Effective Teaching Strategies: Six Keys to
Classroom Excellence
What are makes an effective teacher?
This particular list of teaching
characteristics appears in an excellent book that is all but unknown in the
states, Learning to Teach in Higher Education, by noted scholar
Paul Ramsden. In the case of what makes teaching effective, he writes, “…a
great deal is known about the characteristics of effective university teaching.
It is undoubtedly a complicated matter; there is no indication of one ‘best
way,’ but our understanding of its essential nature is both broad and deep.”
(p. 88-89). He organizes that essential knowledge into these six principles,
unique for the way he relates them to students’ experiences.
1: Interest and explanation – “When our interest is aroused in something, whether it is an academic
subject or a hobby, we enjoy working hard at it. We come to feel that we can in
some way own it and use it to make sense of the world around us.” (p. 98).
Coupled with the need to establish the relevance of content, instructors need
to craft explanations that enable students to understand the material. This
involves knowing what students understand and then forging connections between
what is known and what is new.
2: Concern and respect for students
and student learning – Ramsden starts with the negative
about which he is assertive and unequivocal. “Truly awful teaching in higher
education is most often revealed by a sheer lack of interest in and compassion
for students and student learning. It repeatedly displays the classic symptom
of making a subject seem more demanding than it actually is. Some people may
get pleasure from this kind of masquerade. They are teaching very badly if they
do. Good teaching is nothing to do with making things hard. It is nothing to do
with frightening students. It is everything to do with benevolence and
humility; it always tries to help students feel that a subject can be mastered;
it encourages them to try things out for themselves and succeed at something
quickly.” (p. 98)
3: Appropriate assessment and
feedback – This principle involves using a
variety of assessment techniques and allowing students to demonstrate their
mastery of the material in different ways. It avoids those assessment methods
that encourage students to memorize and regurgitate. It recognizes the power of
feedback to motivate more effort to learn.
For more teaching strategies, download Effective
Strategies for Improving College Teaching and Learning. This FREE
report features 11 articles pulled from the pages of The Teaching
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4: Clear goals and intellectual
challenge – Effective teachers set high standards
for students. They also articulate clear goals. Students should know up front
what they will learn and what they will be expected to do with what they know.
5: Independence, control and active
engagement – “Good teaching fosters [a] sense of
student control over learning and interest in the subject matter.” (p. 100).
Good teachers create learning tasks appropriate to the student’s level of
understanding. They also recognize the uniqueness of individual learners and
avoid the temptation to impose “mass production” standards that treat all
learners as if they were exactly the same. “It is worth stressing that we know
that students who experience teaching of the kind that permits control by the
learner not only learn better, but that they enjoy learning more.” (p. 102)
6: Learning from students – “Effective teaching refuses to take its effect on students for granted.
It sees the relation between teaching and learning as problematic, uncertain
and relative. Good teaching is open to change: it involves constantly trying to
find out what the effects of instruction are on learning, and modifying the
instruction in the light of the evidence collected.” (p. 102)
- See more at:
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/effective-teaching-strategies-six-keys-to-classroom-excellence/#sthash.G5z6HqUp.dpuf
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