3.3.1 Overview of Effective Teaching Practices

by Kathleen Burke (Economics, SUNY Cortland)

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Table 1  Principles of Effective Teaching

Effective teaching is outcome-centered. Effective teaching is student-centered. Effective teaching is informed by continuous assessment. Effective teaching is appropriate for the level of student knowledge and learning skills. Effective teaching is adapted to the discipline. Effective teaching practices require long-term and short-term planning. Effective teaching practices enhance student learning skills. Teaching practices can be enhanced by a learning culture in a department and a college. Teaching practices can be customized to suit individual teaching styles. Effective teaching requires one to take risks to try new things for the continuous improvement of teaching practices.

Role of Effective Teaching Practices

Effective teaching practices incorporate and entwine curriculum design, assessment, learning practices, facilitation, and learning environments to address explicit learning outcomes. Teachers can be viewed as designers (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005); selecting and using the proper teaching practice at the appropriate time is an art as well as a skill. Before selecting teaching practices, however, instructors must identify the learning outcomes to be achieved. The course design and day-to-day teaching must address these selected learning outcomes (2.4.5 Learning Outcomes). Furthermore, assessment should be used continuously to determine whether the selected teaching practices have efficiently and effectively achieved the desired outcome(s).

Principles of Effective Teaching

Table 1 presents a summary of the principles of effective teaching. A brief description of each principle follows.

1. Effective teaching is outcome-centered.

Teaching is purposeful. It is effective to the extent that desired learning outcomes are achieved. Instructors must ensure that the teaching practices employed effectively address the appropriate outcomes (3.2.5 Creating a Facilitation Plan).

2. Effective teaching is student-centered.

Engaging students in the accomplishment of learning outcomes is the number-one priority for a teacher. An effective teacher recognizes that different students learn differently (4.3.2 Student Learning Styles). Incorporating different tools and techniques into teaching to honor these differences will enable a teacher to become more effective. Furthermore, the instructor should be available to students and open to student concerns.

3. Effective teaching is informed by continuous assessment.

To determine whether the teaching practices are effective and to guide continuous improvement, ongoing assessments of both the students and the instructor must be conducted (Angelo & Cross, 1993). After each class, the instructor should assess his or her performance and modify the next class appropriately (4.1.3 Mindset for Assessment). Furthermore, instructors should have the students assess their own performance and understanding as well as the performance of the instructional staff.

4. Effective teaching is appropriate for the level of student knowledge and learning skills.

Instructors must gauge their students’ abilities and modify their teaching techniques appropriately. It is the instructor’s responsibility to maintain a balance between the challenge associated with the material and the students’ current cognitive, social, and affective skills (4.3.4 The Accelerator Model).

5. Effective teaching is adapted to the discipline.

Because of the interaction between concept knowledge, process knowledge, tool knowledge, context knowledge, and way-of-being knowledge, certain teaching techniques are more appropriate for certain content than others (2.3.9 Forms of Knowledge and Knowledge Tables). For example, labs may be more appropriate in the natural sciences than in the humanities. However, any teaching technique can be used in any discipline with the appropriate modifications. For instance, a writing lab could be instituted in an English class.

6. Effective teaching practices require long and short-term planning.

Teaching practices are selected during course design and syllabus production (2.4.1 Overview of Instructional Design). However, as a term progresses, faculty should be prepared to modify teaching practices based on their own assessment as well as on student assessment of those practices (2.4.17 Assessing Learning Activities).

7. Effective teaching practices enhance student learning skills.

If faculty begin by keeping in mind the cognitive, social, and affective skills that students already possess, they can reinforce student abilities with those skills and provide a good base for growing skill sets for lifelong learning (2.3.3 Classification of Learning Skills). If students pay attention to skill development in a targeted discipline, they will develop confidence in their performance and validate their belief in themselves. This emotional maturity will enable their instructor to further develop students’ skill sets and to cultivate higher-level learning skills.

8. Teaching practices can be enhanced by a learning culture in a department and a college.

Students develop expectations of learning processes as they progress through their academic careers (McKeachie & Svinicki, 1994). If the culture of a department or college encourages innovative teaching techniques and sets high expectations for student performance, then experimenting and employing new techniques will be more easily accepted by students and colleagues (3.1.3 Methodology for Creating a Quality Learning Environment). Moreover, the department or college will see the value in the efforts of innovative faculty (2.4.11 Designing a Foundations Course). It is not impossible to implement more effective teaching practices in a place where this type of learning culture is not present; however, it will take more time and effort to implement and the value may not be as apparent to students and colleagues.

9. Teaching practices can be customized to suit individual teaching styles.

Teaching style is an individual trait, and so what works for one instructor may not be a good fit for another. An effective teacher will be able to adapt and modify particular techniques to fit his or her personality. Moreover, an effective teacher will be able to restructure tools to meet the needs of students and to ensure the greatest probability of achieving the desired outcomes (3.2.2 Profile of a Quality Facilitator).

