How Do We Value Teaching?: Voices of the Students

James D. Greenberg
Center for Teaching Excellence
University of Maryland at College Park
2130 Mitchell Building
College Park, MD 20742

What is good teaching? Who is a good teacher? The search for the answers to these questions has become for teacher education a search for an educational Holy Grail. While appearing to be deceptively simple and seductively straightforward, these questions have instigated an enduring and ever-multiplying research tradition as well as a many sided international conversation involving practitioners, theorists, social scientists, teacher educators and faculty developers at all levels, administrators, and students. The answers, from what we can tell, remain elusive.

For teacher educators and faculty developers especially, the questions have been of paramount importance. Such importance rests, it must be assumed, on the presumption that when we know the answers to these questions, all else will become clear. The model, below, suggests the framework of assumptions within which these fundamental questions have gained importance, as well as the research efforts that have grown up to try to answer them:

BACKGROUND: HOW HAS TEACHING BEEN STUDIED AND WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

The most recent phase of the attempt to achieve the research knowledge goals implicit in the model, above, is often traced to Nate Gage's three questions posed in 1963: "How do teachers behave? Why do they behave as they do? and What are the effects of their behavior?" (Dunkin and Barnes, 1986, p. 754) Lee Shulman, in his well known chapter, "Paradigms and Research Programs in the Study of Teaching" in the Handbook of Research on Teaching (Wittrock, 1986), helps illuminate the ways researchers have sought to tackle these questions, the complexities which have ensued, and -- by implication -- the many problems with such a simplistic model as the one pictured on page 1. Shulman explains where the research tradition has come from, how it has developed, and where it might be going.

Process Product Research

The primary methodology used in research on teaching has followed the process-product paradigm (Shulman, 1986). In this approach, researchers attempt to determine what relationship exists between teacher behaviors (process) and student achievement (product). The promise of this approach, based on behaviorist psychology, was seen to be the identification of knowable/learnable discrete teacher behaviors which would produce better student learning.

Brophy and Good (1986) have summarized the research on teacher effects, emanating from the process-product approach, and have reported on teacher behaviors which the research indicates maximize student achievement . Examples of the findings reported are as follows:

Student achievement is positively related to

• the quantity and pacing of instruction;
• the opportunity to learn/ the content covered;
• emphasis by the teacher on academic instruction as a major part of his/her own role, expectations of mastery for students, and allocation of time to curricular activities;
• certain classroom management techniques such as creating engaged time, good preparation, "withitness", smooth pacing, consistent accountability, and clarity about how to get help;
• appropriate level of difficulty for the instruction, continuous progress at a high success rate, effective diagnosis of learning needs and prescription of learning activities, monitoring of progress and continuous practice, and integrating new learning with prior learning;
• when giving information, structure the material to help facilitate memory and understanding of each part as related to a coherent whole;
• some redundancy and review of material is helpful, as is a sequential structure;
• clarity of presentation;
• enthusiasm;
• ask questions that elicit correct answers 75% of the time;
• make sure questions are clear;
• use wait time (3 seconds or more) after questions;
• acknowledge correct responses with overt feedback; note wrong answers clearly. (Brophy and Good, 1986, pp. 360-364.)

Among many other examples of contributions from the process-product research tradition, Walberg (1986) has discussed results of his "review of reviews" of research on teaching, i.e. review of research syntheses. The primary source for his discussion is a 1982 examination of 19 reviews of teaching process - student outcome research conducted by Waxman and himself. While he describes the many and various problems of methodology and "an odd tendency to select correlational studies and exclude experiments for review" (p. 218) in the reviews he studied, he concludes:

Despite these problems, however, a statistical tabulation of the conclusions of the reviews (Waxman & Walberg 1982) shows substantial and statistically significant agreement that five broad teaching constructs -- cognitive stimulation, motivational incentives, pupil engagement in learning, reinforcement, and management and classroom climate -- are positively associated with student learning outcomes. (Walberg, 1986, p. 218)

Another example of the major contributions in this domain is available from one of the legendary synthesizers of research on teaching, Barak Rosenshine, and his coauthor Robert Stevens. In their chapter, "Teaching Functions" (1 986), in the Handbook of Research on Teaching, they state the following under the heading, "A General Model of Effective Instruction":

Putting together ideas from a number of sources ... we have developed a list of six fundamental instructional "functions" which appear below ..

