Three dumb ways to measure quality teaching… two of them actually work!

Measuring the learning that takes place in a college course is notoriously difficult. We know so much about how humans learn (or don’t) but using that well-established research to judge the effectiveness of course design and instructor methods is time consuming, flawed and difficult.

So, let’s skip that!

Instead, let’s talk about three “dumb” ways to measure quality teaching. You should expect some sarcasm and some tongue-in-cheek assertions, as well as some useful insights into what really matters in teaching.

Clickbait: “Learn how to judge learning by the light levels in the room!”

You might think “If there is content on the screen, you should turn down the lights to focus student attention.”

The real lesson: Don’t turn down the lights.

When we watch a play or a movie, we expect the lights to be dim, focusing our vision exclusively on the stage or screen. But crucially, those are expected to be passive experiences. The audience should not interrupt and isn’t expected to engage in any kind of back-and-forth intellectual or emotional exchange. With few exceptions, that is not what effective learning experiences are like. You don’t want your students to be passive or, even worse, put to sleep, because of a dark room. And don’t worry, projectors in 2025 are plenty bright enough to be visible with the room lights fully on.

Back it up:

• Advice on professional presentations. From “Better presenting – do it with the lights on.”
• “Keep the room lights on and avoid showing slides in a dark room for more than 15 minutes (Dark rooms can make students drowsy.)” From U-Mich CRLT.
• Participants in a study on the “post lunch dip” were less alert in low lighting conditions, even while engaged in a continuous performance test. From “Effects of light intervention on alertness…”

Clickbait: “Enthusiastic teachers make for better learning!”

You might think “A professor enthusiastic about how cool their subject is will teach better.”

The real lesson: Enthusiastic and entertaining lectures can’t compete with active learning.

Our intuition isn’t entirely wrong! Enthusiastic lecturers who are clearly interested in their topic are judged as effective teachers by students. But as often happens, a highly-rated experience is not the same as one in which a lot of learning happened. Some of the most powerful studies on effective teaching specifically use experienced and highly rated teachers to create a “control group” for comparison against more evidence-based techniques. We even have evidence that students who actually learn more can come away with the exact opposite feeling.

Back it up:

• The notorious Fox experiment is at least partly about the way in which enthusiasm is unrelated to learning. Recent replication work has reinforced this.
• This highly-impactful study used an experienced and highly-rated instructor to create a control group. From “Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class”
• “… we find that students in the active classroom learn more, but they feel like they learn less. From “Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning…”

Clickbait: “Is this class effective? Just listen to the sound levels!”

You might think, “A quiet, focused class session is ideal.”

The real lesson: The presence of many voices and big changes in the sound levels during class are associated with more learning.

It turns out that simply recording the overall volume of sound during an in-person class meeting can identify when active-learning techniques are being used. Active learning is well-studied and known to be significantly more effective than traditional methods across all disciplines. So, you could (crudely) measure teaching quality by simply measuring the sound levels of a class.

Back it up:

• Study on identifying active learning simply by looking at decibel levels during class time. From “Classroom sound can be used to classify teaching practices in college science courses”
• Active learning has been studied for 30+ years, with hundreds of studies. It is effective in STEM, humanities and social sciences, business courses, etc.
• Active learning reduces the achievement gap for underrepresented minorities and first-gen students.

3 lessons for today:

So, as you head back into the classroom, remember: Lights on, get students loud and engaged (with active learning), and know that enthusiasm is great, but cannot carry the day.

Want to know more about active learning or other research-based instructional strategies? Get in touch with the CTLD, reach out to me (Jeff Loats) or the Associate Director of Teaching & Learning (Bridget Arend).

Generative AI disclosure: After writing this piece I used generative AI to write a first draft of the “teaser blurb” that went out by email. I also used generative AI to create the image associated with the piece. Want to know more? Send me an email and we can chat!