The Simple, Hard Truth about Teaching

"What is essential in learners is difficult for teachers to see. Teachers accept responsibility for students about whom they genuinely care."

James Stronge defines effectiveness as creating a positive effect on student achievement as well as other important outcomes that have positive and lasting effects on the lives of students. He tells us that research says:

• Students consistently want teachers who respect them, listen to them, show empathy toward them, help them work out their problems, and become human by sharing their own lives and ideas with their students.
• Caring teachers who create relationships with their students enhance student learning.
• Effective teachers consistently emphasize that their love for their students is a key element in their success.
• Teachers who create a warm and supportive classroom environment tend to be more effective with all students.
• Caring teachers intentionally develop awareness of their students' cultures outside of school.
• Effective teachers spend a great deal of time working and interacting directly with students.
• High levels of teacher motivation relate to high levels of student achievment.
• Teachers' enthusiasm for learning and for their subject matter is an important factor in student motivation that, in turn, is closely linked with student achievement.
• Teachers whose students have high achievement rates consistently talk about the importance of reflection on their feelings.
• Effective teachers have a solid belief in their own efficacy and in holding high standards for students. This is common among reflective teachers.
• Effective teachers carefully establish classroom routines that enable them and their students to work flexibly and efficiently.
• Effective classroom managers increase student engagement and maximize use of each instructional moment.
• Effective teachers clearly identify learning goals and link them with activitites designed to ensure student mastery of the goals.
• Effective teachers use a variety of support systems to ensure student success.
• Effective teachers emphasize hands-on learning, conceptual understanding, and links with the world beyond the classroom.
• Effective teachers develop and call on a wide variety of instructional strategies proven successful with students of varying abilitites, backgrounds, and interests.
• Effective teachers set high expectations for themselves and their students with an orientation toward growth and improvement evident in the classroom.
• Effective teachers are more concerned with student understanding of meaning than memorization of facts.
• Students achieve at higher rates when instruction focuses on meaning conceptualization and builds on their knowledge of the world.
• Student engagement is higher when they take part in authentic activities linked to the content under study.
• Teachers in schools with high achievement rates pre-assess in order to do targeted teaching.
• Effective teachers know and understand their students in terms of abilities, achievement, learning preferences, and needs.
• Effective teachers reteach material to students who need additional help.
• Effective teachers use a variety of flexible grouping strategies to support student learning.
• Effective teachers demonstrate effectiveness with the full range of students in the classes.
• Effective teachers match instruction to learners' achievement needs.
• Effective teachers accept responsibility for student outcomes.