1. Review, check previous day's work (and reteach, if necessary)
2. Present new content/skills
3. Guided student practice (and check for understanding)
4. Feedback and correctives (and reteach, if necessary)
5. Independent student practice
6. Weekly and monthly reviews. (Rosenshine and Stevens, 1986, p. 377)

While Rosenshine and Stevens looked mainly at research involving younger children, process-product research has made its contribution to postsecondary teaching as well. In their chapter, "Research on Teaching in Higher Education" (1986), Dunkin and Barnes examine the results of such studies. They conclude:

The research just reviewed was predominantly process-product research. It is difficult to obtain evidence regarding the actual processes in terms of which the prescriptively defined methods were implemented. Furthermore, questions such as the extent to which presage and context variables affected those processes and, indirectly, student outcomes, were rarely addressed.

In all, it seems that university and college teachers can derive only very shaky guidance from research in choosing between lectures, discussion, team teaching, and peer teaching. At most, research might justify the choice of discussions rather than lectures where higher cognitive [earnings and attitude change are the objectives. Within the samples of each of the preceding methods researched, there were instances that were highly effective and highly ineffective. Yet there has been surprisingly little research that has tried to discover the differences between those effective instances and the less effective ones. (p. 756)

Time and Learning

Shulman identifies the next major "research program" with the title, "Time and Learning" (p 14). He specifically cites the distinct contribution of David Berliner and his colleagues in the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study who critiqued the basic logic of the process-product approach. In Shulman's words, "they were seeking an indicator of teacher effectiveness they could locate in the observable performance of pupils without waiting for end-of-year achievement tests" (p. 14). The result of the efforts in this approach was the definition of the complex variable, Academic Learning Time (A.L.T.) which incorporated considerations of content, engagement, and time in determining relationships between teaching and pupil achievement.

Although Shulman characterizes the A.L.T. program uniquely, he clearly qualifies its distinctive nature. He states:

Though it was initiated by a critique of the process-product program, we can see that the ALT program itself continues to employ many of its predecessor's characteristic tactics and distinctions. It is concerned with the relationships among variables, it focuses on individual students (rather than the collectivity of the classroom) as units of analysis, its conception of student learning remains a rather passive one (compared to the active processing view of contemporary cognitive psychology or the ethnography of communication), and it continues the disaggregation of the events of classroom life. That is, despite Berliner's eloquent attack on the process-product paradigm's inability to capture the "complexities of the classroom, with its myriad interactions" and "the dynamic quality of the classroom, with its ever-changing events," the ALT program as well falls short of that richness. (p. 15)

Pupil Cognition and the Mediation of Teaching.

Shulman's next category comprises a set of research perspectives which go beyond the behaviorist psychology orientation of the former categories and include concern for the student as the mediator/processor of instruction. The overriding questions of this research, according to Shulman, are, "How do students make sense of the instruction they encounter in the classroom? What are the immediate and intermediate-term processes engendered in students by teaching?" (p. 16) Regardless of the specific theoretical framework in which it is discussed, Shulman goes on,

... the central message is always the same. The learner does not respond to the instruction per se. The learner responds to the instruction as transformed, as actively apprehended. Thus, to understand why learners respond (or fail to respond) as they do, ask not what they were taught, but what sense they rendered of what they were taught. The consequences of teaching can only be understood as a function of what that teaching stimulates the learner to do with material. (p 1 7)

Classroom Ecology

Shulman also discusses a "branch" of his cognition and mediation category in which social mediation is distinguished from pupil-cognitive mediation. He notes this is especially important because it signals a deviation from psychology as the base of inquiry to the parent disciplines of sociology, anthropology and linguistics (p. 18). It is this "bridge" which leads us to the next research program category, classroom ecology, in which the emphases shift to qualitative methods-and interpretation rather than the "objectification of data and the search for positivist laws" (p. 18). Shulman describes the essential differences in this type of research as follows:

While the process-product researchers view classrooms as reducible to discrete events and behaviors which can be noted, counted, and aggregated for purposes of generalization across settings and individuals, interpretive scholars view classrooms as socially and culturally organized environments. Individual participants in those environments contribute to the organization and to the definition of meanings. They are actively engaged in "making sense" ...

