Assessing Teacher Effectiveness in Agricultural Education

Effective Teaching

The central question is: What is an effective teacher? All aspiring and current teachers are encouraged to answer this question for themselves. The answer will ultimately become indicative of a teacher’s personal teaching philosophy. Yet, for the purpose of this chapter, the attempt is made to define the elusive concept known as effective teaching. Effective teaching is a multifaceted phenomenon that has been described in various ways throughout the literature. It is a term that is used frequently; yet, it is difficult to define. Being effective can be look different for every person depending on a teacher’s personality, the context by which a teacher instructs, and the community in which a teacher lives and works (especially in relation to stated or assumed expectations), to name a few. Many researchers have conducted complete theses on the topic and devoted their entire careers to defining and describing it. We will attempt to feature a number of those studies in this section as we highlight effective teaching.

Although effective teaching can differ from one context to the next, it appears there are three domains in which teachers need to be competent if they desire to be effective. First, effective teachers must be adept at engaging their students in the content. Effective teachers empower and challenge their students to think critically and solve problems. They motivate students to do more than they believe they are able and scaffold, guide, and support students to increase their expectations of what is possible regarding their learning. In addition, effective teachers prepare students well for the employment sector by equipping them with the necessary skills and experiences needed to obtain and sustain in a career in their chosen field. Effective teachers invest time focusing on ways they can engage their students in each lesson they teach. Such engagement should include a combination of physical, emotional, and cognitive attachment to the material. As an aspiring teacher, how will you seek to engage your students throughout the lessons you teach? The answer to this question is imperative because engagement leads to success (i.e., learning). Therefore, if you want your students to succeed, engage them in the content.