Quality of education based upon
how we identify effective teachers

Contents

Introduction

The reason why I decided to write this article is: Even though most people say, "Education is important." , "Education is necessary.", they do not know the reasons and evaluations toward it. Professors and instructors could say, "We have the student-centered quality of education.", but what is the criteion? The term, quality, is frequently used as an ambiguous meaning. We must think of how we implement and evaluate the quality of education. It should be referred to as the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching. First, I start with pointing out traditional teaching myths. In later sections, I will discuss how we could accomplish quality teaching by citing detailed methods from "Universal Teaching Strategies."

This article is not just a copy of references, or the collection of other people's methods. It is important to point out stereo-typical common senses in education. Then, our other goal is to disseminate such education literacy to general people. Every citation is under such context, which is also based upon my experience and students' voice.

Part I: Education Myths

1. Myths toward Effective Teaching
   There are misunderstandings in conventional teaching systems. The following items are typical myths.
   
   • The effectiveness is proportional to the amount of teaching time.

     It is obviously wrong, but quite a few people believe in this statement. The amount of time should be determined by how many topics the instructor can actually teach for students' understanding. This also depends on his/her organization, communication, and other management skills. Therefore, the effectiveness should not simply be measured by the amount of time.

   • A smaller size of class provides more effectiveness of teaching.

     In fact, the smaller class an instructor has, the more accessibility students can have. However, the effectiveness depends on the instructor's skills and experience. For instance, if the instructor is not effective to interact with students, the students may not grasp the materials in spite of the small size of class.

   • A student, who is quiet and is not leading the experiment in the lab, will not understand the topic.

     This does not necessarily mean that s/he will not learn the material. The student may have contemplated what is going on. Sometimes the student will become more positive toward the end of semester especially s/he starts grasping the concepts. With instructor's proper assessment, students try to learn by observing other students' performance in lab.

   • The ability or effectiveness of teaching is proportional to instructor's amount of knowledge.

     Yes. Even students can notice that how well the instructor know the mateials to teach. However, the effectiveness is not necessarily proportional to the amount of instructor's knowledge. It is more important for instructors to know how the knowledge tranfers to students.

   • The instructor's fluent speaking leads to effective teaching.

     It is better, but it is not necessarily correct. For the personal communication skill, this will be a great advantage; however, fluent speaking actually "hypnotizes" students that they understand the materials perfectly. In other word, this can be a huge impression for students to hide the essential practice toward their understanding. The class tends to have a gap between teacher's expectation and students' real comprehension.

   Most of the people believe that these are the right instructors with good teaching skills. We cannot evaluate this in terms of dichotomic measures. This criticism indicates that we seek better methods of education.
   
   
2. Myths toward the Lecture Method

   As mentioned above, emphasizing amount of time to teach does not necessarily accomplish the effective teaching. The myth toward lecture is based on such traditional misunderstanding. Absolutely, lecture plays a big role in a curriculum; however, it cannot provide various aspects of teaching. As the limitation, students feel that a lecture method is:

   • Boring and uninteresting
   • Lacked teacher/student or student/student interaction
   • Poorly organized and presented
   • Content is irrelevant, not current, and accessible elsewhere
   • Focused mainly on the lowest level of cognition (memorizing, etc.)
   • Ignoring individual differences
   
   Some of the limitations of the lecture method are cited by educators (Frank, 1984; Gage & Berliner, 1998; Oddi, 1983; Wahlberg, 1997). These explain more details of the above.
   • The lecture method can be boring if stimulus variations (use of humor, voice modulation, and visual) are not utilized during the presentation.
   • Student participation is limited to approximately 12 percent of the total interaction in the classroom, thus reducing the opportunity for feedback.
   • The lecture method emphasizes the lower-level cognitive skills of memorization and recall rather than synthesis and evaluation.
   • The lecture approach places students with poor note-taking skills at a disadvantage in the classroom.
   • Students in the lecture class are more passive and take a less active role in their own learning.
   • Due to a lack of interaction, the teacher has difficulty immediately determining the amount of student leaning.
   • The lecture method rarely provides the opportunity for the inclusion of the affective learning domain (attitudes, feelings, and values) or the psychomotor domain.
   • Because the lecture approach is directed to large groups of students, individual needs are rarely identified or met.
   There are many myths in teaching methods, or one-sided evaluation from teachers. Even though lecture teaching takes most part of instruction, there are quite a few shortcomings of it. In the next part, some of solutions to effective methods will be discussed.
   

