An activity, developed to assist preservice teachers to clarify their understanding of teacher effectiveness and the role of a teacher training program, uses a list, given to each student, of words that may be used to describe an effective teacher: fair, honest, friendly, knowledgeable, organized, prepared, articulate, creative, well-groomed, intelligent, sympathetic, empathetic, authoritarian, business-like, professional, up-to-date, enthusiastic, interesting, affectionate, and dependable. Students arrange the characteristics in descending order from most to least important and then divide the characteristics into two groups. In one, characteristics that may result from teacher training are placed; in the other, those that result from normal maturation-socialization processes. A re-grouping based on the top five descriptors from each group follows, forming the final selection of characteristics considered most important. Students analyze their rankings of teacher characteristics in the light of how teachers acquire desirable qualifications and which are the result of teacher training. Further discussion may be held on the relationships between a characteristic description and a performance description of an effective teacher, and how teacher training may help develop skills and knowledge which cause such characteristics to be evident to students, parents, and other educators. (JD)