Those personal meanings become the focal point for inquiry, in contrast to the behaviors that focus the effort of the process-product scholars... Life in classrooms is understood as a function, not only of the jointly produced local meanings of the particular classroom group, but also as influenced by the larger contexts in which the class is embedded -- the school, the community, the society, the culture. Moreover, since children of different backgrounds move in and out of the classroom from contrasting social and language communities, they will be making sense of classroom life employing different frames of reference....

Research is thus often conducted for the purpose of showing how "the system" -, fails to serve the children of the poor, the linguistically or culturally different, ethnic minorities, and other disadvantaged populations. Through meticulous examination of the most commonplace events of classroom life -- turn allocations, modes of explanation, nonverbal messages of praise and blame, and the like -- classroom ecology researchers show how a hidden curriculum to which the less advantaged are not privy can control access to success with the manifest curriculum. (p. 20)

Teacher Cognition and Decision Making

The final research program category described by Shulman concerns the focus on teacher decision making. Shulman quotes Shavelson (1983) to represent the purpose and rationale for this particular approach:

First, teachers are rational professionals who, like other professionals such as physicians, make judgments and carry out decisions in an uncertain, complex environment.... teachers behave rationally with respect to the simplified models of reality they construct... teachers' behavior is guided by their thoughts, judgments and decisions... (p. 23)

As implied, researchers here are concerned with teachers thoughts (as contrasted to the behaviorist emphasis in earlier programs focussed on teachers) and the "cognitive processes through which they select and sequence the actions they have learned to take while teaching." (p. 23) The implications of this concentrated study of teacher cognition are that we can learn more about teacher thought and thus assist the proper examination and reform of teacher education (p. 26).

A Note on Context Variables

A significant consideration in all manner of inquiry into teaching has been the influence of context. This consideration, given more or less prominence depending on the particular paradigm and on particular researchers, has "muddied" from the beginning the hope that teacher behaviors affecting student learning and accomplishment could be simply and uncomplicatedly defined.

It is important to note that even Brophy and Good (1986), in their review of the extensive production of research findings on teacher effects in the decade 1975-1985, clearly stipulated the relative effectiveness of the identified good teacher behaviors. Significant variation was noted in regard to SES, gender, discipline (subject matter), grade level, race, ability, and other context variables.

Many findings must be qualified by references to grade level, student characteristics, or teaching objectives. This reflects the fact that effective instruction involves selecting from (from a larger repertoire) and orchestrating those teaching behaviors that are appropriate to the context and to the teacher's goals, rather than mastering and consistently applying a few "generic" teaching skills. (p. 360)

The recognition of such a relativity exists to varying degrees in most research paradigms and has been viewed in a variety of ways. One of the least complex fits within the educational psychology tradition and is termed "attribute-treatment interactions" (ATI) (McKeachie et al, 1990, (p. 101). Examples of research in this area include the study of differential effects of a particular approach with high ability vs. low ability students, different effects depending on teaching and reaming style differences and strengths, and different effects of a particular type of instruction for students with varying degrees of prior knowledge. For example, a 1981 study by Stinard and Dolphin found that self-paced mastery learning modules used in an anatomy and physiology course helped students with less science preparation much more than those who had more background in the field (p. 102).

In contrast, some research traditions have recognized context as the primary object of concern. Thus, the classroom ecology approach, as Shulman terms it, sees the social and cultural context of the classroom as most influential and uses that "lens" in its inquiries into teaching and teaming. The implied (and direct) criticism of other approaches lies in the "decontextualization" of their inquiries and the lack of recognition of these primary influences.

The importance of context to the original questions of this paper, i.e., "what is good teaching?" and "who is a good teacher?", is extraordinary. By qualifying all "answers" and all relevant conceptions, the reality of contextual influences requires at the least a cautious response.

ADDITIONAL RECENT INFLUENCES ON THINKING ABOUT TEACHING

Two new perspectives not only add to the conversation about teaching but also challenge the basic assumption of teacher-student roles. Although the research programs mentioned by Shulman reflect important shifts in the characterization of variables and in the modes of inquiry, they often appear to have left out the close examination of assumptions about the basic teacher-student role paradigm. While they have quite different ancestry, in almost every way, the streams of feminist pedagogy and total quality management bring this role relationship into question as a central issue in their respective visions.

