Evaluating Effective Teaching
Effective teaching should not be evaluated on student’s ability to pass an exam, but on impact in the human development of students. In the past, teachers and even some institutions evaluated effective teaching on the examination success of students. This narrowed down teaching towards examination demands, with much emphasis on studies following examination curriculum.
On the part of the students, this equally inspired a lot of cram work and cheating during exams, as each student strives for examination success.
This situation has produced qualified illiterates and educated but underdeveloped individuals who are unable to cope with personal, societal or global challenges.
Most of today’s graduates are the most ineffective individuals one can ever employ. With all the above, it is evident that, examination success is not the evaluatory criteria of effective teaching. With the present sub-standard in today’s graduates and under graduates and the global decline in academic impact, there is need to redefine the evaluatory criteria of effective teaching. This is the focus of this article.
Effective teaching in the 21st century will be evaluated on the teaching impact in the human development of students. This implies, the human development of students will be the test of a teacher’s effectiveness. To expatiate further, we will have to look at the subject Human Development in the 21st century as it relates to effective teaching.
Human development: Human Development was defined in the past centuries with respect to human activities. For example, the construction of roads and bridges, water and electricity projects, etc.Thus, education was focused on preparing individuals to serve in different domains of human activities. This created a situation where humans became stagnant and deficient with respect to the demands of changing times, making humanity unable to provide relative answers to present and future challenges.
In the 21st century, human development is defined with respect to the progressive development of humans in their understanding, consciousness, awareness and potential in relation to time and demand.
This implies, human development should guarantee human civilisation in relation to time and demands. With this, humans are to progressively develop as time and demand changes, so as to be constantly prepared for the challenges, opportunities, privileges and responsibilities which life presents in relation to time.
With respect to human development, effective teaching is the impartation of quality knowledge to enhance human development. Thus, effective teaching is evaluated by the following impact.
(i)Enhancement in human understanding. (ii)Enhancement in human consciousness (iii)Enhancement in awareness (iv)The development of human potential (v)The preparation of humans to cope with life’s challenges, privileges, responsibilities and opportunities.
The following are the criteria of evaluating effective teaching, which should be evident in the human development of students. This implies each time a teacher stands before students; he/she should set as goals the above results on the human development of students. This is the only way by which humanity can stem the present tides of human degeneration, deficiency and degradation.
Enhancement in human understanding: This is the first impact of effective teaching. One has taught virtually nothing if at the end of the day, students remain stagnant in their understanding. Understanding in this respect is not the knowledge of what has been taught, but the comprehension of a student out of what was taught, provoked by what was taught. Which implies, what is taught by a teacher is only effective if it leads the students to what was not taught by the teacher but analysed by their understanding.
Every subject effectively taught should culminate to the enhancement in the understanding of students, leading to areas of thoughts, ideas, inventions, innovations, creations, and discoveries unmentioned by the teacher. This is when a teaching program is termed successful and effective. Understanding is the stability of the mind which makes possible, new and fresh insight, based on equal and relative functioning of the four faculties of the mind.
(i)Reasoning faculty (ii)Thinking faculty (iii)Creative faculty (iv)Imaginative faculty
With respect to effective teaching, information taught or acquired by a student, should lead the student to new areas of thinking, reasoning, creativity and imagination based on understanding. This breakthrough permits students to become improvements of their teachers and also allows for progressive and successive evolutions and revolutions in human advancement and civilisation.
The absence of the above breakthrough in most teaching exercise is what has caused the present degeneration and degradation in the world. Teachers passing on what they know to students, without awakening their understanding for progressive insight, will only culminate to a status quo in reasoning, thinking, creativity and imagination, leading to stagnation and decline in human civilisation. This is the status quo the world finds itself in right now which can be broken only through the dynamics of effective teaching.
Enhancement of human consciousness: Enhancing consciousness through effective teaching is an evaluatory criteria of effective teaching. Consciousness is the inward apprehension of existing knowledge within each individual. Knowledge without should provoke and invoke the knowledge within one’s self in relativity to life’s matters. A teaching exercise culminates in a fiasco, if it fails to awake the consciousness of students. This failure makes students more interdependent than independent. It forces them to live their lives based on outward actualities instead of inward realities.
The world of knowledge within is greater than the information that exists without. Limiting one-self to external knowledge is the greatest deprivation one can find himself in.
The apprehension of knowledge within one-self makes possible the influence of the exterior from the interior. It equally builds inward tenacity against external factors. If this result was evident through the different teaching programmes carried out all over the world, humanity should have long overcome all what threatens her existence.
Enhancement in awareness: This is the third evaluating criteria of effective teaching. Effective teaching should enhance awareness. Enhancing awareness is greater than what it was defined to be in the 20th century. Enhancing awareness is directly proportionate to the relative equation in human understanding, consciousness and enlightenment. Which implies, true awareness, though with relative external consequences should stem from within.
Thus, the enhancement in awareness should lead to a more comprehensive individual, instead of one with just a bit of enlightenment on an aspect of life. This is where most of our educational efforts failed. If an educational process fails to produce a more comprehensive individual, it has just created a problem by unleashing to the world, an individual who is narrow minded, unrealistic with respect to global issues and deficient with the best illustration of being an “improper fraction”.
Such individuals have created more problems in the world than have provided solutions. They are of more harm than good to mankind. The only solution to this dilemma is an educational approach geared towards the development of more comprehensive individuals. This will inevitably demand for the dynamics of effective teaching in practicality. The enhancement in human awareness through effective teaching should enhance individual civilisation.
Civilisation in this respect is the global understanding, consciousness and awareness to universal needs and demands, in relativity to time, with resultant consequences in human operation, productivity, utility and efficiency.
This implies, effective teaching should impart civilisation to learners, leading to the enhancement in their understanding, consciousness and awareness to universal needs and demands, in relativity to time, with resultant consequences in human operation, productivity, utility and efficiency.
With respect to the above, effective teaching is measured by the degree of civilisation communicated or imparted. This makes the teacher a strategic individual with respect to the evolution and revolution in civilisation in every generation, leading to regeneration.
The development of human potential: Developing human potential is an evaluatory criterion of effective teaching. Human potential are capabilities inherent in every human for comprehensive and multipurpose impact. This implies, every human possesses dynamic ability for several areas of operation if developed. Effective teaching should communicate knowledge to assist in developing human potential for deployment with respect to time and demand. With this in place, the unemployment question will be a by gone experience, as each individual deploys his/her potential to create work opportunities both for one-self and others. Each teacher should endeavour through effective teaching to assist students not only to acquire credentials but to develop their potential for comprehensive and multipurpose impact. This is the path to individual significance and relevance.
The preparation of humans to cope with life’s challenges, privileges, responsibilities and opportunities: This is the last criteria to evaluate effective teaching. With this breakthrough, no individual will be a victim or a failure in life.
It is worth while to note that, the five evaluatory criteria for effective teaching are not possible in an institution which does not teach the totality of the tripartite dimension of knowledge. (Ordinary, Advanced and Divine knowledge.)
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