1. The Effective Teacher
Course Overview
&
Research and Teaching

2. Introduce yourself
What are your expectations for this
graduate course?

3. Introduction to the Course
The Syllabus
The Platforms (Google Classroom – Google Meet –
Flipgrid)
Discussion Boards
Assignments and Presentations
Flipped Learning: reverses the traditional educational
arrangement by providing students with instructional
content and lecture materials and presentations to be
viewed at home or outside of class. Class time focuses
more on exploration, finding meaning, problem-solving,
and application of knowledge.
Assessments: Participation – Presentations – Written
Quizzes – Midterm and Final Exams

4. Research and Teaching
Lecture's Objectives
• Define effective teaching and how it influences
learning.
• Discuss the role of research about teacher
effectiveness on teachers’ practices
• Differentiate between different teaching theories.

5. Questions about Teacher’s Role and Effectiveness
• How do you define effective teaching? What are
the top qualities of an effective teacher?
• How has definition of effective teaching changed
over time? What are the role expectations of the
teacher in the 21st century?
• How should teacher’s effectiveness be defined?
Should it be restricted to classroom work only? Is it
best measured in relation to teachers’ influence on
students’ attainment of academic outcomes?

6. The Questions of Effective Teaching
• Does your definition of effective teaching apply to all levels? For
example, are there similarities in the ways effective kindergarten
and high school teachers instruct?
• What about students? Would your definition of good teaching
apply equally well to low- and high-ability learners?
• And, how about subject matter? Does an effective history
teacher teach the same way as an effective English or art
teacher?
• Finally, how does time influence your definition? Do effective
teachers teach the same way at the beginning of the school year
as at its close, at the beginning of a unit as at the end, or even at
the beginning of a lesson and at its completion?

7. What are the different sources of information and
evidence about teacher effectiveness and effective
teaching practices – the need for triangulation of
perspective:
• Students’ educational outcomes. e.g. progress in Language,
Maths, Science & other academic measures PLUS social -
behaviour
• Teachers’ subject and pedagogical knowledge
• Professional judgments e.g. by inspectors and external
reviewers
• Observation of teachers’ classroom practices
• Students’ and teachers’ views
• Triangulation means combining theories, methods or observers in a
research study

8. GENERAL PROFILE OF EFFECTIVE TEACHERS
Clear about instructional goals
Knowledgeable about curriculum content and the
strategies for teaching it
Communicate to their students what is expected
of them – and why
Make expert use of existing instructional
materials in order to devote more time to
practices that enrich and clarify the content

9. AS A SUBJECT TEACHER DO I:
• Have detailed up-to date knowledge of the subjects I teach?
• Maintain my enthusiasm for the subject by being a learner as well as a
teacher?
• Clarify my expectations and raise students’ aspirations?
• Plan lessons and units of work to ensure continuity in learning?
• Engage students’ interest, intellect, creativity?
• Encourage students to be exploratory and critical?
• Use questioning skilfully to probe and extend students’ thinking?
• Give students sufficient time for reflection?
• Recognize ‘interactive’ work as integral to learning for students of all
abilities?
• Mark and assess students’ work and offer informative feedback?

10. Effective Teacher: Suggested Definitions
• A teacher is effective if she/he can accomplish the planned
goals and assigned tasks in accordance with school goals and
those of the broader education system
Campbell Kyriakides, Muijs, & Robinson (2004), p.61
• A more effective teacher ‘adds value’ to student outcomes by
promoting greater progress than predicted, given the
influence of student prior attainment and background
• An effective teacher combines the best of human relations,
intuition, sound judgment, knowledge of subject matter, and
knowledge of how—people learn—all in one simultaneous act.

11. Teacher Characteristics and the Search for the Right Method
• Two teacher characteristics—teacher experience and
understanding of subject matter—have proved to be
powerful variables influencing how teachers understand
events in the classroom and explain content.
• Veteran teachers are able to use their experience to
interpret the complex events that occur in classrooms and
to make the many professional decisions that are needed
every day. Similarly, subject-matter expertise allows
effective teachers to frame and explain ideas in ways that
make sense to students.

12. Teacher Effectiveness Research: Teachers Do Make a
Difference
• Research on teaching finally focused on teachers' actions in classrooms,
attempting to find links between what teachers actually do in classrooms
and student learning. These studies marked a new way of thinking about
research in education. Unlike previous work, this research focused on the
teacher and the kinds of interactions teachers had with students.
• Researchers identified teachers whose students scored higher than
would be expected on standardized tests and other teachers whose
students scored lower. They then went into classrooms, videotaped
literally thousands of hours of instruction, and tried to determine what
differences existed in the instruction of the teachers in the two samples.
Because these efforts focused on differences between less and more
effective teachers, it became known as the teacher effectiveness
research.