Feminist Pedagogy and Post-positivist Perspectives

The concern of feminist perspectives and other influences which have worked to increase diversity and to moderate the white western male dominance in the curriculum has been widely discussed of late. Debates over "the canon", "political correctness", and the degree to which our education programs should be "multicultural" or "Afrocentric" or "Eurocentric", etc. have raged across all levels of the education system in the U.S. Somewhat less notorious has been the concomitant struggle to reform traditional teaching in behalf of what has often been called feminist pedagogy. At the heart of this classroom-based focus is the issue of power and the way power has historically been used (both consciously and unconsciously) by teachers and privileged groups of students, e.g. white males, to perpetuate racist, sexist, and class-biased inequities in the classroom. Feminist pedagogy seeks to change the degree to which teachers, and their conventional approach to teaching, continue to discriminate and to silence certain voices while elevating the advantage of others.

In a recent review of the book, Gender In the Classroom; Power and Pedagogy, Frinde Maher (1992) provides some relevant insight with her concluding paragraph:

There is an urgent need for teachers to think of our classrooms and our educational institutions as places where alliances can be forged and differences worked through, so that people disabled by varying race, class, and gender discriminations can claim an education that serves both themselves and each other. Although most of the pieces in this book do not supplant the earlier works in feminist pedagogy or feminist education, these ... can be useful for teachers who want to think through ways they might contribute to this struggle. (p. 35)

Implications for teacher behavior are made explicit by Pamela Annas (1992) in her definition of the "radicalteacher". She specifies certain qualities and beliefs as follows:

1. one who provides a student- rather than teacher-centered classroom; nonauthoritarian. 2. one who shares rather than transmits information. 3. one who aids in student growth and empowerment by drawing out what is already there and latent. 4. one who respects students. 5. Radicalteachers have a relatively coherent set of commitments and assumptions from which they teach, and they are aware of it; this awareness distinguishes them from rocks, mollusks, and nonradical teachers. 6. Radicalteachers possess the capacity to listen well and the self-control not to always fill silence with the sound of their own voices... (p. 46)

Becky Thompson and Estelle Disch (1992) provide additional perspective in their article, "Feminist, Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppression Teaching: Two White Women's Experience." The write of their own teaching and their own views of feminist pedagogy:

We assume that a classroom community which supports, in fact requires, the acceptance of diversity will model a set of values and a system of relationships which are new to many students. Such a system moves people and topics ordinarily defined as "marginal" into focus in the classroom and it invites people who ordinarily occupy the center of attention (i.e., white males) to notice what it's like to not be the center of attention. Students then have the opportunity to examine how power and status are used among them. People who have learned in this atmosphere do in fact begin to open their hearts and minds to people different from themselves. Since white racism is a major roadblock to appreciation of diversity, we find that this model is especially helpful to white people who weren't aware of their racism and who can now hopefully begin to work on their racist attitudes.

We also assume that a classroom experience in which the teacher's use of power is made explicit will help people to become more conscious of how they use or fail to use their own power in other parts of their lives. Our syllabi are explicit about grading and we build a self-grading component into the courses. In addition, we discuss how we use our power as teachers and we encourage students to examine how this affects them. (p. 5)

The position expressed by these writers has been extended to the conduct of research in teacher education. In her 1992 paper for I.S.T.E. in Armidale, N.S.W., Erica McWilliam writes:

Feminist writers in particular have rallied to the postpositivist call to less silencing, more engaging research interventions, emphasizing "emancipatory" work with and for rather than on research participants ... Such researchers make praxis, the dialectical tension between and the interactive reciprocal shaping of theory and practice ..., the focus of their work. (p. 6)

Total Quality Management

The fervor with which U.S. business has recently embraced the principles and practices of total quality management (TQM) is sometimes astounding -- especially in light of its historical rejection by U.S. interests, its embrace and success in Japan, and its new found, almost religious devotion upon its return trip to the West. Many of the management principles appear to contradict conventional U.S. business practice, particularly in regard to hierarchical top-down decision making and quality control models. Nevertheless, the current acceptance of such contradictory notions is understandable in that these are the notions the Japanese used to wrest business supremacy from the U.S. over the last two decades.