10. Effective teaching requires one to take risks to try new things for the continuous improvement of teaching practices.

Changing or implementing a new teaching technique can be scary. However, since faculty encourage students to take risks, faculty need to take risks as well by trying new ways to convey an understanding of the information. Things may go terribly the first time a new technique is implemented. But, after assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, instructors can modify it and try it again. Hindsight is 20/20; the second time will often be better.

Issues in Implementing Effective Teaching Practices

Many issues affect teaching practices at many different levels: personal, institutional, or higher education in general. Below are some of the most common issues that contribute to difficulties in implementing certain teaching practices.

Prior Student Experience with the Tool: It takes time to develop and personalize a particular teaching technique. Instructors and students need to become comfortable with a technique before they perform optimally. If students have experience with a particular technique, the instructor’s implementation of it will be easier than if the technique is unfamiliar. Desired outcomes can be achieved more quickly when students are experienced with the teaching technique being used.

Training Required for Effective Use: Implementing a new technique involves costs. The instructor has to take time to learn a new technique and determine how to implement the technique to produce the desired learning outcome. Given the multiple demands on faculty, the price of learning a new teaching technique can be quite high. However, after some experience with implementing a technique, faculty will be able to save planning time since they have a better idea of how the technique will contribute to achieving desired outcomes. It is wise to focus on learning a few techniques at a time, gradually integrating these into one’s teaching, rather than trying to make many changes on multiple fronts.

Lack of Supporting Resources: Some institutions lack material or collegial support for innovative teaching techniques. The lack of physical resources, such as lab equipment and computer labs, is difficult to overcome without investment from some funding source. Lack of collegial support for investing time in improving teaching skills is a different issue. In some institutions, teaching is regarded as a task that should be done well, but the primary focus is on research. Faculty in research institutions need to balance becoming effective teachers with conducting quality research (2.5.1 Boyer’s Model of Scholarship).

Attitude of the Instructor: A key factor in student success is the attitude of the instructor (4.3.3 The Language and Culture of Success). An instructor’s enthusiasm can motivate students. Moreover, nonverbal communication can also send signals to students. An instructor’s facial expressions, energy, and intonation are as important as what the instructor says. When instructors take time to reflect on the passion they feel for their discipline and the way they communicate this to others, explicitly and implicitly, they can dramatically improve their teaching effectiveness.

Real-World Applications: Students will realize the effectiveness or appropriateness of an instructor’s teaching when they can see the implications for real-world use (1.2.1 Theory of Performance). For instance, working with case studies enables the students to see exactly how information is used in a real-world situation. Research has shown that students’ ability to apply concepts and overall knowledge and understanding improve when case studies are used (McKeachie, et al., 2006).

Implementation and Planning

An effective teacher plans and strategizes the layout of his or her course well before the beginning of the semester (Wiggins, et al., 2005). During this development time, as an instructor prepares the syllabus and creates a course outline, he or she should begin to think about specific techniques to enhance teaching certain topics (2.4.8 Methodology for Course Design). Teachers may also want to visit other classes to determine what techniques their colleagues employ and to modify those techniques to meet the needs of their students (4.1.11 Peer Coaching).

Once the term begins, student and teacher performance should be assessed day by day (4.1.4 Assessment Methodology). Assessment information may reveal a need to modify the course outline; flexibility is necessary. Developing student understanding is more important than covering a certain number of chapters. In some cases, slowing down at the beginning of a term makes it possible to pick up the pace later in the term when students have a better foundation to draw upon, enabling them to grasp the material more quickly. Flexibility and day-to-day adjustments make teachers more effective.

While an effective teacher puts students’ needs first, it can be challenging to balance the time to learn new teaching techniques with the need to fulfill research and service obligations. Fortunately, the time cost for using a new technique diminishes with use. After first implementing a technique, the time needed for class preparation for subsequent implementations decreases dramatically. However, constant interruptions from students can take attention away from research, preparing for class, or any of the many other tasks that faculty must complete during the day. Therefore, getting the students to value instructor time is important (3.3.7 Effective Use of Office Hours).

High-Leverage Teaching Practices

Based on feedback from process educators in teaching institutes across the country, Table 2 gives a list of favorite teaching practices that are relatively easy to implement, well-liked by students, and are known to improve teaching effectiveness.

Concluding Thoughts

Becoming an effective teacher combines many pedagogical skills that are not innate, requiring conscious attention to refine these skills (Angelo, et al., 1993). In applying new teaching practices, the effective teacher keeps students and outcomes in mind when planning instruction and when making decisions in the classroom. Effective teachers are opportunistic and flexible, recognizing that teaching practices are the means to an end, not an end in themselves (McKeachie, et al., 2006). What works well one semester in one course may not be easily duplicated with a different class and course. Effective teachers are true to their personal and professional identity, but not trapped in this identity.

References

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

McKeachie. W., & Svinicki, M. (2006). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd Expanded edition). Baltimore: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.