semester. They parallel techniques that we use
in getting ourselves through the busy part of our schedule.
Getting
Better Answers
The
answers to these dilemmas are not found in books on perfect teaching
techniques. Rather, the research on good college teaching shows that
the best way to respond to classroom snags is to make them a subject
of study. Teachers who ask questions about the errors their students
make or inquire into the reasons for low participation are more likely
to come up with good answers. Then, they are better prepared for the
next semester when these challenges arise again.
Teaching
Tests
While,
on the one hand, such tests can become the stuff of nightmares that
haunt our graduates later in life, on the other hand, they can become
learning moments. In 1958 Robert Ebel claimed there were four ways tests
can help accomplish learning goals.
Take
Five
The
period between the ending of one semester and the beginning of the next
is a good time to think about what we've done well and what we want
to change and improve. Becoming a more reflective teacher does take
an investment of time. But even five minutes a day can be a good start.
The potential benefits for ourselves and our students are well worth
the effort.
Engaging
Questions
This
is the time in the semester when the energy of teachers and students
is low. Classroom activities that might otherwise work well creep along
or stall altogether at this time of year. To help keep students engaged
in the class, teachers can use questions that encourage and direct involvement.
Communities
for Learning
Good
teaching is not a collection of techniques mechanically applied but
a matter of personal work. Taking time out to re-collect our thoughts
mid-way through the semester can help restore the deeper sense of direction
we necessarily bring to our teaching.
Teaching
Learning
Effective
teachers know that integrating these skills into the lesson enhances
each student's ability to master the content. While there are many possible
learning strategies that might be taught, the following suggestions
are examples we hope will encourage you to think about the variety of
learning strategies you might share with your students.
Quick
Thinking
The
successful teacher creates moments that allow students to cognitively
process information before it becomes overwhelming. In traditional lecture
courses, this may only require two or three brief activities inserted
in the middle of a talk. This week's tips offer some ideas that you
might use. Of course, classes that do not rely on lectures can adapt
these activities to invite critical reflection on the work students
are doing.
Engaging
Lectures
This
week's tips focus on the little things that a teacher can do to encourage
and assist students. Motivation theorist claim that a number of small,
on-going rewards are often more effective than on larger pay-off at
the end. With final grades still far away, you might consider using
some of the following tips in your classroom.
People
Power
The
power to address many classroom concerns may be sitting, untapped, in
the classroom. Students can be tremendous peer teachers. They add variety,
energy, and sympathetic assistance. Well planned, peer teaching is a
powerful classroom tool.
Consolidating
Learning
Presenting
information to students is only the first step in helping them learn
a subject. Teachers should also aid students with an important next
step: consolidating their understanding of the material.
Stressing
the Point
Let's
face it, stress is an integral part of the higher education experience.
Tests, deadlines, papers, work, and grades are all part of what college
is about. The trick is how do we assist students in using the stress
inherent in the university environment in productive ways
Cognitive Apprenticeship
Effective
teachers "involve" students in learning as apprentices: they
work alongside students and/or set up situations that will cause students
to begin to work on problems even before fully understanding them.
A Tool For Diagnosing Problems In Teacher/ Student Relationships
How
do our students perceive us? What makes them perceive us as someone
they want to listen to and learn from, or not? This essay on "Teacher
Credibility" provides a model for analyzing student response and
for taking action to improve the situation if need be.
Assigning Responsibility for Learning
I
found this an effective way to keep track of which students were struggling
with which errors and what improvements they had made, but I also found
it a burden to comment not only on the student paper but also in the
folder. This semester, in line with the On Course principles, I tried
a new approach that puts more of the responsibility for learning on
the student, which is where it belongs, and less on me. This strategy
will work for any courses in which students regularly submit projects
(especially on paper) and the instructor provides feedback.
Assessing Student Understanding and Learning in Constructivist Study
Environments
In
addition to developing the particular study systems for different subject
areas in the Dalton Technology Project, we have been trying to specify
what the underlying design principles are for such an approach. In doing
this we draw inspiration both from Cognitive Science and from hermeneutic
interpretation theory. From this effort, we have come up with the following
seven study system design principles:
Tips For Teachers: Twenty Ways To Make Lectures More Participatory
Lectures
play a vital role in teaching… At the same time, your presentation of
the material and students’ learning when students are able to participate
in some way. When students engage actively with material, they generally
understand it better and remember it longer.
Give
students a conceptual framework
Often the framework can be represented symbolically or graphically.
Another physiologist, for example, begins each lecture by drawing the
same outline of the human brain on the blackboard. The details of the
brain, in terms of structures and processes, change according to the
specific topics to be covered in that day's lecture.