Part II: Effective Ways of Teaching

Teaching is not only limited to a simple category such as lecture and laboratory. There are several strata of the methods. The book indicates the following:

1. Structure of Instructional Continuum

   Lecture
   Demonstration
   Questioning
   Discussion
   Guided Practice
   Independent Practice
   Grouping
   Role Playing
   Simulation
   Reflective Inquiry/Thinking

   The terms - teacher or student centered - are symbolic here. The scale depends on how interactive and self-assessable the method is. Every method is important. The point is how the instructor manages them effectively. In reality, a student-centered teaching is based on well-balanced methods, and referred to as a result of improvement of students' aptitude. A teacher-centered is usually referred to as teachers' dictatorial, non-instructive, biased, inconsiderate, non-interactive and obstinate attitudes toward teaching. In the same sense, an instructor, who insists on student-centered with frivolous teaching so everyone can pass, is conducting teacher-centered education.

2. Knowing Students' Background

   Knowing students' background is one of the most important methods for effective teaching. Let us cite the book. These questions provide instructors to perceive students' background better.

   • What kind of learning activities have they experienced? What kind of life experiences? Travel experiences? Activities outside of school?
   • Do these learners work well in groups? Do they know how to work in groups?
   • What strategies/activities are developmentally appropriate for these learners?
   • Can these learners work independently?
   • Have the learners shown interest in the topic? What is their motivation level?
   • Is the content relevant to their lives?
   • Does this group include learners with special needs?
   In addition to above, from my experiences,
   • Is s/he a visualizer, audile, or motil?
   • Do the students really have the basic skills to understand the topic, such as math and other fundamental knowledge?

   It is also beneficial to grasp how diversified the class is. Usually, it takes time to know their background by informally interacting with students. Astronomy and conceptual physics classes particularly have more divergence.

3. Setting Up Objectives

   Objectives make students realize what they will learn. Setting up objectives is also an important method for effective teaching. There are basically three instructional objectives, and split into types of objectives.

   • Objectives describe the information that you intend for students to know or use.
     (Knowledge objectives, skill objectives)
   • Objectives describe the skill that you intend for students to perform or demonstrate.
     (Skill objectives, somatic objectives, process objectives, attitude objectives)
   • Objectives describe the value or feeling that you intend for students to experience.
     (Attitude objectives, experience objectives)

   The above suggestions are particularly used for laboratory activities in my experience; however, it is useful for the lecture class, too. If students can refer to specific objectives during teaching and doing labs, it will be more effective.

   Somatic and experience objectives will be mainly considered in physical science labs, but knowledge and skill objectives are important to make students reminded of what they are doing.

4. Psychological Security for Students' Leaning Environment

   Psychological security of learning is also important for effective teaching. Challenging situation needs to raise students' ability sometimes. However, only stressful environment does not make students learn efficiently. Namely, stress and difficulty should go along with encouragement and incentive. This is the definition of the security here. This must be managed by the instructor based upon accomplishing class objectives, such as improving students skills. Let us list the examples:

   • Give quizzes not to be graded, but with assessment.
   • Allow students to make mistakes, but not to do them repeatedly.
   • Give more opportunities to students so that they can ask questions (e.g. email, anonymous questioning web system, office hours, etc.).
   • Give make-up exams, quizzes, reports, etc., but with proper educational consideration
   • Give an extra credit to students who did a great job, but not as a rule

   In addition to the above, the instructor has to be considerate toward students' self-respect. Instructors must not express contemptuous attitude even though a student did not grasp easy concepts. The above considerations should also go along with a rigid and fair evaluation; otherwise, students will not make efforts on understanding topics. In other words, students tend to be trifling to studying unless the teacher behaves strict with thoughtful assessments.

