Excellence in Teaching: An International Vision
Edith Allen
Instructor, English for International Students Program
Both definitions and living examples of “good teaching” abound on the campus of Duke University, but how different are these definitions and ideals for the international graduate students who come here from diverse academic settings? Do we share, as a community, the same sense of what “excellence in teaching” means regardless of our backgrounds? Is good teaching site-specific and culturally bound, or are the characteristics of a good teacher universal? These are vital questions given our efforts to internationalize, our record enrollments of international graduate students, and our reliance on their skills as teaching assistants.
What is our definition of good teaching? A focus on active learning and critical inquiry can be found in the mission of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Writing, which strives “to support teaching that engages students not simply in receiving information but in actively constructing knowledge and understanding.” Or we can look to Duke’s Center for Inquiry-Based Learning, where Professor Gary Ybarra and his colleagues are working to improve teaching in North Carolina school districts using this guiding principle: “Instead of forcing the absorption and memorization of facts, we want to teach the teachers to stimulate senses, engage attention, and be guides through the process of discovery.”
This fall, in an effort to determine the range of perceptions concerning good teaching and the characteristics of good teachers, the faculty in the English for International Students program surveyed 75 international graduate students. Through a combination of interviews, Blackboard discussions, written responses, and videotaped classroom discussions, international students from Asia (China, Korea, Japan, India), South America (Brazil, Chile, Colombia) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Romania, Georgia, Turkey) responded to the following questions:
- What are the differences between the system of higher education at Duke and that in your country of origin?
- What is your definition of good teaching?
- What are the characteristics of a good teacher?
In describing their own countries, students tend to emphasize the large class size, greater formality in both the classroom atmosphere and in relationships with professors, limited diversity in the student body, and a more structured lecture format that does not encourage participation or questions in the classroom.
According to Meeta Jain, graduate student in Economics, classes are large in India and rely more on the lecture format with less concentration on discussion and questions. The same is true in China. An Xuan, visiting professor from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, says that though a small class in China may consist of 30-40 students, most classes are much larger. As a result, she finds it is difficult to organize in-class activities: “Chinese traditional teaching is input-focused with few opportunities for students to produce original work, [but]… gradually this is changing and teachers are trying to focus more on the learning process and task-based learning.”
Format and composition can also make a difference in the atmosphere of a classroom. Taesik Yun, a graduate student in Public Policy Studies, finds that “…Korean classes have narrow ethnic demographics and a formal atmosphere while their U.S. counterparts are more diverse and less strict. In my opinion, this variety and the more relaxed atmosphere helps students from different backgrounds to express their views, thus giving everyone a better understanding of the real world.” Antonio Gaspar, graduate student in the Program in International Development Policy notes that in Brazil students are “more passive in receiving information” and less classroom participation is expected. He adds, “U.S. universities tend to use a significant number of case studies in class, stimulating student participation and making the course extremely dynamic and practical. In contrast, the Brazilian educational model is entirely focused on information from books and theoretical sources, without making any significant connection to empirical situations.”
Despite the range of differences in academic experiences, when students from many different countries describe their ideal teacher, a remarkably consistent picture emerges—a picture that matches our own definitions of good teaching. There is a general consensus that good teachers must be knowledgeable about the subject and effective at presenting material, must be sensitive to different learning styles and care about the students, and must love what they’re doing and show enthusiasm. In the words of one student, “a good teacher does not just deliver knowledge but creates an atmosphere leading students to the answer.”
It is encouraging to know that on this essential feature of academic life – notions of excellence in teaching—the perspectives across many cultures are similar. Interestingly, when our students were asked if they had ever had a teacher of this description, most said no, while a few could perhaps remember one. So elemental is this description that we don’t even appear to need personal experience to know what makes a good teacher. As we at Duke continue to strive to teach well and to design training for future teachers, it is important to recognize that these universal characteristics of good teaching are shared across cultures.
Last updated: 08/04/2005