What do you consider to be an effective teacher?
... is difficult to define, however Stephens and Crawley (1994) suggests that the key element of an effective teacher should be the ability to extract the best out of the students, both educationally, psychologically and socially. They also suggested that the effectiveness of a teacher is judged based on their ability to convey knowledge and values that the children can understand and relate to (Stephens & Crawley, 1994). Therefore it is important for teachers to be effective with their teaching, as their actions modify their classroom experiences and the experiences of their pupils, thereby affecting the outcomes of education (Croll & Hastings, 1997). Teachers are not judged on their character, but on their effectiveness. However, being effective is not necessarily being perfect, or giving a flawless performance, but eliciting the best in pupils (p.xii, Cullingford, 1995). Therefore effective teaching is not constricted to a specific teaching style or personality that encourages dramatic gestures or flamboyancy (Cullingford, 1995) In fact, according to Cullingford (1995) the crux of teaching is “understanding how people learn and what to do about it” (Cullingford, 1995, p.xii). Therefore the most import part of being an effective teacher is not the amount you know but the quality of the information you know and how you enthuse the pupils you are teaching (Erasmus in Cullingford, 1995). This indicates that teacher’s impac...