The knowledge, skills and expertise of an educator is vital to successfully leading a classroom down the road to excellence. Without such competent teachers, students will most likely receive an inferior education.
A good teacher will possess passion and personality in addition to academic intelligence, strategies and best practices. The goal of the teacher is to ultimately prepare the student for becoming successful in society, including taking leadership responsibility for a community.
The most important skills resulting in successful teaching includes:
Energy
In today’s classroom teachers must have lots of energy for attention-hungry students. Multiple hats must be worn in the classroom. Teachers must be first educators, disciplinarians, counselors, fathers and mothers. An unwillingness to do these things may lead to burnout.
Creativity
Old classroom strategies must be discarded to keep up with the changing demands of the current educational scene. The day of silent classroom where students sit still throughout instructional deliveries are becoming more abnormal.
A teacher must be creative enough to get the students involved in the lesson plan. Allow your students to lead, teach and read at times.
Knowledge & skills
Competence and expertise in subject matter must be a priority if you are going to provide students with accurate knowledge and information. When teachers present lessons with competence and passion students wake and listen with excitement and interest.
Grand ideas
Great teachers make their classroom standout by implementing grand classroom ideas. In other words, if you want your classroom to become a model for the whole school, you must be bold enough to come up with an idea that other educators can follow.
Teachers who achieve teacher of the year awards stand out. Students brag about them and always delight in going to class.
Sense of urgency
Developing a sense of urgency regarding students’ academic achievement will go a long way in motivating them to take school seriously. Get them to understand that their performance in your classroom will determine their success at the next level.
Allow them to understand that every idea become more complex at each grade level. Therefore, developing a foundation to build upon is vital to their future understanding.
Measuring the level of interest
Effective teaching demands that educators know how to measure the interest level in his or her classroom. For instance, if you are presenting a lesson in which students appear to lack interest, then you may have to change course and try something else.
Attempting to teach a lesson which bores students will result in very litter learning and understanding. You must be willing to drop your approach and adopt another method. Try adding music, or some other fun idea.
Determination
Effective teachers are determined to give each student the best possible education. Such teachers possess great optimism for the most rebellious student. Giving up a student is not an option. From the beginning of the school year to the end, teachers of excellence keep the faith that a student can eventually be transformed.
Going Beyond Mediocre Classroom
Attempting to teach without possessing the above competencies will result in mediocre classrooms across America. Districts and administrators must train and give teachers the freedom to provide students the most interesting and fascinated educational experience possible.
Maximizing your teaching means that you have the knowledge, skills, expertise, passion and personality that it takes to lead student down the road to excellence. As educators, our job is vitally important, perhaps the most celebrated job in the world of work, at least to us and to those who know that the nation’s progress depends on the superior education of the American classroom.
