The 30 or more major educational reform reports that have appeared since "A Nation at Risk" are in solid agreement that public education falls short of excellence. While suggestions for reform in elementary/secondary education have focused on teaching, in colleges and universities the emphasis has been more on curriculum than instruction. However, achieving excellence in postsecondary education requires an understanding of what teachers can do to cause learning. Major findings from research on teacher effectiveness can be distilled into three conclusions: (1) when students are actively involved in the learning task they learn more than when they are passive recipients of instruction; (2) students generally learn what they practice; therefore, time engaged in learning should be related to desired instructional outcomes; and (3) if teachers set high but attainable goals, academic performance usually rises to meet expectations. Though years of research confirm that these factors are significant to student learning, researchers consistently find that such common sense practices do not exist in college classrooms. Many educators feel that assessment is the route to attaining quality in undergraduate education; however, in most states the necessary links between assessment and instruction have yet to be forged. Several methods for improving these links have been proposed, including classroom research, whereby teachers evaluate the effectiveness of their own teaching; the use of a Teaching Goals Inventory to help teachers determine whether their instructional practices are accomplishing their instructional goals; and the development of various feedback devices to be used throughout the term to determine whether students are learning what instructors are trying to teach. (LAL)