What is the relationship between effective teaching and students' learning?

The symbiotic relationship between effective teaching and students’ learning is at the core of university education. The primary aim of teaching is to enable learning—a learning that encompasses changes in students’ knowledge, beliefs, behaviours, attitudes, and skills. Recognising that effective teaching goes beyond imparting knowledge, and that students are active agents in their learning, is therefore crucial. Any conversation about effective teaching needs to begin with a deliberation on how students learn. Ambrose et al. (2010) outline seven conditions that give rise to effective learning and provide educators an understanding of why and how certain teaching approaches and strategies are more effective in facilitating student learning. These principles include:

• Students’ prior knowledge can help or hinder learning.
• Students’ organisation of knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
• Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.
• To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practise integrating them, and know when to apply them.
• Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback are critical to learning.
• Students’ level of development is influenced by the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical aspects of the course climate.
• Students must develop metacognitive skills to monitor and control their learning so as to become self-directed learners.

Significant learning takes place when the student perceives the subject matter as relevant for his own purposes and is acquired through doing. That is, learning is facilitated when the student participates actively and responsibly in the learning process. Educators must recognise the diversity of students and incorporate varied teaching methods catered to their different learning needs. Setting challenging but attainable tasks motivate students to invest more effort and dedication into their learning. Increasing the frequency of student-teacher and student-student interactions amplifies the perceived support from the learning environment, fostering greater student motivation. Furthermore, creating opportunities for collaborative learning helps students assess their own assumptions and thought processes through sharing ideas within a group context, thus enhancing their metacognitive skills. This collaborative climate also cultivates interpersonal skills and a spirit of tolerance for diversity. By adopting active learning strategies, students are provided with opportunities to reflect on their own concrete experiences. Reflecting not only on the content but also on the nuances of the learning process itself empowers students to manage and monitor their own learning. Equally crucial is the provision of timely and effective feedback, essential in helping students identify and promptly rectify misconceptions. (Chickering & Gamson, 1987)