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Abstract: The main purpose of the present study was to gain insights into effective teaching in higher education as a phenomenon. Using professional experiences of university faculty, we wanted to develop a conceptual framework in order to enhance the pedagogical and theoretical foundations of teaching.using phenomenography, which is one of the qualitative strategies we interviewed 12 Faculty from University of Kurdistan. Participants were selected using typical sampling until we research theoretical saturation while conducting deep and semi-structured interview.  Using inductive procedure, we coded the data in three steps of open, axial, and pattern coding. The finding showed that effective teaching had four main dimensions according to participating faculty: (1) Communicative skills, (2) learner and instructor characteristics, (3) pedagogical skills, and (4) background factors. Comparing the existing literature, we argue that learner characteristics and background factors are new ideas in effective teaching.