Effective teaching and learning

I've started my pre-course reading. The first topic I'm tackling is "Effective teaching and learning," which apparently:

• Equips learners for life in its broadest sense
• Engages with valued forms of knowledge
• Recognises the importance of prior experience and learning
• Requires the teacher to scaffold learning
• Needs assessment to be congruent with learning
• Promotes the active engagement of the learner
• Fosters both individual and social processes and outcomes
• Depends on teacher learning
• Recognises the significance of informal learning
• Demands consistent policy frameworks with support for teaching and learning as their primary focus

The article then goes on to break all ten of those points down in wordy paragraphs. Good points, to be sure, but a little too analytical for me. Despite being a bit of a nerd about the topic, it was enough to make my head want to explode. Effective teaching and learning, for me, is relevant and engaging. That's it.

What knowledge/skills/attributes do I want my students to gain or develop? What relevant knowledge/skills/attributes do they already possess? What's the most effective way of bridging the gap between point B and point A?

Relevant: This word has a couple of meanings in this context. The material being learned should build on something they already know and it should be of some use or interest to them. Ideally, this use or interest should be made apparent.

Engaging: I don't necessarily mean this in the sense of "OMG every lesson must be FUN!" I do believe in having fun with learning whenever possible, but fun is a tool that can be misused and abused and sometimes misses the point. When I say engaging, I mean that students should engage with the material. They should use it, manipulate it, apply it, question it, and test it. This makes the learning stick, it makes it useful to them in a variety of contexts, and it also develops their ability to think and to learn. 

The rest of that stuff about valued forms of knowledge and congruent assessment et al. seems kind of implied, but perhaps I'm taking it for granted. What do you think? What does effective teaching and learning involve from your point of view?