The Universality of Good Teaching: A Study of Descriptors Across Disciplines

The literature on teaching is replete with definitions and examples of good teaching. They include the traits and characteristics of the best instructors, teachers, and professors. In recent years, the literature included the impact of teaching on the student learner, thus coming full circle, from teacher to learner. The literature provides good information, but it is the experience of one’s peers that provides reliable and current information. Since 1998, over 1000 faculty, mostly engineering faculty, have considered 5 questions concerning good teaching. They have pair-shared the results, and those results have accumulated. Collectively they have defined good teaching: the methods, the results and measures, and the need for good teaching to ensure that classes and courses are successful. They have even discussed the definition and meaning of “successful. ” They have assigned adjectives and phrases as exemplars for the best practices of instructors/teachers/professors. In 2006, in discussions with colleagues at a teaching and learning conference, the question arose about the possibility that all teachers think approximately the same way about teaching. In response to these musings researchers conducted a survey of a non-engineering comparison group of faculty from two liberal arts related institutions who were asked to comment on the same five questions concerning good teaching: 66 responses were obtained, and their results are listed and compared below. This paper presents th