Among the foremost principles of TQM is teamwork, the collaborative effort of all employees to reach common goals. Management's job is to support the workers and to make them successful in their roles, not to inspect and oversee them from above. Applied to the classroom, this approach has fascinating implications. Rather than assuming all the planning, implementing, and evaluating roles for the students under his or her "tutelage", the teacher may be seen as a partner in a collaborative (learning) venture.

Daniel Seymour and Ellen Chaffee (1992) discuss an interesting application of TQM in the classroom which illustrates the challenge to traditional teacher - student role assumptions:

TQM extends the idea of ownership and responsibility. A good example of this is the research and classroom application being done at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Most institutions require that professors administer an end-of- student evaluation. The data are gathered and used by administrators in tenure and promotion decisions -- in other words, for purposes of accountability. But at Madison, students play a different role in a cycle used by professors to improve their teaching. The cycle, called SIAM, repeats four steps: Study current situation, identify vital problems, Act on problems, and Monitor progress. Student evaluations are used early in the semester and given back to the professor. This "customer feedback" is used as a diagnostic tool to generate information about a wide range of opportunities for improvement, for example, in the pace and organization of lectures, the size of lettering on overhead projections, and the relevance of class discussions. The SIAM cycle is organized in such a way that the line between the professor as purveyor of knowledge and the student as recipient is consciously blurred. (p. 28)

The relationship change alluded to above is extended into new levels in the case of the Student Management Team. In this approach, a teacher identifies a volunteer team of students from a class to work with her/him during the term to improve the quality of the teaching and learning experience they are sharing. Thus, students and teachers work together in person to understand jointly the dynamics of their shared classroom, to collect data on the quality of the experience, and to define steps which will aid in the continuous improvement of that experience. Ed Nuhfer (1992), a pioneer in the development and evaluation of student management teams, explains:

Student management teams are a function of our center and are designed to strengthen the entire academic community while simultaneously helping to improve teaching and learning within individual classes. Students are thereby being helped to achieve their dreams through better acquisition of skills and knowledge, and professors are aided in achieving their dreams to become highly successful teachers. What is ultimately being "managed" in the student management team is the improved quality of the community. The professor is not being "bossed" by students. Instead professor and students are coming together to discover how teaching and learning might be improved and to define positive actions that will help read immediate and long-term benefits. If a contest over power or control develops, it is likely because the ultimate function has been temporarily forgotten by involved parties. (p. iii)

VOICES OF THE STUDENTS

Student "voice" has been alluded to as a concern of several of the perspectives on teaching noted in this paper. In some ways, the student voice has been the most powerful in traditional schemes for evaluating teaching at the college level because student evaluations are often the only systematically collected data on teaching. Nevertheless, the way questions are asked of students, and -- more important -- the way they are used, often diminishes students' sense of the value of their role in this process.

A good deal of research on effective teaching and learning in the college classroom has looked at students' views as a primary source of data. McKeachie et al (1990) reviewed many of these studies and summarized the findings in their NCRIPTAL-sponsored review of the research literature on college teaching. They noted that Feldman's review of 31 studies reported that students and faculty both placed high importance on teachers being knowledgeable about the subject matter of the course, clear and understandable, and sensitive and concerned with class level and progress. "Both groups also stressed the importance of teachers being intellectually expansive and intelligent and open to students' questions, class discussions and for the course material to be valuable, useful and relevant." (p. 103) They also noted that students and teachers disagreed on some attributes (at least on their priority) with students more concerned with the outcomes of instruction and with teachers' being available and helpful to students. In conjunction with the research on student ratings, the authors note:

One of the most prolific areas of research on effective teaching has been that dealing with student ratings of teaching... Marsh (1986) has also shown that the qualities characterizing effective teachers, as perceived by students, are much the same in Spain, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and North America. Enthusiasm and clear, well-organized presentations were most highly valued in all groups. The amount of work and the difficulty of the course did not relate as highly to rated effectiveness, but contrary to criticisms and faculty stereotypes of student ratings, teachers who assign more work and more difficulty work tended to be those rated as most effective. (p. 103)

Data From the Voices of Students at the University of Maryland

For the past three years, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at the University of Maryland at College Park has been sponsoring and producing a project called Celebrating Teachers. This project is designed to recognize outstanding teachers across all disciplines and to reward and publicize visibly the qualities and value, not only of these individuals but of teachers generally.

