1.GOOD
TEACHING is as much about passion as it is about reason. It’s about not
only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and
doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It’s
about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that
passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.
2.GOOD
TEACHING is about substance and training students as consumers of
knowledge. It’s about doing your best to keep on top of your field,
reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and
being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not
confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the
gap between theory and practice. It’s about leaving the ivory tower and
immersing oneself in the field, talking to, consulting with, and
assisting practitioners, and liaising with their communities.
3.GOOD
TEACHING is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and
remembering that each student and class is different. It’s about
eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the
quiet students. It’s about pushing students to excel; at the same time,
it’s about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all
times.
4.GOOD TEACHING is about not always
having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid,
experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing
circumstances. It’s about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to
do in a class done and still feeling good. It’s about deviating from
the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and
better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance
between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover
on the other. Good teachers migrate between these poles at all times,
depending on the circumstances. They know where they need to be and
when.
5.GOOD TEACHING is also about style.
Should good teaching be entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that it
lacks in substance? Not a chance! Effective teaching is not about being
locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a
slide projector while you drone on. Good teachers work the room and
every student in it. They realize that they are conductors and the class
is their orchestra. All students play different instruments and at
varying proficiencies. A teacher’s job is to develop skills and make
these instruments come to life as a coherent whole to make music.
6.GOOD
TEACHING is about humor. This is very important. It’s about being
self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It’s often about
making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice
breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like
them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.
7.GOOD
TEACHING is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents.
It’s about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It’s also
about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses,
and preparing materials to further enhance instruction.
8.GOOD
TEACHING is supported by strong and visionary leadership, and very
tangible instructional support resources, personnel, and funds. Good
teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that
transcends the entire organization from full professors to part-time
instructors and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by
what is done.
9.GOOD TEACHING is about
mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being
recognized and promoted by one’s peers. Effective teaching should also
be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated through training
and development programs.
10.AT THE END OF
THE DAY, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and
intrinsic rewards…like locking eyes with a student in the back row and
seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the
person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning
all of a sudden happens. It’s about the former student who says your
course changed her life. It’s about another telling you that your course
was the best one he’s ever taken. Good teachers practice their craft
not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy
it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn’t imagine doing
anything else.