Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness

Evaluating the effectiveness of various means in teaching physics

Ng Yin Lung

12090391d

Introduction:

Learning and teaching are the two sides of a coin. The widely acceptable standard to judge the effectiveness of teaching is the amount of knowledge has learnt by students from teachers. The correlations between the entire ratings of the course and the teacher and the amount learned from the course rated by students are consistently high (Cohen, 1981; Theall and Franklin, 2001). Doyle T suggested that teaching in the absence of learning is just talking. The effectiveness of teaching is based on student learning.

Books and researches related to methods of teaching has indicated that teachers can present the information with skills will increase

(Scriven, 1995).

Braskamp (2000) suggests that lecturers and teachers use student ratings and feedbacks data to modify and improve their teaching effectiveness. In fact, over 90 percent of all colleges and universities in the United States use student ratings and represent the most commonly used method for evaluating courses and teachers.

Defining teaching and teaching effectiveness has become a hot topic within the higher education community (Braskamp, and Ory; 1994, p.42).For example, Centra (1993), describes effective teaching as “that which produces beneficial and purposeful student learning through the use of appropriate procedures, Braskamp and Ory, (1994, p. 40) described the meaning of teaching and learning, effective teaching defined as the “creation of situations in which appropriate learning occurs. Successful teachers have to learn the creation of situations in order to teach

Although some of the researchers doubt the effectiveness, both rationality and reliability of students are widely acknowledged by most of the researchers (Arreola, 1995; Braskamp & Ory, 1994; Pratt, 1997). Students learn through various types of teaching methods including lectures, experiments, tutorials and examinations. They can distinguish the quality and effectiveness and importance of each type of practise. Cuseo (n.d.) states that students can evaluate what is taught and the quality of teaching. Theall, M. (n.d.) also claims that the students can judge the value of lectures, the clarity of the teacher's explanations, and the usefulness of lecture notes and assignments. Undoubtedly, students are suitable for expressing their feelings of the teaching quality and consequence. However, there is another consideration about the effectiveness in teaching other than students’