“Serving time”: the relationship of good and bad teaching

Published date01 October 2006
Date01 October 2006
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/09684880610703965
Pages385-397
AuthorMichael Jackson
Subject MatterEducation
“Serving time”: the relationship
of good and bad teaching
Michael Jackson
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The argument is that good and bad teaching are asymmetrical. Eradicating what is
readily thought of as bad teaching does not leave behind the purse gold of good teaching. Good
teaching is that which promotes student learning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the
relationship between bad teaching and good teaching in graduate memories
Design/methodology/approach – The study is based in part on a survey of graduates from an
earlier generation filtered through current theories of student approaches to learning.
Findings – Graduates reflecting on their education describe good teaching and bad teaching in
significantly different registers. There is almost no overlap in the vocabulary with which they describe
the two.
Originality/value – Graduates are a source of insight into the nature and value of quality education.
The study offers some information about how articulate graduates think about their education 25
years later. Despite the years of public debate in Australia about higher education, this is one of the
very few instances in which graduates have been invited to reflect on and speak about their experience
as students.
Keywords Teaching, Students,Experience, Graduates, Highereducation, Australia
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
More than a decade ago Pascarella and Terenzini, authors of that standard in higher
education, How College Affects Students (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991a), called for
more qualitative accounts of students’ experiences (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991b).
The present study is one small response to that challenge of capturing something of the
texture of students’ experiences. Higher education policy reaches ever further into the
classroom in the name of quality (Coaldrake and Stedman, 1998; Considine and
Marginson, 2000) and that is another reason to depict students’ real experiences in the
classroom. In centrally controlled systems like Britain and Australia, as students pay
more fees, there will be a determination to monitor the benefits of government
investment in education.
Students’ memories of teaching are a unique touchstone of quality, a durabl e one
that remains when much else is gone, and are more important for being more
informative than sometimes supposed (Cashin, 1990, p. 91). At a time when the stress is
ever more on quality, students’ memories can offer an additional, retrospective insight
into the value of education. In a sense, memory allows us to travel back in time to
reflect today on yesterday, as though it were a time machine.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0968-4883.htm
This project was inspired by reading Barbara Carson’s “Thirty years of stories” (Carson, 1996).
She encouraged the author to do his own research. Dr Mark Freeman offered advice and
criticism.
Good and bad
teaching
385
Quality Assurance in Education
Vol. 14 No. 4, 2006
pp. 385-397
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/09684880610703965

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