Effective Teaching, Characteristics of

Over the past several decades, a revolution has occurred in the definitions of ‘good’ teaching. Researchers have found that defining good teachers by community ideals, personality characteristics, number of credit hours earned, or college grade point average proved disappointing, as these variables showed little relationship to what teachers actually do in the classroom. This directed researchers to study the impact of specific teacher activities on the specific cognitive and affective behaviors of their students. The term good teaching changed to effective teaching, and the research focus shifted from studying teachers exclusively to studying teachers and their effects on students. This new approach to studying classroom behavior has made the teacher–student relationship in the classroom the focus of modern definitions of effective teaching.