What Makes a Good Teacher?

When researchers try to discover what makes a good teacher, the results never seem to come to surprising conclusions.  Defining just what assets master teachers should have has been elusive. Are effective teachers those who have a degree in a subject, engage in in-service training, got good grades in college, are certified, are experienced in teaching the subject, and/or have an excellent understanding of the content? You could probably name some other possibilities and know that there’s more that goes into effective teaching than can be measured by degrees and knowledge. The Ed Week article, “Majoring in Math Not Always a Classroom Plus” by Sean Cavanagh, explains that being a math major or doing professional development to become certified for math teaching are not necessarily good teaching guarantees, especially with elementary and middle school students. Good teachers need the knowledge, but they also need to know how to teach and motivate students to master and use the content. How do you tell whether a teacher is effective? Observe the teacher teach. Watch how students react.  Find out if they are learning.  The question, “What makes a good teacher?” seems too complex to be answered by number crunching studies.