What Makes an Effective Instructor?

Evelyn Battell and Leora Gesser

Twenty-five years ago Adult Basic Education (ABE) practitioners were young and so was the ABE field. Many of us had not heard of ABE or, if we had, we thought primarily of night-time classes in basement spaces. We fell into the field through happenstance with little understanding of the tremendous opportunities and growth that lay ahead. But we have grown up along with our discipline – embracing the challenges, inventing methodologies and loving our jobs and our students. So what are our qualities now that we are veterans? What makes us successful? A research project is underway to look at just that.

Five long-term instructors are looking at: What makes a literacy/ABE instructor effective in her/his practice? We have designed this project to describe, reflect, analyse and define our practice from a research perspective. We are interested in exploring the answers to certain questions:

• What makes us effective in the classroom?
• What happens between the learner and the instructor that makes us feel effective?
• What does effective mean in the ABE/literacy context?
• What happens when we feel ineffective?

The research has taken us on a journey through our autobiographies, journaling our daily practice and interviewing colleagues. We are just beginning to grapple with the analysis and writing. We hope to report in the spring of 2004 and the following year.

What Makes an Effective Instructor is funded by the BC Adult Literacy Cost-Shared Program and the Vancouver Foundation. The project is sponsored by the Adult Basic Education Association of BC and Literacy BC.

Evelyn Battell is an ABE instructor at Malaspina University-College in Duncan, BC. Leora Gesser is an ABE instructor at Selkirk College in Grand Forks, BC. The other team members are Judy Rose and Diana Twiss of Capilano College in North Vancouver and Jan Sawyer of Okanagan University College in Salmon Arm.