This is a very short blog post that has an excellent table that provides a summary of the results of the survey. It is encouraging to note:
the characteristics these students identified as belonging to those teachers who most effectively taught them were not absent in Typical professors. They just weren’t as pronounced. I take that to mean, if you aspire to be ideal, you don’t have to do new things, just more of those good things you already do.
The numbers reflect the percentage of students who endorsed this characteristic for their Ideal professors and the percentage who said they characterized the Typical professor.
Teaching Characteristic Ideal Typical Professor speaks clearly/not monotone 93 80 Course and daily goals appear on the syllabus 83 52 Students have a voice; input on course policies and procedures 40 7 Professor talks informally with students sometimes 43 15 Professor lectures 78 93 Professor uses discussion 58 37 Professor does in-class activities/demonstrations 57 21 ·Uses humor often/occasionally
·Uses humor occasionally only97 75 ·Cheating/plagiarism policy—investigates and resolves incidents
·Do not know what approach is used to deal with academic dishonesty58 64 Solicits anonymous, written, informal feedback on teaching/course 68 17 ·Solicits student feedback two or more times per term
·Never solicits student feedback72 3
