The Quest for Excellence in University Teaching

Although excellent teaching is a main goal for institutions of higher education [49], how to define, promote, and develop such excellence is not clear [30]. Some authors [4, 13] avoid definitions in favor of multiple examples from which a concept of "excellence" may emerge. Others attack the issue more directly. For example, Yoakam and Simpson [65] suggest that quality teachers are "progressive," take into account students' past experiences, diagnose difficulties, permit remedial activities, and liberate learners. Treiber [62], Hamacheck [28], Jackson [38] and Sorason, Davidson and Blatt [60] attribute excellence to the ability to adapt teaching behaviors and techniques to the capabilities of students. Because definitions and examples like these do not identify satisfactorily the qualities of excellent teaching, we examined the literature on college teaching, instructional design and, when these were insufficient, the research on school teaching to generate a conception of teaching excellence in higher education. At first it appeared this would be an easy task because the college teaching and instructional design literature seem to imply that instructors who do all the "right things" (plan systematically, use objectives, provide frequent feedback, for example) should be excellent. However, this does not appear to be the case. It is clearly possible to improve as a teacher [43], but improving does not always result in excellence. Thus, there appear to be qualities and/ or conditions that separate excellent teachers from those who are very good, competent, or incompetent.