Principles of Teaching

Com­piled by schol­ars at Carnegie Mel­lon University’s Eber­ly Cen­ter for Teach­ing Excel­lence & Edu­ca­tion­al Inno­va­tion, the fol­low­ing prin­ci­ples reflect cur­rent research on effec­tive teach­ing prac­tice.

1. Effec­tive teach­ing involves acquir­ing rel­e­vant knowl­edge about stu­dents and using that knowl­edge to inform our course design and class­room teach­ing.
2. Effec­tive teach­ing involves align­ing the three major com­po­nents of instruc­tion: learn­ing objec­tives, assess­ments, and instruc­tion­al activ­i­ties.
3. Effec­tive teach­ing involves artic­u­lat­ing explic­it expec­ta­tions regard­ing learn­ing objec­tives and poli­cies.
4. Effec­tive teach­ing involves pri­or­i­tiz­ing the knowl­edge and skills we choose to focus on.
5. Effec­tive teach­ing involves rec­og­niz­ing and over­com­ing our expert blind spots.
6. Effec­tive teach­ing involves adopt­ing appro­pri­ate teach­ing roles to sup­port our learn­ing goals.
7. Effec­tive teach­ing involves pro­gres­sive­ly refin­ing our cours­es based on reflec­tion and feed­back.

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