The Ideal Professor: Student Perceptions of Effective Instructor Practices, Attitudes, and Skills.

Abstract

I watch with mild interest as my son logs into his school's e-port to see if he can switch a section of a required course to another instructor. The semester break is waning and I can feel his stress level rise as he walks away from the computer, shoulders sagging, and uttering, No openings. I'll try again later. I have observed him engage in this same pattern of action numerous times in the last few weeks. You already have a seat in this class. Why are you trying to change it?, I ask. Mom, you just don't understand. I went on RateMyProfessors and the teacher I have is all bad. I'll never get a grade or learn anything if l keep the section I have. This scenario plays out across the land time and time again as students scrap for the professors other students deem as best. Morn does understand, however. As assistant chairperson of her department, part of her job responsibilities include assisting preservice teachers register for classes each semester and she observes them engage in this exact strategy as they attempt to schedule their classes. Good teaching matters. It matters to all students, but particularly to preservice teachers who are in the final stages of preparation to assume their own classrooms. It is during these last semesters of teacher preparation that these students formalize their teaching persona, part of which is considering those qualities which they wish to emulate. What is not typically recognized is the actualization of the axiom that teachers often teach as they are taught. Teacher educators replicate teaching strategies from their own past and in doing so pass this legacy on to their pre-service students. Classroom teachers, too, tend to replicate the teaching style they have experienced often never considering that they are a product of a pastiche of great teaching, poor teaching, and everything in-between--ostensibly perpetuated for generations to come through the children in our students' classrooms. Despite the many and varied university programs focused on effective teacher preparation, cultural scripting, (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999), that is, emulating and imitating what is learned from observing teachers over the years as students tend to dominate the thought process of novice teachers. Novices are often apprenticed into teaching by observation (Lortie, 1975) and are inclined to be comfortable, if not dependent on their views of what teaching should be like and the pattern self perpetuates (Sugrue, 1996). Identifying traits or characteristics common to effective teachers as well as positive teaching strategies, specifically from the points of view of undergraduate preservice students, is a positive step towards strengthening teacher education and classroom practice. Conversely, recognizing teaching qualities and practices considered to be counterproductive to learning in undergraduate preservice teacher preparation programs supplements this knowledge. For teacher educators and for preservice teachers about to enter their own classrooms, recognizing elements of effectiveness and weakness is a first step towards correcting and strengthening them. Background Teaching at any level is complex, as are those who do the teaching. At its core, teaching involves the interweaving of content knowledge, pedagogy skills, and a knowledge and appreciation of the multifaceted nature of students to, in the end, be able to point to evidence that learning has occurred. Personal characteristics, however, are integral in the overall portrait of a professional teacher, too. Most educators can reflect on their past formal education and identify a teacher whom they remember fondly. Although it is quite possible that this remembrance may be heavily influenced by this teacher's formidable content knowledge or captivating methods of instructional delivery, it is also those intangibles, those elements of personality and practice that blended into the mosaic of being a good teacher. …