Agree. I have taken classes with over 40+ professors (close to 50, but I have also taken two or three classes with some profs) in my undergrad and grad school. Out of them, I can recall ~5 being pretty good instructors. Being a professor does not guarantee one is a good teacher/instructor.
The thing that sets apart good instructors from mediocre ones is the passion they have toward teaching (esp. the good ones seem to have empathy as in they want students to succeed and understand the materials that the instructors themselves probably took a good amount of time digesting when they were in students' shoes).
Can confirm this. I taught for a bit (coding bootcamp, 1 year). I was super excited my first 3 months (it normalized after that) and during the whole year I had a lot of empathy in the sense that I felt their pain. It’s easy to feel someone’s pain when you yourself felt it a great deal as well back then.
I was at my best during those first months. Experience and empathy all help but I could notice how being only slightly enthusiastic was hindering my performance.
The thing that sets apart good instructors from mediocre ones is the passion they have toward teaching (esp. the good ones seem to have empathy as in they want students to succeed and understand the materials that the instructors themselves probably took a good amount of time digesting when they were in students' shoes).