Focus your course on the classic issues and concepts
A
history professor explains that she has moved away from presenting the
most esoteric and up-to-date concerns of professional historians in
her undergraduate courses. "The most interesting issues and themes
for undergraduates," she explains, "generally turn out to
be those which originally excited historians about a particular person,
event, or epoch, not the historiographical controversies of present
day historians.
Stress the most enduring values or truths
Stressing
the most enduring values or truths in your discipline.
Repeatedly touch base with the fundamentals or basics
Repeatedly
touching base with the fundamentals or basics
Model processes of deductive or inductive reasoning
Modeling
processes of deductive or inductive reasoning by which an explanation
becomes apparent.
Pose paradoxes for students to solve
A
chemistry professor emphasizes conceptual understanding by challenging
the students with apparent paradoxes. "Several times each semester,"
he says, "I set up a demonstration to give a visual result that
is at variance with that which is described in the textbook. The students
are then helped to explain the paradox by applying a variety of problem
solving techniques."
Divide your course into parts
A
zoology professor focuses the first part of the course on fundamentals
and the second part on "state-of-the-art" research. "The
first six weeks cover the basic concepts and fundamental processes all
students must learn about the subject," he says. In this segment
he eliminates many "nice to know" concepts in favor of going
over the basics in a very thorough way.
Give students a list of questions
Giving
students a list of questions which cover topics to be addressed in your
lecture. One history professor does this routinely. "By outlining
my lecture as a series of questions," she explains, "I hope
to stimulate the students to think actively during the presentation.
The questions are designed to give them a conceptual framework and guide
so they can identify where we are and where we are going in the overall
discussion."
Give frequent assignments
Most
excellent teachers give students frequent assignments which allow them
to apply course concepts and improve communication and problem-solving
skills. Even in very large classes, these instructors make a point of
reading and commenting on at least a sample of the papers or problem
sets.
Give frequent quizzes
One
excellent science teacher gives students practice quizzes (of 10 to
15 minutes duration) throughout the quarter. "I don't grade the
quizzes," he explains, "but I do read them and review any
material with which a large number of students seemed to have difficulty.
I also seek out any students who seem to be having real problems understanding
the material and spend more time with them in my office or in the departmental
course cents."
Schedule individual appointments with students
Each
student was required to sign up for one the 10 minute appointments.
They were told that the chief purpose was for him to get to know the
students better and to listen to any complaints or suggestions they
might have. As a result, they seemed to feel more comfortable asking
and answering questions in class
Encourage students to form study groups
Encouraging
students to form small study groups and to send representatives to see
you about any difficulties their groups are having.
Attend or lead lab or discussion sections yourself
Many
excellent teachers also attend the lab or discussion groups led by their
TAs to observe or to participate. In labs, they circulate through the
lab, observing, asking questions, or lending a hand to students who
may be having special difficulties. In this way, they also hope to provide
the TAs with good role models.
Schedule specific topics for office hours
"I
find it useful to identify in advance a specific topic for my office
hours," says a linguistics professor. "I encourage students
who are having difficulty in that area to come for help." Based
on past experiences, she knows which concepts and ideas cause problems
and she schedules her office hours to provide further elaboration and
discussion on these topics.
Provide self-instructional materials
Providing
self-instructional materials or "modules" which include basic
principles and skills needed to succeed in your course.
Require below "C" level students to see you
"It's
important to find out why students score low," he explains. "If
they are having difficulty understanding the material, I can offer to
help them. If it's a question of motivation or the student placing less
priority on my class, that's OK too, but it helps me as a teacher to
know the reason for their poor performance. Showing concern is also
a powerful motivator for some students: they automatically begin to
do better."
Have students do a structured exercise
A
faculty member teaching a graduate course in social welfare says, "I
used to have students introduce themselves, but I found that led to
competition among them. Each one tried to outdo the others vita. Now
I divide the class into groups of threes and have them do a get acquainted
exercise."
Creating a Supportive Classroom Environment
There
are a few suggestions how to create supportive classroom environment.
Characteristics of an Effective Instructor
There
is no universally accepted definition of effective teaching; however,
any acceptable definition would have to take into consideration both
what the teacher does and student learning. There are, however, certain
characteristics and skills which effective teachers demonstrate (Wotruba
and Wright; 1975). These qualities are all considered in various sections
of this resource book.
Asking Questions
Question
asking is an imperative part of the learning process. We don't just
answer questions but need to devise questions to ask that are relevant
and meaningful to the discussion and the course as a whole. Moreover,
the way you ask, listen to and respond to student questions provides
a model, in turn, for students to emulate.
