GOOD TEACHING: THE TOP TEN REQUIREMENTS
By Richard Leblanc,
York University, Ontario
This article appeared in The
Teaching Professor after Professor Leblanc won a Seymous Schulich Award
for Teaching Excellence including a $10,000 cash award. Reprinted here
with permission of Professor Leblanc, October 8, 1998.
One. Good teaching is as much about passion as it is about reason. It’s
about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to
learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and
memorable. It’s about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and
conveying that passion to everyone, most importantly to your students.
Two. Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers
of knowledge. It’s about doing your best to keep on top of your field,
reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and being
at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined to
scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between
theory and practice. It’s about leaving the ivory tower and immersing
oneself in the field, talking to, consulting with, and assisting
practitioners, and liaisoning with their communities.
Three. Good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive,
and remembering that each student and class is different. It’s about
eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the
quiet students. It’s about pushing students to excel; at the same time,
it’s about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all
times.
Four. Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being
rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence
to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It’s about getting only 10
percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and still feeling good.
It’s about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily
when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about
the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one
hand and a pushover on the other.
Five. Good teaching is also about style. Should good teaching be
entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that it lacks in substance? Not a
chance! Effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued
to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a slide projector while you
drone on. Good teachers work the room and every student in it. They
realize that they are the conductors and the class is the orchestra. All
students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies.
Six. This is very important — good teaching is about humor. It’s about
being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It’s often
about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice
breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like
them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.
Seven. Good teaching is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and
talents. It’s about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It’s
also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning
courses, and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction.
Eight. Good teaching is supported by strong and visionary leadership, and
very tangible institutional support — resources, personnel, and funds.
Good teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that
transcends the entire organization — from full professors to part-time
instructors — and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by
what is done.
Nine. Good teaching is about mentoring between senior and junior faculty,
teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one’s peers. Effective
teaching should also be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated
through training and development programs.
Ten. At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun,
experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards … like locking eyes with a
student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting,
thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking
across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. Good teachers practice
their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they
truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn’t imagine
doing anything else.
