Gary D.

Borich
Effective Teaching Methods
6th Edition

Chapter 1
The Effective Teacher

Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Chapter Overview

• What Is an Effective • Teaching Effectively

Teacher? with Diverse Learners
• Key Behaviors and Content
Contributing to Effective • The Complexity of
Teaching Teaching
• Some Helping • Professional Teaching
Behaviors Related to Standards
Effective Teaching • Your Transition to the
Real World of Teaching

Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 What Is an Effective Teacher?
• The role model definition: Effective teaching originally
focused primarily on a teacher’s goodness as a
person, and only secondarily on his/her behavior in the
classroom.
• The psychological characteristics definition: Another
early definition focused on the psychological
characteristics of a teacher (such as personality,
attitude, achievement, and aptitude).
• In recent years validated assessments, such as the
Praxis Professional Assessments for Beginning
Teachers, have helped predict teacher’s classroom
performance.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
What Is an Effective Teacher?
(Continued)

• In the 1970s and 1980s methods for studying

interactions of teachers and students sought to discover
links between teacher behavior and student
performance.
• Modern definitions of effective teaching reference
patterns of teacher-student interaction that influence the
cognitive and affective performance of students.
• Classroom Interaction Analysis is a research
methodology in which the verbal interaction patterns of
teachers and students are systematically observed,
recorded, and related to student performance.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
Five Key Behaviors Contributing to
Effective Teaching
1. Lesson Clarity: logical step-by-step order; clear
and audible delivery.
2. Instructional Variety: variability in materials,
questioning, feedback, and teaching strategies.
3. Task Orientation: content orientation instead of
process orientation.
4. Student Engagement: limit distractions, keep
students working on content.
5. Opportunities for Success: a high percentage
of time spent on tasks that provide moderate to
high levels of success.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Five Helping Behaviors
Related to Effective Teaching
• Use student ideas and contributions during the
lesson.
• Structure the lesson with advance organizers as
well as mental and activity strategies.
• Use both content (direct) and process (indirect)
questions.
• Probe and elicit clarification, solicit additional
information (check for understanding).
• Be involved in your teaching – show interest,
using gestures, eye contact, etc. to communicate
a nurturing relationship to the learner.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 The Art of Questioning:
Types of Content Questions
• Direct: The question requires no interpretation
or alternative meanings.
• Lower-order: The question requires the recall
only of readily available facts.
• Convergent: Different data sources lead to
the same answer.
• Closed: The question has no possible
alternative answers or interpretations.
• Fact: The question requires only the recall of
pieces of well-accepted knowledge.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 The Art of Questioning:
Types of Process Questions
• Indirect: The question has various
interpretations and alternative meanings.
• Higher-order: The question requires more
complex mental processes than simple recall of
facts.
• Divergent: Different data sources will lead to
different correct answers.
• Open: A single correct answer is not expected
or even possible.
• Concept: The question requires the processes
of abstraction, generalization, and inference.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Constructivism
• Constructivism is a philosophy of learning that
explains how people come to understand or
know. It assumes that learning is an active
process in which learners internally construct
knowledge from interactions with their physical
and social environment.
• Three attributes of constructivism are:
1. Cognitive conflict or confusion is the stimulus for
learning.
2. Knowledge evolves through negotiation, which makes
collaborative groups important for testing and
expanding understanding.
3. Understanding comes from one’s interactions with the
environment. Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Teaching Effectively with
Diverse Learners and Content
• The key behaviors of lesson clarity, instructional
variety, and teacher’s task orientation remain
effective.

• Teacher affect is particularly important in lower socio-

economic status (SES) classrooms.

• The helping behaviors of using student contributions,

structuring, and questioning may be applied
differently when dealing with diverse learners.

Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Effective Teaching Behaviors
May Differ Across Content Areas
• Different content areas seem to benefit from
different strategies. For example, research
shows that:
– For basic mathematics instruction a formal, direct
approach seems to be most effective.
– For reading, an inquiry based approach seems to be
more effective than a direct one.

• These approaches are not mutually exclusive,

representing different degrees of emphasis, and
not exclusive practice.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 The Complexity of Teaching

• Effective teaching integrates key and

helpful behaviors into meaningful
patterns to create effective teaching
practices.

Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Professional Teaching
Standards
• The National Board for Professional teaching
Standards (NBPTS) proposes five propositions
essential to effective teaching.

• The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and

Support Consortium (INTASC) standards are
written as ten principles, explaining what a
beginning teacher should know and be able to
do.
Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.
 Your Transition to the Real
World of Teaching
Fuller’s three stages of concerns that
teachers pass through on the way to
becoming a professional are:
1. Concern for self
2. Concern for the teaching task.
3. Concern for their impact on learners.

Copyright ©2007 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Gary D. Borich Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
Effective Teaching Methods, 6e All rights reserved.