Nonverbal Communications
Nonverbal
messages are an essential component of communication in the teaching
process.
Answering and Asking Questions
Imagine
yourself in class when one of the students asks you a question. What
do you usually do? It is quite possible that you simply answer it. If
your goal is to increase the students' knowledge, this is quite appropriate.
However, if your goal is to develop the students' thinking skills, you
may wish to begin a dialogue or use another technique to help the students
discover their own answers.
Inquiry-Based Learning
The
inquiry approach is more focused on using and learning content as a
means to develop information-processing and problem-solving skills.
The system is more student centered, with the teacher as a facilitator
of learning. There is more emphasis on "how we come to know"
and less on "what we know."
Taking Teaching Seriously: Meeting the Challenge of Instructional Improvement
This
report uses a model that views various strategies for improving instruction
as helping motivate individual faculty members to improve their teaching
by changing (and maintaining) certain of their instructional attitudes
and practices (through the process of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing
certain attitudes and behaviors). This model focuses on the varieties
of informative feedback--from such sources as colleagues and consultants,
chairs, students, and oneself--that are facilitated by a supportive
teaching culture and that drive the process of instructional improvement.
Teaching Strategies; Effective Discussion Leading
While
lecturing is a fast and direct way to communicate a body of knowledge,
discussion encourages students to discover solutions for themselves
and to develop their critical thinking abilities. They learn how to
generate ideas, consider relevant issues, evaluate solutions, and consider
the implications of these solutions.
What makes a discussion section productive?
What
makes a section memorable and effective? On March 31, 1998, a panel
of nine students reported that the TA’s leadership and guidance
makes all the difference. Students want to talk
and to listen; they want the TA’s perspective, but they also need
structure.
Engaging Students During Presentations
Begin
with a question or questions that help you understand what your listeners
are thinking or what their relevant experiences are... If background
reading or preparation has been assigned, ask questions about them to
review and integrate that information...
Preparing Students To Take Standardized Achievement Tests
As
a school administrator, you know that the public often favors accountability
in education and believes that holding teachers responsible for students'
achievement will result in better education. Many people assume that
the best data about students' levels of achievement come from standardized
achievement tests. Although scores from these tests are undoubtedly
useful for accountability purposes, educators recognize that such data
have some limitations.
Using Customized Standardized Tests
Over
the next several years it is likely that you'll see a subtle but important
change in the nature of standardized tests that are administered as
part of your state and district testing programs. This change results
from a desire to improve both the norm- and criterion-referenced interpretations
of student, school, district, and state testing data.
Effective Teaching: Examples in History, Mathematics, and Science
We now move to a more detailed exploration of teaching and learning
in three disciplines: history, mathematics, and science. We chose these
three areas in order to focus on the similarities and differences of
disciplines that use different methods of inquiry and analysis. A major
goal of our discussion is to explore the knowledge required to teach
effectively in a diversity of disciplines.
Effective Teaching in Higher Education
Effective
Teaching in Higher Education contains a wealth of information for the
academician or academician-to-be. Supporting their contentions with
research findings, Brown and Atkins focus on strategies to improve the
principal modes of teaching employed in the academy today.
Teaching Teachers to Teach-The Case For Mentoring
Teaching---like
medicine, auto mechanics, professional basketball, and chemical engineering---is
a craft. There are distinct skills associated with its practice, which
people are not born knowing. Some people are naturals (in education,
the so-called "born teachers") and seem to develop the skills
by intuition; most are not, however, and need years of training before
they can function at a professional level.
Effective Lecturing
Lectures
are the most popular form of teaching in medical education.3 A well-developed
and well-presented lecture can be a stimulating and enriching experience
for both student and instructor.
How do I limit material due to time constraints?
Begin
by making a list of all the content that you WANT to cover. Now edit
this list. What material is optional and what must be taught?
What’s the Use of Student Ratings of Teaching Effectiveness?
Formative
evaluation refers to information that is gathered for the purpose of
improving teaching. Student ratings provide feedback that instructors
can use to make positive changes in their courses or teaching practice.
The diagnostic information provided by such feedback can identify strengths
and weaknesses as perceived by students in a particular context.
Central
Ground: The Teaching Mantra
think
everybody who teaches employs a short, “default” assumption that guides
their teaching-related decisions and reactions. Instructors routinely
process problems, failures, and successes through a personalized interpretive
filter. I call this the “Teaching Mantra” (TM), which I define as a
bumper-sticker sized statement that animates our teaching interactions.
Whether or not we are aware of its existence, the TM informs our reactions
when something goes wrong, or right, in our classroom.