5. Advantages of Teacher Questions

   Interactive teaching also needs questioning from a teacher. Let me quote the essence from Universal Teaching Strategies.

   • Understanding. It provides an opportunity for the teacher to check for understanding.
   • Lesson effectiveness. It gives an indication of the effectiveness of instruction for the whole class.
   • Higher-level thinking. The level of dialogue and thinking is raised when higher-level questions (opinion, synthesis, and evaluation) are used in classroom.
   • Student participation. It increases student involvement in learning.
   • Communication skills. Combined with discussion, students can improve on their oral and social communication skills.
   • Self-checks. It allows students to hear peer responses to the same question and compare answers with their own.
   • Review. It provides students with opportunities for review of recently taught information.
   • Cues. It cues students about what the teacher feels important.

   The above provides effectively interactive teaching. This may be an index to evaluate the teacher's effectiveness of assessing the class.

6. Outcomes of the Grouping Process

   Group work is usually used for a laboratory class in physical science. However, the effectiveness of grouping process can also be used in a lecture class.

   • Subject matter knowledge is increased.
   • Students value shared academic work.
   • Students can regulate their own resources.
   • Students learn to manage other resources.
   • Students develop appropriate dispositions toward challenging work on shared talks.
   • School tasks are similar to those outside of school.
   • Group members serve as models for one another.
   • Students develop an expanded understanding of self and others.
   This can be a high expectation even for teachers; however, it can be done with appropriate open-ended questions to promote students' discussion.

7. Elements of Effective Instruction (popularized by Madeleine Hunter)

   These are based on the direct instruction lesson protocol. For the total assessment or evaluation of teaching, these will be the good criteria.

   • Establish the anticipatory set. (Get the students' attention.)
   • Explain the objective of the lesson. (Say, "Today we will...")
   • Provide instructional input. (Tell them what they need to know.)
   • Model the desired student behavior. (Show them how to use what they need to know.)
   • Check for understanding. (Solicit student feedback.)
   • Monitor and adjust. (Review, rephrase, and revisit necessary concepts.)
   • Provide for guided practice. (Give students a chance to practice doing what you want without assigning a grade to their effort.)
   • Provide for independent practice. (Give students an opportunity to demonstrate that they can do/that they know what you told them they would be able to do/know in your objective statement.)
   • Closure (Review the learning experience. Ask students, "How would you describe what we did today to a friend? etc.)

   The keywords of effective teaching are, perceivable, purposeful, considerate, flexible and interactive. However, teachers must always have the backbone toward education.

Curricula and assessments are the most important framework facilitate the class. The following are some of important insights to create curriculum:

1. John Goodlad's Five Levels of Curriculum Making curriculum has several aspects to indicate what you, school or policy wants to do.
   • Ideal Curriculum
     This is the curriculum espoused by government agencies, the secretary of education and academic groups.
     
   • Formal Curriculum
     This curriculum is the ideal proposals that have been approved by governing/power broking groups such as school boards, and legislative bodies. Once the ideal curriculum is written down in syllabi, curriculum guides, and sanctioned texts it becomes a formal curriculum.
     
   • Perceived Curriculum
     This is the curriculum that teachers perceive was mandated by governing bodies.
     
   • Operational Curriculum
     This is what actually happens in classroom.
     
   • Experimental Curriculum
     This is the curriculum that students experience. This is the level at which students make meaning.

   Most people seem to have a preconception that there is only one curriculum for a class, but one can create multiple time-dependent curricula. The instructor should be able to manage the above different curricula during a semester.

2. Elliot Eisner's Three Levels of Curriculum

   He states that three levels of curricula are always present in any learning environment.

   • Explicit Curriculum
     This is what the school advertises that it does (the items on its "education menu").
   • Implicit Curriculum
     This is the "hidden" curriculum that is taught as a result of such things as a school's structure, the peer group, social interactions, cultural capital, and poor/excellent teachers.
   • Null Curriculum
     This is what schools do not teach. These include undertaught subjects (e.g. art, intellectual processes, things that are the first to go in times of economic hardship).

