General Teaching Tips

What makes a good teacher? Well, that probably depends on the subject matter and the level of the students. However, some teachers can make even the most boring material seem interesting (and alternately, some teachers can make interesting materials boring). Some of it has to do with personality and charisma, but part of a teacher's effectiveness is due to his/her knowledge and application of good teaching practices. These teaching practices range from setting goals for the class to making effective presentations to listening to students questions.

Effective teaching begins prior to the teacher entering the classroom. Teachers must formulate their goals and think about how they will achieve them before facing the students. Once in the classroom, the teacher must be able to apply a number of different methods of teaching to reach students with different learning styles. In order to encourage critical thinking and real life application, students must be pushed to think outside the box. This means teachers need to be able to create an environment for this to occur.

The materials presented in this section were developed to share information on teaching practices that have been found to be effective. The materials are broken into two section. The first section contains general teaching behaviors and strategies that lead to successful teaching, and the second section contains tips specific to teaching concepts about nondestructive testing. Educators are encouraged to share their "secrets of success" with other educators by contributing short summaries of their favored teaching practices

N.Premkumar

Associate Professor