13. Time to Think
What is the influence of teacher effectiveness
research on teachers’ practices? How can
research help improve teachers’ performances?

14. The Positive Influence of Research on
Teachers’ Practice
 Helps teachers find solutions to particular problems arising in
classroom or school
 Underpins professional learning of knowledge, skills and
understanding
 Connects teachers with sources of information and networks of
professional support
 Clarifies purposes, processes and priorities when introducing change –
for example, to curriculum, pedagogy or assessment
 Improves understanding of professional and policy context,
locally and nationally, enabling teachers to teach and lead more
strategically and effectively
 Develops teacher’s agency, influence, self-efficacy and voice within
the school and more widely within the profession.

15. Contemporary Views of Teaching and Learning
At the same time that perspectives on teaching were
changing, similar changes were occurring in the way
researchers viewed learners and learning. Behaviorist views of
learning, which emphasized external influences in the form of
rewards and punishment, gradually gave way to more
cognitive perspectives. These cognitive perspectives
emphasized students' use of strategies to organize, store, and
retrieve information. More recently, research has emphasized
the critical role that learners play in constructing new
knowledge.

16. Behaviorist Perspectives
• Behaviorism emphasized the importance of observable, external
events on learning.
• The goal of behaviorism was to determine how external instructional
manipulations affected changes in student behavior.
• The teacher's role was to control the environment through stimuli in
the form of cues and reinforcement for appropriate student behavior.
• Students were viewed as empty containers, responding passively to
stimuli from the teacher and the classroom environment.
• A common example of behaviorism is positive reinforcement. A
student gets a small treat if he/she gets 100% on the spelling test. In
the future, students work hard and study for their test in order to get
the reward.

17. Criticism of Behaviorist Perspectives
• Over time educators found this perspective on learning to be
oversimplified and perhaps misdirected.
• Although learners do indeed react to stimuli from the environment,
research revealed that students were not passive recipients, but instead
actively changed and altered stimuli as they attempted to make sense of
lessons.
• Student characteristics such as background knowledge, motivation, and
the use of learning strategies all influenced learning.
• The role of the teacher also changed from dispenser of rewards and
punishment to that of someone who helped students organize and make
sense of information.

18. Constructivism: Students as Creators of Understanding
Constructivism—a recent development in cognitive psychology—has
focused our attention on the central role that learners play in
constructing new knowledge. Influenced by the work of Jean Piaget
(1952, 1959) and Lev Vygotsky (1978, 1986), as well as the work Of
linguists and anthropologists.
Constructivism is a view of learning that-emphasizes four key
components:
1. Learners construct their own understanding rather than having it
delivered or transmitted to them.
2. New learning depends on prior understanding and knowledge.
3. Learning is enhanced by social interaction.
4. Authentic learning tasks promote meaningful learning.

19. Constructivism: Students as Creators of Understanding
• Constructivism has fundamentally changed the way we view
teaching and learning. As opposed to passive recipients of
information, learners become active meaning-makers, building
upon their current knowledge. To facilitate the process,
teachers design learning activities in which learners can work
with others on meaningful learning tasks.
• Constructivism calls upon each student to build knowledge
through experience. Knowledge can't simply be transferred
from the teacher to student. As such, teachers play a facilitation
role.
• For example, a teacher may have his/her students pursue their
own learning through projects, with the teacher playing an
advisory role only.

20. Criticism of the Constructivist Theory
• Critics of constructivist approaches argue that constructivism promotes
group thinking and ignores the individuality of students even though
learning should promote individual rights.
• Social constructivism leads to "group think." Critics say the collaborative
aspects of constructivist classrooms tend to produce a "tyranny of the
majority," in which a few students' voices or interpretations dominate the
group's conclusions, and nonconforming students are forced to conform
to the emerging consensus.
• There is little hard evidence that constructivist methods work. Critics say
that constructivists, by rejecting evaluation through testing and other
external criteria, have made themselves unaccountable for their students'
progress.

21. Common Views
Common to all of these is refocused attention on the learner
and what teachers can do to help students learn. These
changes make this an exciting time to study education and
become a teacher. Researchers are uncovering a number of
links between teacher actions and student achievement.
Because of this research, our views of teacher professional
development have changed.

22. Thank You