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What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Have clear learning goals for the course and communicate them to the students early and on a regular basis. It helps if the goals are stated in terms of observable skills and knowledge rather than generalities.
2. Have a well-organized syllabus showing major themes of the course, how they play out in the activities, and the way you will evaluate student learning. Try to stick to key dates, such as exams and paper deadlines.
3. Use evaluation methods (tests, papers, projects) that are closely tied to your overall goals for the course.
4. Use items that test what is important, not what is easy to ask about.
5. Periodically update the students on where they are in progressing toward the course goals.
6. A second type of organization is the organization of the content. Help students understand the underlying structure of the course content and how it fits together and relates to other courses. Draw a map or chart showing the organization of the content.
7. Prepare for each class period so that you have a clear idea of what is supposed to happen. Put an outline of the agenda on the board at the beginning of class. Keep in mind that no matter how organized you are, it does not help unless you communicate it to your students.

ITEM 2: THIS COURSE WAS INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING.

What an instructor can do in this area:

Know your students:

1. During the first class period, give students a pre-test to assess their existing knowledge about the course content. This will help the instructor choose or revise the topics and materials to be covered. This assessment can be done over many years to obtain the profiles of the students who will be enrolled and to be aware of changing trends in their profiles.
2. Encourage students to read or study materials other than textbooks or class handouts and to share this with the instructor and peers.
3. Assign homework which encourages critical thinking and some research, rather than homework for which students can easily find factual answers from the textbook.
4. Explicitly address relevance of course subject matter.
5. Use vivid, familiar examples to help students anchor concepts in their memory.
6. Engage students in active learning strategies that require them to think in more depth about the material being presented. Discussions, debates, group work, and projects are just a few ways.

ITEM 3: THE INSTRUCTOR WAS GENUINELY INTERESTED IN TEACHING.

What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Explicitly address relevance.
2. Tell students that you care that they learn; remind them of your office hours, e-mail, etc.

1. Demonstrate your enthusiasm for the subject matter.
2. Discuss the learning and teaching process explicitly.
3. Track student progress through the subject matter and discuss this progress in class (e.g., summarizing topics covered, pointing out skills and knowledge that students have gained so far in the course).

ITEM 4: THE INSTRUCTOR ENCOURAGED STUDENTS TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

What an instructor can do in this area:

See ITEM 2 above.

Active learning methods such as problem solving, writing, and explicit teaching of critical thinking reinforce these goals. [Note that Leeds (1997) disputes this finding, while Byer (1997) supports it.]

ITEM 5: THE INSTRUCTOR WAS WELL PREPARED.

What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Provide an outline of what you expect to cover during a session.
2. Try to use multiple modes of delivery.
3. Prepare necessary handouts.
4. Anticipate questions and be prepared for them.
5. Make the transition from topic to topic smooth. Use appropriate transition expressions. Check comprehension between the transitions.
6. Control time allocation for each activity.

ITEM 6: THE INSTRUCTOR WAS GENUINELY INTERESTED IN HELPING STUDENTS.

What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Good communication means being aware of student understanding. Ways to monitor understanding include watching student reactions and note-taking patterns, interjecting questions or activities that require students to respond using the materials being presented, inviting student questions, and acknowledging when material difficulty varies significantly.
2. Make the effort to include activities in the class session that will give you feedback on how well students are grasping what is being taught. Communicate to the students that you are aware of that understanding by building your class sessions on their responses.
3. Come to class a little early or stay a little longer to interact with students and invite questions.
4. Learn your students' names and note how they are doing as you grade papers or tests.
5. When a student makes a mistake in class, don't over-react. Instead use it as an opportunity to guide some further learning by helping the students and you understand where the miscommunication came from.

For McCroskey's findings that a sense of caring
comes from empathy, understanding, and responsiveness:

Nurture a sense of caring by being empathetic, understanding, and responsive: come to class early to talk to students and answer questions, invite students to office hours, know their names, share relevant information about your own experiences and interests.

What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Give students assignments that can reinforce learning and help them apply the knowledge to other or real-life situations.
2. Give students regular, accurate, constructive feedback about their learning. Help them to see their own achievements and what they need to do to achieve more.

For Teven & McCroskey's findings that students report that
they learned more in courses in which the instructor was seen as caring:

Nurture a sense of caring by being empathetic, understanding, and responsive: come to class early to talk to students and answer questions, invite students to office hours, know their names, share relevant information about your own experiences and interests.

ITEM 8: THE INSTRUCTOR CREATED AN ATMOSPHERE CONDUCIVE TO LEARNING.

What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Be open and interested in what your students are saying and asking by making eye contact, actively responding to their comments, not interrupting them in mid-comment, and using all the other courtesies that you would accord to another adult.
2. When responding to student comments and questions, respond in a way that will not discourage future comments from this student or others. Agree to the extent you can, explore the basis for difference when you can't and build on their ideas.
3. When you don't know an answer, say so and then model how you would go about thinking about the question in order to estimate or discover an answer.
4. Engage students in active learning strategies that require them to think in more depth about the material being presented.
5. Use activities in class as a way of preparing for exam questions.
6. If you are teaching a controversial topic, have the class discuss the guidelines for handling disagreements and discomfort that might arise during the discussion.
7. Praise the student, not necessarily the answer.

For Teven and McCroskey's finding that students report that they are more likely
to take another course from that instructor and that they learned more in the course:

Nurture a sense of caring by being empathetic, understanding, and responsive: come to class early to talk to students and answer questions, invite students to office hours, know their names, share relevant information about your own experiences and interests.

ITEM 9: THE INSTRUCTOR COMMUNICATED THE SUBJECT MATTER CLEARLY.

What an instructor can do in this area:

1. Include good, clear concrete examples with which students can identify supports communication. Inviting students to give examples is also helpful.
2. Don't avoid the important technical language of your field when appropriate. Just be sure to teach it to your students; don't assume that they know it.
3. Lectures are enhanced when the lecturer provides an outline of the presentation throughout the session so students can see where they are in the overall scheme of things. Refer to the outline as you move between topics.
4. Clearly signal the type of information you are presenting: is it a key concept or just an elaboration? Are you still in the same topic area or are you about to move on? Use relational transition words to cue student attention and understanding of relationships.
5. A key to clear communication in a lecture setting is finding the right density of information to use. Things that increase information density are technical terms, rapid presentation, abstractions with no examples, overcrowded visuals. Things that reduce density are concrete examples familiar to the students, redundant sources of information, repetition, pausing to allow for note-taking.
6. Vary your voice, position, demeanor, use of visuals, and other communication components to add interest.
7. Be interested in your topic, your teaching, and your students, and let your interest come through in your voice and expression.

ITEM 10: OVERALL, I WOULD RATE THIS INSTRUCTOR AS...

What an instructor can do in this area:

(Among four areas [Items 1, 5, 7, 9], focus on the factor that you received the lowest score in.)

1. Have clear learning goals for the course and a well-organized syllabus.
2. Organize the content and present the organization to students using a map or chart.
3. Put an outline of the agenda on the board at the beginning of the class.
4. Try to multiple modes of delivery of the content.
5. Prepare necessary handouts.
6. Control time allocation for each activity.
7. Design activities for which students can apply the knowledge obtained in the class to other or real-life situations.
8. Give students regular, constructive feedback about their progress.
9. Use relational transition words to cue student attention and understanding of relationships.
10. Find the right density of information to use.
11. Use good, clear, concrete examples.
12. Vary your voice, position, demeanor, use of visuals, and other communication components.

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