Art vs. Science in Teaching: What Makes an Effective Educator

Introduction: Defining the Art and Science of Teaching

Teachers and other educators have been debating what makes an effective teacher for as long as the profession has been recognized. In the last century in particular, the topic of what makes a good teacher — and what comprises good teaching — has been a central concern in colleges of education. Because the role of a teacher is so important, the question of what constitutes good teaching has been examined philosophically, through the lens of pedagogy, and through empirical research. The result has been a large body of books and articles addressing how to teach, how students learn, which techniques teachers should use, and what makes for the best teaching materials.

Into this mix must be included the personal qualities an individual must possess in order to be an effective and compassionate teacher (Banner & Cannon, 1997). On top of everything else, teachers are role models for the students in their classes (Ayres, 2000). The long list of qualities and skills good teachers must possess is daunting, and only some of what a teacher needs to know can be taught as part of a college education. However, teachers can be taught some of the science and some of the art of what it takes to be a good teacher.

By "science" is meant the things that have been proven to be true about teaching — particularly those things described as "best practices," meaning approaches proven to teach the majority of students effectively. By "art" is meant the sum of experience, judgment, and instincts a teacher brings to the classroom in the implementation of those best practices.

Science or Art? Examining Effective Teaching Characteristics

Bellanca (1998) divides the characteristics of effective teachers into two clusters: the art of teaching and the craft of teaching. This may be a misleading dichotomy, as some factors from both groups as described by this author can be or have been demonstrated in research, while some in both groups have not. He reports that good teachers are "democratic," but it could be asked: how democratic can a classroom really be? Students cannot vote on which parts of a year's curriculum will be covered and which will not. In music, for instance, students left to their own preferences might focus entirely on modern popular music and learn little about the great music of the past. There are certainly opportunities for democratic action in a classroom, but whether the presence or absence of such moments contributes to how well students learn is another question. Nevertheless, Bellanca makes it the first item on his list.

Whether documented as a best practice or not, it is clearly important to Bellanca. He suggests that good teachers should be compassionate toward their students, flexible, and passionate about what they teach. It seems likely that such qualities are reflected in research and might well be part of best practices. However, he also states that good teachers are "a champion of children's daydreams." Whether this belongs to the art of teaching is unclear. What is meant by "daydreams"? Some children daydream about skipping school, while others daydream about writing a book, going to college, or becoming the best motorcycle mechanic their town has ever seen.

The difficulty of identifying what good teaching is — and is not — is further illustrated by Bellanca (1998) when he describes how one individual's view of teaching shifted over time. At one point the teacher said, "…my job is to cover the content…" and described traditional testing and evaluation as the means of determining grades. Some years later, the same teacher said, "…my job is to interest students in the value of this [subject]. This is much more than giving them information to spit back out on a test or quiz. I have to help them understand how all the information fits together and why it is important. I also have to help them get as excited… as I am…," listing a variety of new teaching and evaluative approaches.

Bellanca notes that this newer approach is based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. However, Gardner's theories have not been widely proven across a broad spectrum of teaching situations and educational goals. The approach looks like science, but is it? Gardner is a well-respected psychologist who presumably understands the nature of intelligence. But does that theory translate into improved learning? That would be the standard for science. It sounds like best practices; however, it may or may not meet that bar. Bellanca is also an advocate of authentic evaluation — seeing students use the information they have learned rather than administering tests and quizzes. Again, for this to qualify as a best practice, we would need evidence that authentic evaluations tell us more about what a student has learned than traditional tests do. Many teachers assume that some combination of approaches is best, but there is little science to support that assumption.

The question of whether what teachers do actually results in improved learning is an important one. It is not only education that struggles with identifying true best practices. Even when research is conducted, an approach can have hidden pitfalls that went unnoticed both in the research itself and in the implementation of its presumably proven results. A new retail practice may illustrate such hidden outcomes.

The Limits of Research as a Guide to Best Practices

Some businesses have begun refusing to accept returns from customers who show a high rate of returns. Unless those returns are compared to the customer's total sales over time, however, the store does not really know how justified the refusal is. Are four returns too many if the customer spends $100 a year in the store? What if the customer has three teenage children and spends $2,500 a year? The new returns policy may show increased profitability over the short term, while the loss of business from a newly alienated customer may never be identified. Choosing best practices on the basis of information that is too narrow is not itself a best practice. Educational research often suffers from the same flaw: the research is too narrow, which can blind teachers to the larger picture and may fail to capture a practice's effects over time.

Good research is, by definition, highly focused and narrow. It is like studying the scales of a butterfly's wings: the observer learns new things about the tiny scale but can no longer see the whole butterfly. Research systematically removes issues from their larger context, yet teachers must teach in circumstances far broader than any well-designed research study can capture.

The problem with blending art and science is that sometimes the art of teaching is misguided, and sometimes the science misleads. One example of this can be found in the literature on whether, and when, to retain students. Some research demonstrates very clearly that retention is nearly always harmful because, in the long run, students who have been retained perform worse than comparable students who were not retained (Jimerson et al., 2002). However, the same researchers also found cases where retention was successful not only immediately but years later. They identified socioeconomic factors that could predict with some reliability which students were most likely to benefit from, rather than be harmed by, retention.

Conclusion: Bringing It All Together

Teachers cannot realistically expect science to always guide them regarding how they should best teach their students. Science can raise possibilities but often will not have direct, successful application to the classroom. Good teachers must continually reflect on who they are, what they do in the classroom, and — importantly — why they do what they do. They must always be ready, and even eager, to question old habits and to evaluate how well they have achieved a fit between how they teach and what their goals for their students are (Ayres, 2000). Neither the art nor the science of teaching will provide everything a teacher needs. Teachers must stay current in their field, whether that means following new developments in science, keeping up with new poets and short story writers, attending to what is happening in modern music or art, or whatever subject they teach. They must also pay careful attention to the character and emotional qualities they convey to their students (Banner & Cannon, 1997).