Why take care of your teachers?

"10% to 15% of the differences in results observed at the end of the year between students can be explained by the teacher to whom the child has been entrusted.

For the past four decades, a body of research conducted in the field of education has been able to confirm the intuition of many parents: the progress of their children depends significantly on the talent and skills of their teachers. "

The Center for Strategic Analysis has just published its analysis note n°232 "What does the research say about the "teacher effect"" (.pdf)

It states, among other things, that:

• "- the magnitude of the "teacher effect" is greater than that of the "institution effect" : The teacher has more influence on student progress in a given year than the school in which the students attend;
  
  
• - the magnitude of an increase in a teacher's instructional effectiveness is also potentially greater than that of a decrease in class size;
  
  
• - the effect of the teacher a student had in a given year fades fairly quickly once the student changes teachers; but the impacts of successive teachers can add up. "
  
  

So it's better to invest in the recruitment and ongoing training of one's teachers than in decreasing class size! And on the parents' side, it is better to choose a school that takes care of its teachers than one that takes care of its image above all.

While it is recognized that the "teacher effect" is real, determining the objective elements of it is not obvious. The relationships between a teacher's effectiveness and factors such as the level of his or her initial training or seniority are not direct by far. It seems that it is in the interaction with students that most of the differences are played out.

So four factors of what makes a good teacher have been identified:

1. Actual teaching time. A good teacher spends time around the subject being taught. It is not administrative time, nor is it time spent disciplining or digressing.
   
   
2. Teachers' expectations, their level of demand on their students. A good teacher sets high, attainable goals and sees no reason to settle for less.
   
   
3. Feedback without invalidation. A good teacher provides affectively neutral feedback and allows opportunities for improvement; he or she cultivates the right to make mistakes, the spirit of play.
   
   
4. Structuring the course around the important elements. A good teacher defines objectives well, structures the data around the essential points, is not afraid of redundancy, has students practice and use the data, develops synthesis activities.
   
   

And at a distance?

What students are sensitive to remains. So we should be able to translate this data into distance education:

1. A distance learning course does not digress itself; normally it has qualities to retain the student around the topic: presentation, graphics, strong interactions, facilitating group, etc. Any way is good to spend time on the topic.
   
   
2. A well-targeted distance learning course that has properly screened its candidates offers lofty but achievable goals through a variety of means. Clear presentation of goals and necessary prerequisites is a key to future student satisfaction: candidates are at the right level to be likely to succeed.
   
   
3. The ideal feedback has qualities of emotional neutrality, that of tutors as well as automated messages. There are optimal time frames for feedback depending on the type of feedback and the medium. Most institutions try to optimize their feedback times as well as that of programmed systems. There are feedbacks based on comparison with the ideal, others based on numerical variables (frequency, duration, trial/error) and finally others based on comparison with others (above or below the average of a group); all of them can be "objectified", without judgement.
   
   
4. The structuring of a distance course is intrinsic to the distance course: in principle the course is self-sufficient: content, references, glossary, exercises, activities, etc. Therein lies the art and science of the designer and, failing that, he will always be able to improve it cycle after cycle, as long as the modalities of modification and feedback from users have been foreseen.

In sum, if the teacher has an observed effect on the performance of a class, we can assume that what replaces the teacher in a distance course, the structure, course tools, and tutors, obeys the same principles.

Download: "What does the research say about the "teacher effect"" (.pdf)