Teaching Theory

Having taught for some time now and work as faculty consultant for the faculty development center here on campus I have a theory that might predict what students will get out of a class based on the teachers subject matter expertise (SME) and teaching quality.  Knowing this going in, administrators should already know what the students will experience and take great pains to hire faculty (adjunct, permanent, part-time) who will give students a great return on their tuition dollar.

Condition 1:  High SME + High Teaching Quality
This is the best case scenario.  This is when someone who has a great deal of knowledge, skills, and abilities on a given topic is selected to teach a suitable course.  Better still, because the individual is a great teacher there is a higher probability that the students will get a healthy return on their tuition dollar because they will learn what they should about a given subject because it is taught by a skilled teacher.

Condition 2: High SME + Low Teaching Quality
This may be the second best scenario.  The teacher is no doubt high on knowledge, skills and abilities on the subject being taught in a given course but unable to communicate that effectively to students due to limited teaching skill set.  So the students will have access to an expert but not learn as much as they could had they been taught by a more skilled teacher.

Condition 3: Low SME + High Quality Teaching
This may be the third best scenario.  Unfortunately the individual does not know much about the subject being asked to teach but the course has to be taught and nobody else qualified to do it.  The students will experience high quality instruction but what they learn will be deficient or suspect because the person teaching the class does not know much about the subject.  The proverbial "one chapter ahead of the students!"  Sadly, been there, done that!

Condition 4: Low SME + Low Quality Teaching
This is the worst case scenario.  This is when someone is selected to teach a class with little or no knowledge, skills, or abilites to teach the class.  Worse still, the individual is not a very good teacher.  In effect, this is the nightmare scenario for students.  The teacher does not know the subject and a terrible teacher making for a very long term/semester.  Sadly, this condition exists far too often on too many college campuses especially when graduate students are called upon to teach a class for the home department as part of their assistantship, for example. 

What do you think of this theory?  I think it is one that administrators should consider when selecting people to serve as teachers.  It predicts what students will be subjected to when taking a class given the four conditions.  I am also sure that many of you would be able to think back on your education, or knowledge of other teachers, to put names and faces to each condition.