sitivity, decisiveness, spontaneity, commitment, and fl exibility13, or “core qualities”
and “effective personal behavior” to be developed in high-quality teachers
through the refl ection process.14
An interesting twist on the defi nition of teacher quality representing a perspective
that bridges the concepts of competence, personal qualities, and practice
comes from the Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg and his colleague Joseph Horvath.
They argue for making a distinction between expert and experienced teachers
through the psychological understanding of how experts differ from non-experts.
They invoke the work of Eleanor Rosch on prototypes to defi ne the prototypical
category of “expert.”15 They identify three domains in which expert teachers differ
from non-experts: knowledge (experts “bring knowledge to bear more effectively”
within their areas of expertise); effi ciency (experts do more in less time within
their areas of expertise); and insight (experts “are more likely to arrive at novel and
appropriate solutions” within their areas of expertise).16 Their approach is a way
of thinking about teacher quality that allows for numerous prototypes, and so for
different ways of being a high-quality teacher. In their own words, they claim: