What Is (In)Effective About the Concept of "Effective" Teaching and (How) Should It Be Replaced? A Discussion

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

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This session will feature a conversation among a group of scholars with different areas of expertise who have confronted different issues about the construct and methods associated with “effective” teaching. Their discussion will trace the histories of this concept of ""effective teaching,” as well as different conceptions of “good teaching,” and consider how it interacts with approaches to teaching that have purposefully diverged from normative practice—that are culturally resonant and sustaining, and deeply embedded in the values of non-dominant communities. Participants will consider possible challenges to dominant policies and approaches to determining ""effectiveness,"" as well as possible responsible and responsive re-imaginings of ways to appraise the quality of instruction and how it supports students’ development. This session is designed to resonate with President Rich Milner’s mission for us to consider consequential research through careful critical reviews of the literature.

The following questions will structure the discussion among the invited participants:

• Why have the dominant approaches to assessing “effects” and “effectiveness” persisted despite broad awareness of their limitations?

• How can we refuse the use of limited and limiting proxies for learning and reductive thinking about teaching? How can we imagine responsible ways to attend sensitively to the quality of students’ opportunities for learning and to their learning and thriving?

• How can we center the crucial importance of student diversity, and the need to attend to students’ language, identity, communities, and culture in considering both the quality of instruction and their learning and thriving?
"

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Deborah Loewenberg Ball, University of Michigan

Participants

• Drew H. Gitomer, Rutgers University

• Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Jarvis R. Givens, Harvard University

• Guillermo Solano-Flores, Stanford University