THE TASK OF AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER | What you should know

The Task Of An Effective Teacher | Qualities of an Effective teacher, How to know an Effective teacher & What you should know about an Effective teacher.

The Task Of An Effective Teacher – Who is a Teacher?

Teachers are the single, most important ingredient in any educational program. Being certain, prospectus, classrooms and apparatus/equipmnt are important factors. But ultimately it is the teacher who opens the door to high-quality instruction. Too often, teachers are recruited on the basis of their availability, personality or out of classroom behaviour e.g car mechanic or doctor are not chosen based out-going personality or attractive personality.

Effective teachers are determined from their fewer effective peers chiefly by what they do in the teaching space. These are all positive characteristics, but they may have less or nothing to take part with what the teacher truly does in the teaching space. None of us would select a surgeon simply because he has warm personality or wears fashionable clothes. We would want some assurance that he or she is competent in the operating room.

THOSE THINGS THAT EFFECTIVE TEACHERS DO IN THEIR CLASSES

The explorable details of an effective teacher is listed below for your consumption, showing its qualities and strength.

1. FOSTERING ACTIVE LEARNING

Our assumption that learners must be actively involved in their education shape our entire approach to teaching… when we speak of active learning, we do not mean outward activity. Students may be actively learning in a lecture class, where they never say a word. These same students may be busy talking in a discussion-oriented class, yet be so minimally challenged that despite all the talk and discussion, they become passive. Active learning defines edifying experiences that gets students involved and prompt them to battle with information, test its validity, find means of using what is taught and relate or familiarize with it to previously learned materials. The biggest, single mistake made by educators (teachers) who wish to promote active learning is to confuse it with mere activity.

What, then, constitutes active learning? Active learning happens when teachers achieve the classroom. Conditions that we outline in this teaching. Although cannot learn for students, they can promote the conditions under which learning flourish.

2. MOTIVATING STUDENTS

Motivation in learning is based on a very simple educational axiom: unless people (students) are excited to learn something, their learning will be superficial and short-lived. Because of the power of motivation to transform the ordinary students into a stellar (heavenly, exceptional) achiever, it has an almost magical quality. Of-course, teachers cannot reach inside students and flip a switch that turns on an energizing source of motivation. Still, effective teachers take measures that inspire students to learn. Teachers can inspire/motivate students/scholars by showing that goals are achievable. Teachers can also inspire students through affirmation. It is a fairytale that teachers who carry a big club inspire students, while encouraging and positive teachers produce laggard/sluggards. Educational research shows that the teachers who do a good work of motivation also convey the impression that the believe what they are teaching is momentous importance. They communicate this importance non-verbally by preparing well and by showing excitement for the material. Teachers can interconnect their love for the subject by letting students have the knowledge on how much they appreciate it or how it gives meaning to their lives. That is why there is a bit of the sales assistant in decent teachers. They take time to set and market their material and sell their students on the benefits of what they are educating.

In short, if you want to motivate your students, show them that the material is meaningful.

Teachers can never take false credit when their students excel, nor should they leap all the blame on themselves when their students fail to master the material. Teachers must teach effectively and, in the process, foster effective learning, but they have neither the responsibility nor the means to take over the personalities of students and make them learn. Unlike indoctrination or brainwashing, education requires the students to comprehend, accept and act on what is taught.

All that teachers can do, is help students learn. Teachers can never do for students what they are unwilling to do for themselves.

3. CLARITY OF COMMUNICATION

Unclear communication patterns require the student to expand considerable sum of energy simply to receive and decode what is being said. Learners may have to concentrate so much in following what is being said, that they will have little opportunity to reflect in what they hear.

One of the rules of clarity is simplicity. Teachers who know less about a subject often communicate more clearly than those who know more. We are not advocating meager knowledge of a subject, but rather a crucial role of teaching:

Be willing to Streamline (Leave some material out) for the sake of clarity.

“Knowing material well is quit different from being able to present it clearly. However, knowledge is far more than the accumulation of isolated facts and figures. It involves a deeper understanding, an ability to “walk” around facts and see them from different angles”. – Joseph Lowman, Mastering the Techniques of Teaching, 1994.

Effective teachers have learned to travel slowly. They know that they often teach more by teaching less. Good teachers know what is important and make the important ideas clear to their students. They are also willing to exploit the “teachable moments” that arise in a class. And of-course, they are eager to pause and explain material to students.

