The best thing that happened to me as an undergraduate happened on the sidewalk outside a classroom building at Harvard in my freshman year. The instructor in the class I was taking was disgusted by the illogic of what I had been saying. I didn't feel vindicated, but I didn't feel patronized, either. But good teachers seem to agree on 10 points, Davis and Tollefson write. The teacher's main task is to guide students through the learning process, not to dispense information.
Good teachers love their subject matter.
Good research and good teaching go hand in hand. Students' engagement with the subject is enhanced by knowing about the teacher's own research, and the interaction with students often provides a new insights into the research. The best teachers genuinely respect students and their intellectual capabilities. Good teachers are rarely satisfied with their teaching. They constantly evaluate and modify what they do.