What Makes a GOOD Teacher

What does it mean to be a "good teacher"?

It's not what a lot of people think.

The old-fashioned belief still exists that teacher's job is to pour information into a student's head (mostly by lecture) and then have the student parrot it back on a test.

In reality, most lecture doesn't even sink in, or at least won't be remembered past the test.  The way to get students to learn is to get them doing hands-on things that make the information sink in.

That means that the teacher has to understand the outcome goals for the course, plan instructional activities and tasks that will allow the students to achieve the goals (if they apply themselves), and choose technology that can be used to accomplish the activities and tasks. But that is just the beginning.

This article suggests that teachers should converse with students before and after class time and view teaching as dialog, not one-way information flow. In other words, teachers should be engaged with their students. I agree.

In the classroom, a good teacher is a guide and a partner in learning. Someone with experience who helps the students learn for themselves. The teacher gives help as needed, but also encourages the students to become independent learners and problem-solvers.

Outside the classroom, a good teacher is one who knows the students, greets them by first name, is a career counselor, and often even a life coach. There are professors who remain advisers and counselors to students for decades after graduation. There are professors who change their students' lives through their advice and mentoring.

The problem is that a lot of the people who make policy about education were never teachers.  They still think that lecture-memorization works. They still think that science is opinion. They still think that the only lessons learned in college are those taught explicitly in the classroom.

Several years ago, scholar Patricia Gumport called on higher education to work to shape public opinion proactively, moving it toward more favorable metaphors and understandings.  That hasn't happened, and it is a stronger need than ever.