The procedures incorporated in this project merit some emphasis, because they help make the project so significant. To begin, the CTE solicits student nominations from the dean of every college which includes undergraduates. They are requested to nominate from one to four (depending on size of the college) graduating seniors who are the top students in the graduating class. Deans are granted discretion on their process for identifying these top students, but scholarship and achievement always figures in as a priority criterion. When the students are nominated, the CTE contacts them and congratulates them, and then asks them in turn to nominate the two teachers who have had the greatest influence on them in their careers as outstanding students: one teacher from the University of Maryland and one teacher from their education prior to coming to the University (pre-school through high school or-community college). The CTE then contacts the nominated outstanding teachers and invites them to a special awards reception and celebration in the Spring. This program won national recognition for its unique approach to rewarding and supporting college teaching (Replinger and Cowan, 1993).

At the reception, each student is asked to come forward with her or his two nominated outstanding teachers and talk about why they were selected and what made each teacher so influential in the student's life. These student "voices" have provided a unique source of data through which to further inquire into the nature of good teaching and good teachers as well as the qualities they possess which might cause them to be perceived as so effective.

The special conditions of this event, and the context it provides for the student voices, deserve attention. The context differs from student ratings in that the only prompt given is to "say a few words" about the influential teachers and no "evaluation" is intended or requested. Students don't get to cover everything they might be able to think of; they have to select a quality or a reason and focus on it. That choice, of the one thing most worthy of mention to others, probably presents an important qualifier here. Furthermore, it should be noted that these are all students at the end of their undergraduate careers; thus, the choices they make would most likely be affected by their maturity and the concomitant sophistication of their perspectives (according to Perry and other developmental theorists) on learning and the nature of knowledge.

For this paper, two years' events were analyzed, comprising a total of 48 students talking about 39 pre-university teachers and 47 teachers from the University of Maryland. The students' statements were recorded on video tape, and each tape provided the raw data for analysis. Tapes were viewed and students' statements were "transcribed" (sometimes word for word, sometimes paraphrased) based on judgment of individual qualities or influences referenced by the students. All statements judged to contain identification of a distinct quality or influence were recorded from the tap 138 statements were noted and recorded. Statements were then coded according to cluster groupings which were inferred from inspection of the individual student comments. It must be stressed here that the analysis of these data is a preliminary analysis -- a kind of "first screening" -- to determine overall trends and insights.

Student statements appeared to cluster into five categories. They may be identified as follows:

Teaching Characteristics

This category includes statements that focus on certain aspects of teaching behavior. Rather than emphasize an effect on the student, the statement highlighted some technique or approach that the teacher used which impressed the student as the most notable characteristic to convey in this setting. A total of 11 statements fell into this category, 3 for pre-college teachers and 8 for university teachers. Examples of statements in this category were, "always well prepared and well planned"; "great lectures, provided confidence"; "casual style, made me feel at ease"; "he was rigorous, strict, but fun"; "he was the most incredible teacher I've ever had ... he made history a fascinating subject ... he gathered us around; we were family; we went to class to be entertained by Dr. ." These comments, and others, contained observations about style, delivery, commitment to preparation, etc.

Content and Knowledge Facilitation/Inspiration.

This category includes statements which reflected the help and inspiration given by teachers with emphasis on the specific subject matter they taught. Such things as making the subject easier, more meaningful, more important to the students -- all these were included, as long as the content knowledge appeared to be the focus of the student's comment. Examples were, "instilled in me a love of mathematics, challenged me"; "relates content to current events, keeps students' attention, challenging -- inspired me to become a history major." "He was amazing because he made a daunting subject easy"; "...explain difficult things in a straightforward way -- and do so in a way that doesn't make you feel inferior; this is rare ..."; "from what he's taught me, my designs in the future will be much more informed ..." A number of these comments centered on the ability to communicate with understanding, the importance of connecting content with student's real life experience, and an intangible ability to "connect!' or to inspire -- passing on a love for the content and an appreciation for it beyond a knowledge level alone. A total of 27 statements fell into this category, with 10 directed at pre-university teachers and 17 allocated to university teachers. This imbalance in the direction of university teachers in this category is partly a reflection a larger total of statements for university teachers, but it also may reflect a logical greater emphasis on the content of the discipline at the postsecondary level.

Character Building.