   Compared to John Goodlad's Five Levels of Curriculum, this indicates more conceptual aspect. To obtain a meaningful curriculum out of this perspective, teachers' proper management skills based on objective observation.

3. Assessment of Three Main Domains
   (1) Assessing the Cognitive Domain
   This talks about measurement of students' knowledge by using systematic forms of measurement, such as essay tests, oral or written exams.

   Assessment Options for the Cognitive Options

   • Knowledge
     Written tests (fill in the blanks, matching, and simple multiple choices)
     Observation of student recitations
   • Comprehensive
     Written tests (true-false, multiple choice, short answer)
     Student assignments (summaries, explanations)
     Observations of student discussion
     Interviews
     
   • Application
     Written or oral problem solving
     Multiple-choice tests (with answers based on solving problems)
     Observation of simulation, role-play
     Performance task
     Projects
     
   • Analysis
     Essay (report) tests
     Multiple-choice tests that require classifying, coding, inferring, or using criteria
     Student assignments (comparisons)
     Portfolios
     
   • Synthesis
     Essay (report) tests
     Student projects with a plan, product
     Written or oral problem solving
     Portfolios
     

   (2) Assessing the Affective Domain

   This is supposed to assess the personal and internal qualities. The inquiry strategy is most commonly used for the affective domain.
   Assessment Options for the Affective Domain
   • Receiving
     Observations of student discussions
     Questionnaires
   • Responding
     Observation of student participation
     Interviews
   • Valuing
     Interviews
     Questionnaires
     Essay tests
   • Organization
     Observation of student choice
   • Characterization
     Student responsibilities
     Student projects (taking a position)
     Student debates

   (3) Assessing the Psychomotor Domain

   In this domain, you also have a hierarchy of difficulty levels, ranging from reflex movements to skilled movements. The levels in this domain are generally assessed by observation of either a behavior or performance. Observational data can be recorded as an anecdotal record, or checklists or rating scales.

   In education society, it is proper to have many ways to assess students. The above provides us detailed and objective options. We can recognize that the ways most people evaluate teachers are one-sided evaluations (see the myths of effective teachers in the first part of this article). In addition, good curricula can make a situation assess students more practically.

Part IV: Conclusions and Discussions

Reference
Universal Teaching Strategies by H. Jerome Freiberg and Amy Driscoll [Allyn and Bacon]

I asked students about this question before. These are the students' comments.

• Quality; professors that are approachable
• Quality instructors
• I'm looking for an atmosphere where I can learn and where I have control over which professors I want to take classes from.
• I am looking for an education where I won't come out just with a degree, but I will have a broader understanding of the world.
• A fair grading system, not based on memorization but practice use
• Preparing me for jobs
• I want to get a quality education.
• Teaching what we need to know, not what others think we need to
• To learn a lot about various interests
• I personally think that most teachers here do not care about their students, especially in the science department.
• Prepare people for tomorrow
• I want to be presented with a very outgoing learning environment.
• To prepare me for the job openings in my field, good classes, helpful teachers
• A more cross references of colleges
• I'm looking to get my undergraduate degree so I can move on to grad school. I was interested in this university because it's close to home (5 hours); it's cheap; and I think it offers a pretty good education.
• All I want are teachers who care about their students and their field, hopefully in that order.
• An introduction to higher academic methods and subjects so I can figure out just how to pay back my student loans
• Interesting classes, preparation for future study
• Education that what I learn is going to be useful in real life, in what I'm going to be doing in my career
• A place I can further my education
• I am here to actually learn material rather than just get good grades. I expect to graduate in a field that I am competent in and I expect to be well prepared for future education. I would also like to be well-rounded.
• It sounds bad, but I'm just here for a degree. I hope to learn things to enrich my knowledge, but ultimately it comes down to a piece of paper.
• A degree for a decent price