Abstract:

Teaching can be defined as ‘any activity on the part of one person intended to facilitate learning on the part of another’. Researchers have been investigating what makes good teaching in higher education mainly based on student opinion surveys as a tool for measuring teaching effectiveness. Five traits that students considered as relevant to good teaching are: clear and understandable in explanations; personal interest in progress of the class; friendly and sympathetic in manner; interest and enthusiasm in subject; and gets students interested in the subject. Other works complement the previous list with the ability of the teacher to be fair and respectful, and to provide adequate feedback.

Three findings about good teaching are important to mention. The first is that, even with the evolution of teaching methods along the years, student opinion regarding teaching effectiveness may not have substantial changes. The second aspect is the universality of good teaching, which means that descriptors of teaching effectiveness tend to be the same, regardless of the existing diversity of courses and disciplines. The last finding is that teaching abilities remains relatively consistent over time, which means that the added experience acquired over teaching years may have little impact on improving teaching effectiveness.

In order to improve the professor-student relationship and the learning effectiveness is then of interest to understand students’ expectations of their professors. Given the online reality in education imposed during COVID-19 pandemic, it is particularly critical to investigate what characterizes good teaching in a virtual scenario. In this paper, we conducted an interview with students of an Engineering institute in a way to assess teachers’ particularities that contribute to success in remote learning. Based on the literature, we organized the evaluated characteristics in two categories, named ‘personality traits’ and ‘skills and teaching methods’.

Regarding personality traits, we found that respect is the most important factor, followed by organization, openness, and helpfulness. To be empathic and accessible were relevant to more than 80% of students. Almost 70% agreed that to be friendly is needed. Considering skills and teaching methods, results pointed six characteristic as the most significant in the following order: to be clear in explanations, to have knowledge about subjects, to be interested in subjects, to apply fair examinations, to have enthusiastic about teaching, and to be engaging. Four aspects gained attention of almost 90% of students, including ability to translate complex concepts, concision in explanations, provision of adequate feedback, and usage of real examples. The last factor indicated as pertinent was to have high expectation for all students.

Our investigation confirms that aspects that determine good teaching in traditional classes are also critical to remote classes. In fact, all assessed characteristics demonstrated to be essential towards effectiveness in online learning. Teachers, instructors and professors can benefit from our work to identify aspects that they can develop aiming to improve their classes. School administration can use the studied characteristics to establish strategies to support teaching, such as to organize formative lectures, to disseminate best practices, to recognize outstanding teachers, and to celebrate improvements in teaching processes.

Keywords:

Learning effectiveness, good teaching, higher education, online classes, COVID-19 pandemic.