This category includes statements which suggest the focus of the student reflection is on the teacher's influence in terms of personal growth. Here, response to challenge and expectation "bring out the best" in students, and the sense is that these teachers helped students attain new and enduring levels of personal strength, character, and potential. Examples of statements in this category were, "... talked about a paper I did for her and she 'destroyed it'; then she put her hand on my shoulder and said, 'I well never expect less than scholarly work from you.' That made ~' me look at myself and produce what she showed me I was capable of ..." "he showed us excellence and that we should set high standards and could reach our goals"; "never expected anything but the best; challenged me the most." There were 26 statements overall in this category, 17 for pre-university teachers and 9 for university teachers. In contrast to the last category, this one is weighted heavily in favor of the pre-university teachers. Again, it would be reasonable to presume that such a weighting derives from the fact that earlier school levels would be the logical places for most people to learn and to remember learning "life lessons" which helped build the character and moral foundations for adulthood.

Care. Concern. and Nurture.

This category includes statements which stressed above all the importance of the teacher caring about the student as a person, "being there" when needed, taking the time and effort to support the student during hard times, and other aspects of mentoring, advising, counseling, and supporting. Examples of statements in this category were, "he has a way of relating to students and really shrinking down the university and humanizing it"; "When I came in I was a rowdy student; he gave me words of wisdom ... all through my college career I've kept coming back to him ... couldn't have gotten through school without him..." "I chose her because of the friendship she has shown to students, ... looked out for us"; "... friends. She taught me self-discipline and how to shape up; helped me become interested and involved. She was a mother, friend, sister, and confidant." There were 24 statements in this category, 11 for pre-university teachers and 13 for teachers at the university. While this category was third in terms of frequency of statements, it is notable that the emphasis on personal care and support was as high as it was for these outstanding students -- perhaps reflecting an unexpected enduring priority need -- and that this category of reflection was even a bit higher for university teachers than for earlier stage teachers.

Skill Enhancement.

This category includes statements which emphasize influence on learning important, generic skills. Study habits, ways of thinking, levels of analysis capability -- these are the kinds of "gifts" students noted here. Examples were, "... taught me there is more than one way to do something"; "I learned how to voice my opinion and how to value others..."; "taught us to be critical, not only of our writing but of our lives..."; "taught me how to think hard and put concepts together." There were 20 statements overall which fell into this category, 11 for pre-university teachers and 9 for the university teachers. As with the "character building" category, the nature of these influences may again place them at an earlier stage for the majority of students in terms of "memorable" change points and passages.

These categories are certainly not mutually exclusive, and the students' statements were not precisely separable. Nevertheless, the emphasis on students' voices and the ways in which they talked about their most influential teachers broadens our perspective on a persistently interesting and complex area and demonstrates the importance of personal connection at all levels. For in each of these categories, the teacher connected to the student through some enduring, personally important channel. The matching of a need with a quality that a teacher had the ability to offer -- and the desire, the care to offer it -- stuck out in these students' minds. So, while one teacher was "effective" for one student because of the match between their needs and abilities, another teacher -- for other reasons -- was most effective for another student. In this way, Brookfield's (1991 ) observations are supported:

Effectiveness as a concept has enormous appeal ... It suggests that there are standardized practices that apply with equal relevance to every context within which teaching occurs

Seeing effectiveness in this way, however, ignores the inchoate messiness of college teaching. The concept is decontextualized, thereby rendering it remote and irrelevant to teachers who are grappling with the dilemmas, distortions, and ambiguities of practice. Effectiveness is irrevocably contextual. What is effective in one context, with one student or group of students, or for one purpose may be severely dysfunctional in another context, with different people, or for another purpose...

In a sense, effectiveness is also a phenomenologically derived concept, one grounded in students, perceptions of what is happening to them and in the meanings they attach to these experiences. Equating effective teaching with how well teachers perform a previously defined set of behaviors risks neglecting entirely the effect these behaviors have on students, thus rendering the student's experience irrelevant. (p. 192-193)

In this paper, experience of the student -- if seen only through the glimpse of a selected single observation -- has been put forward for consideration. The insights available from such a process hold their own interest and form their own contexts. Such insights may not answer the questions, but they add to Shulman's idea of an ongoing conversation which continues to change and grow.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Annas (1992). (1992) definition. Radical Teacher, 41, 46.
• Brookfield, S. (1991). The skillful teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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