Skip to main content

MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Teaching Tips from Your TCC


Good Practices

I found the following tips in an article by Joseph R. Codde, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Educational Technology Certificate Program at Michigan State University. His work is adapted from Arthur W. Chickering's and Zelda F. Gamson's book, Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (1991). This is the link to the entire article: https://www.msu.edu/user/coddejos/seven.htm.

1. GOOD PRACTICE ENCOURAGES STUDENT -- FACULTY CONTACT
Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of classes is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well enhances students' intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values and future plans.

2. GOOD PRACTICE ENCOURAGES COOPERATION AMONG STUDENTS
Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort than a solo race. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions improves thinking and deepens understanding.

3. GOOD PRACTICE ENCOURAGES ACTIVE LEARNING
Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.

4. GOOD PRACTICE RESPECTS DIVERSE TALENTS AND WAYS OF LEARNING
There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning to college. Brilliant students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio. Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well in theory. Students need to opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learning in new ways that do not come so easily.

SOURCE: Chickering, A.W., and Gamson, Z.F. (1991). Applying the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. Number 47, Fall 1991. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Julie Damerell
Transitional Studies
03/29/2010