Graduate Students’ Perspectives on Effective Teaching

Abstract

This study employed data collected over an 8-year period in which graduate students’ perspectives on effective teaching were collected during a class exercise. The data were organized into three categories: (a) teaching competence (knowledge of content and teaching), (b) relationships with students (having the best interests of students at heart), and (c) teacher attitudes (with respect to teaching and learning). Students appear to concur with the literature in adult and higher education that effective teaching involves far more than presenting content and the methods used to convey that content to students. Equally important are the affective or emotional processes involved in learning, forming a relationship with students, and caring about students’ learning and ability to integrate and apply new information. Therefore, adult and higher education courses that address teaching need to go further than merely addressing course design and techniques. Unless students have direct instruction in teaching and an opportunity to practice, they will often uncritically reproduce the teaching models they have experienced. This article can serve as a way to introduce information about effective teaching that emanates from a source with which students can easily identify and serve as a platform to engage students in the study of teaching.