Revista de Docencia Universitaria – Vol. 10 nº1

Over the last few years, some university leaders have ignited firestorms of controversy with plans to reward faculty members who teach well. Much of the controversy has stemmed from any attempt to identify those outstanding educators through student ratings. At one Texas university, for example, the critics imagined that unscrupulous professors might try to buy high marks from their students with inflated grades or free beer.

Behind those controversies lies a much older struggle over the very meaning of good teaching. If there is a difference between good instructors and popular ones, what is it? My own definition stems from the work on students’ intentions as they undertake their studies. A sizeable body of research has found that different students will take quite different approaches to their studies that generally fall into one of three broad categories, surface, strategic or deep. Only students in the latter category will consistently intend to understand, to think about implications, applications and possibilities, and only those students are likely to achieve the deepest learning.