4. CHALLENGING STUDENTS

Good teachers said its real secret was asking questions that stimulated the class to think. He teased them into thought. He made them elevate and think about the consequences of what they were learning. The teacher played a valuable role in the lives of his/her students by challenging them to think constructively. Some teaches make their impacts on students by their support and encouragement, but the challenging and controversial teachers are some of the best at fostering active learning.

5. MAKING THE CLASS MINUTE COUNT

One of the popular research finding of the 1970s was dubbed “Time on Task”. This research found that students learning was significantly related to the amount of time they spent engaging in learning a subject. This research findings delivered a clear message: Students learn what the spend time on.

6. FOCUSING ON THE BIG IDEA

The biggest failure in teaching is lack of focus. Always avoid distraction during teaching moment. In order to be unified, the teacher must know what they subject is about and focus on it. The teacher must master the subject through practice. It consist of writing down a statement of topic and theme for every subject that one teaches and then focus the entire lesson around that “Big Idea”. The topic is what the passage is communicating. The theme is what the passage is communicating about the subject.

Perhaps, the most elementary part that can be told about humane memory, after a century of rigorous research, is that unless a part/detail is placed into a organized pattern, it is rapidly forgotten. Detailed material is conserved in memory by the use of simplified ways of representing of it.

The teacher must make sure or insure that the lesson will have a single focus that the class will have a “box” into which to put the individual points that are made during the class meeting.

7. MAKING THE TEACHING PERSONAL

The trans-formal goal of teaching requires an atmosphere remitted by love, acceptance, vulnerability and genuine caring. We have a habit of to teaching the way we were taught. Since our school experiences seldom contained the type of support and personal involvement in the part of the teacher that we are talking here, we tend to take few steps to encourage it.

If teachers see their part as simply stating out the information, then of course, taking time to build a supportive class atmosphere will seem extraneous to the task at hand. But how the subject is taught is important as what is taught.

The personal touch in teaching is something that can be fostered. A teacher need not be an extrovert to be a caring teacher. High powered performances are not a requirement and can in fact, create impersonal atmosphere. We remember one liable teacher who was “All facts” in the classroom, but who displayed a remarkable sensitivity to others in informal settings. An effective teacher must bring his or her interpersonal skills into the classroom.

8. BUILDING A CONSTRUCTIVE CLASS ATMOSPHERE

Good teaching method and solid lesson do not guarantee good learning. Effective learning also requires a class atmosphere that is conducive to the interest and personal growth of students. We might call this a constructive class atmosphere or a growth-producing climate. A good starting point is to ask, “What and who does not contribute to a constructive climate?” Teachers must be encouraged not to fix too much blame on factors outside their control, meeting room, class size or group members.

While these are important, teachers need to focus on what they can do, not on what could possibly be. The key figure in establishing an open and supportive classroom atmosphere is the teacher. Teachers must be willing to be transparent. We have no interest in vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake. Our self-disclosure must be purposeful and appropriate. The teacher who expects openness on the part of a class but remains a closed book will rightly be perceived as manipulative.

Humors works well at relaxing a class and preparing a way for openness and support. The teacher’s readiness to laugh at himself or herself conveys a welcome humanity. Teachers should seek to identify with the class and be open enough to allow the class to identify with them.

Teachers who are best at generating a optimistic classroom atmosphere know how to involve class members. If teachers can foster a sense of class “ownership” students will rise to the occasion. The teacher needs to be encouraged to take an active role in shaping its direction and spirit.

9. DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN MAJOR AND MINOR ISSUES

Effective teachers know what is important in a subject. They stress what is important and cover enough ground to help students see the main thrust of a lesson. They also know how to provide clear pathways through a subject and avoid an excess of details. Some teachers are notorious for trying to teach all the know in the first few weeks. They are usually overprepared for a lesson, which is not a bad strategy. But inexperience teachers fail to arrange the materials into category of primary and secondary importance.

They begin at the beginning of their material and when the bell rings, the find that they have spent most of their time on background or “approach” material instead of the central point. Pacing is also important. Students learn better if the do not rush. One of the commonest failings of teachers is trying to cover too much testimony in a given lesson. Teachers typically find it painful to omit good material from a lesson, but the important principle to follow is that less can be more and more can be less, when it comes to meaningful learning.

Good teachers cover essential material first and leave the secondary material for last. You need to do such planning before class time. Experienced teachers step into a classroom knowing what they will do and what they will omit if time starts to run short.

Good teachers have learned to teach what is important and not just what they like. They have the ability to set aside pet subjects and interesting insights in favour of that which will really help students. There is need for a teacher to put main concepts of a lesson in written form (visual). These of course takes time, both in preparation and class time, but they pay big dividends.