Best Teaching Practices of University Professors

In order to exemplify best teaching practices, in this report we present the results of three studies in which we performed in-depth interviews of 40 outstanding psychology, engineering and medicine professors. They were selected as good professors by their students and colleagues. The objectives were to identify these professors' qualities and ways of teaching and to set out suggestions for teacher training. We did a historical review of the way in which teaching effectiveness has been studied and we cite several studies on good teaching practices carried out in different countries. The results show that the professors interviewed enjoy teaching, seek to develop good interpersonal relationships with their students, master the pedagogical aspects and specific contents of their subjects, teach with clarity, display peculiar manners of pedagogical thinking, are committed, responsible, and carry out actions to facilitate their students' learning by applying different strategies, creating an atmosphere conducive to learning. The professors' teaching goals are achieving student learning and educating students integrally. Based on the results encountered, we suggest modifying the way in which teacher training programs are currently conducted and we also point out some of their implications on teacher evaluation and on the recruitment of new professors. We recognize the limitation of the lack of categories to research this topic in a unified manner, hoping that our results will provide alternatives to improve university teaching.