In other words, what was the emotional environment of the classroom like? As you can imagine, effective teachers were perceived as caring, warm, and friendly. This was the most important characteristic of a good teacher! Other experts, such as Patricia Miller argued that having space for humor is also important in the classroom. In addition, having a generally positive attitude and good mental health are other important characteristics of good teachers.
Finally, Miller explains that teachers must be available to their students. Strong Teacher Skills Teacher skills refer to how well the teacher organizes class time and how learning happens in the classroom. According to Walls, et al. Another characteristic of a good teacher is that they use creative ways of learning that involve students. Strong Teacher Knowledge Teachers must have a strong grasp of the subject matter in order to teach it well.
That way, they can answer questions as they come up, offer clear explanations, and adapt to students. As they say, the best way to see if you know something is to try to teach it. If you can teach it easily, then you know the subject matter.
This may be the difference in the perspective of a learner, or the person who is receiving the services of teaching, versus the perspective of the teacher. You have to meet every single one of your students at their individual starting points, and move all of them as far along their own learning trajectories as you possibly can. Although many teachers I know would agree that meeting each student where they are and moving them along individually would be ideal, many public school teachers find this to be very far from reality.
A good teacher is one who is able to explain and demonstrate concepts in a variety of ways for a variety of different learners and learning styles. A good teacher is a good learner—they learn how their student s learn—and modify their teaching accordingly. As a teacher, I do my best to help my struggling students and arrange for one-on-one time with them, but it is challenging as there is limited time during the school day for this kind of individualized instruction.
I wonder how we can expect teachers, who may have 30—40 students in each class and a total of — students on their rosters to be able to give individual, personalized support to each student, even if we recognize that such support is the best for the learners?
With all of the demands on teachers these days particularly those of us who work in public schools , how can we better support teachers to be able to truly support all of their students? All groups mentioned engaging students in learning. Most respondents focused on engaging students in content, but current teachers also mentioned engaging students in thinking 6 , application of knowledge 6 , and skills for learning 6 almost equally with engaging students in content 8.
Non-teachers did not mention engaging students in thinking at all and were most focused on engaging students with content. Are these aspects of student engagement actually distinct, and does any one aspect have priority over the others? Although many responses focused on content, it seems that teachers would not say that engaging students in content is the most important thing.
Many teachers I know see their content area as a vehicle for teaching critical thinking, applying knowledge, and other skills for learning that students may use regardless of what they end up doing in life. Good teaching gets students to think and to do more than they thought they could. Although current teachers were the only ones to specifically mention pedagogy, all groups mentioned specific aspects of the classroom that could be linked to pedagogy. Some teachers mentioned specific practices e.
Other educational professionals and current teachers also mentioned understanding student thinking, and current teachers also discussed challenging students. A fun and interactive classroom may be what students remember best about a good teacher. One non-teacher responded by recalling their favorite teacher:. The best teacher I ever had was passionate about the subject she taught sociology and it showed.
The students were always actively involved in the discussions. She loved teaching, and it made the students love learning. Learning is how people make sense of their world, and it comes naturally to little children as they explore, investigate, and build. Teachers understand that an engaging classroom is not engaging for the sake of being engaging, but that engagement should lead to further sense-making. To go from engagement to sense-making, the engaging, interactive, and exploratory activities need to be tied to generating knowledge and understanding what is happening and why particularly in a science classroom.
These instructional decisions come from pedagogical theories that go back to the beginning of the 20th century with John Dewey Current educational research also backs up the idea that a learning cycle where students engage with and explore and apply content leads to successful learning.
The BSCS 5E instructional cycle that is used in designing many science lessons follows student engagement and exploration with explanations and an elaboration phase to lead to successful learning Bybee et al. Tying together content knowledge and pedagogy are dispositions toward teaching as a practice. Content knowledge alone and pedagogy alone are not enough to be a good teacher because teaching is not a stagnant profession and every year is different.
We also know that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find them and keep them. Twenty percent of new teachers leave the classroom after four years, and many teachers will be retiring in the next 15 to 20 years. Among the recommendations were the following key points:.
Implementing these recommendations, however, is a slow process, dependent upon legislation as well as increased funding from both the federal and state governments, and a will to implement changes at the school district level.
Parents can work together to keep the superintendent, their school board members and their state legislators focused on the goal of having a high-quality teacher in every classroom. Give Kids Good Schools This Internet-based campaign, a project of the Public Education Network, makes it easy for parents and community members to lobby government officials to take action to improve the quality of teachers.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards This organization provides information on voluntary advanced national certification for teachers. Learn more about the program and how you can encourage teachers in your school to obtain National Board Certification. McEwan, Elaine K. Cooperman, Saul, How Schools Really Work , Catfeet Press, Written by a former superintendent, this helpful book provides easy-to-follow steps for evaluating and improving schools.
Bennett, William J. Intrator, Sam M. Full of passionate stories, the essays reveal why teachers teach and the challenges they face.
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A parent's guide to saving for college at every stage. They have an appreciation of how learning typically proceeds in a subject and of the kinds of misunderstandings learners commonly develop. Teachers know their students well: their individual interests, backgrounds, motivations and learning styles.
Schools should insist on the mastery of foundational skills, such as reading and numeracy, and also work to encourage high levels of critical thinking, creativity, problem solving and teamwork. They encourage students to accept responsibility for their own learning and teach them how to continue learning throughout life. To effectively teach all students, the teacher must understand this. The teaching and interactions with students must reflect the needs of each, with the understanding of each as an individual.
The stereotype of teaching is of someone standing up in front of a class talking. Unfortunately, because of that image, teaching is too often misinterpreted as being about the simple delivery of information. So when politicians feel the urge to fix education, they typically focus on the information delivered to students. A typical refrain is that our education rankings would be better if we fixed the curriculum and delivered the right information.
One way of teaching does not sit comfortably with theories of learning such as multiple intelligences and all that we know about the range of learning styles in every classroom.
It is clear that educational practices must go beyond simplistic views of telling as teaching and listening as learning if we are to genuinely pursue quality in schooling.
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