Good Teaching Practices

Best Practices

What are Good teaching Practices (GTP)?

Good teaching practices are principles accepted within the academic community as items that will enhance the learning experience for today's students. You may be familiar with some of these either from your own formal study or perhaps from years in the classroom.

One of the most commonly accepted sets of Good Teaching Practices were identified by Chickering and Gamson in their 1987 Work "The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education." Copies of this work can be found in many places.

The Seven Principles are as follows:

• encourages contact between students and faculty,
• develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
• encourages active learning,
• gives prompt feedback,
• emphasizes time on task,
• communicates high expectations, and
• respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

These principles can be apply equally to classroom and online education. The guidelines have been extended to distance education in another article written by Ehrmann and Chickering, "Implementing the Seven Principles--Technology a Lever."