How Can You Become A Better Teacher?

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Being a teacher comes with perks worth considering. You become a role model to your students as you inspire and support them. You also work with various kids with different backgrounds and identities, so you can be assured that you wouldn’t have a boring day!

Moreover, you also learn new things even as you teach and encourage your students to learn. Teaching is a valued career worldwide with a stable salary, holidays, and other benefits. A 2019 research indicated that there would be approximately 3.2 million full-time teachers in the US by 2022.

However, it’s important to upgrade your skills if you desire to become an effective teacher. So, how can you achieve this? Here are some techniques you can utilize for the best results.

Understand your students

It’s relatively common for teachers to go with a particular teaching style for their students. However, understanding your students may prove beneficial in building your skills.

Moreover, it will be easier to grab their attention and increase their engagement levels. Likewise, you can customize your teaching style to suit their needs, leading to more effective learning and good academic performance. Admittedly, their names, ages, family backgrounds, etc., come to mind when getting to know them. However, it goes beyond these. You’ll find it helpful to determine their learning strength.

Psychologists indicate that people usually thrive in three intellect types: creative, analytical, and practical intelligence. Knowing where your students fall can help you tailor your teaching methods to suit their needs. Having one-on-one conversations can help them open up to you about their needs and struggles, vital information that can build your teaching skills.

Don’t stop learning

With the world evolving fast, it’s not unusual that certain valuable information in previous years will not apply today. Therefore, staying relevant as a teacher requires learning and applying new things while developing your organization and planning skills.

Aside from this, you can devise innovative ways to impart knowledge and achieve better student outcomes. What’s more, students are more encouraged to learn continuously if their teacher does the same. Therefore, you want to keep learning if you haven’t already.

Fortunately, you can research several resources to keep you abreast with the latest trends. For instance, organizations like Space Foundation CI&E offer lesson programs and training programs in STEM, so you leverage opportunities if you teach these subjects. You can also attend teacher training workshops and seminars to add to your knowledge, so keep this in mind.

Seek feedback from your students

Admittedly, you may be putting your best efforts into educating your students. However, getting feedback from your students can help you determine if your efforts are effective or not.

Moreover, it’s a great way to determine what your students prefer and tailor your efforts to increase their engagement levels. Likewise, seeking their opinions can make it easier to interact with you, encouraging them to adopt positive behaviors in the classroom.

Also, you can quickly detect bullying cases in your class as your students feel more comfortable opening up about their struggles. Seeing that various schools implement student evaluation and other assessment techniques to determine a teacher’s tenure, you’ll find it helpful to ask your class beforehand to ascertain what to improve upon.

Fortunately, you can get the needed information with the right steps. Begin by explaining the concept of feedback  to your students, including its importance and benefits. While it’s not uncommon for some students to feel nervous about giving their opinions, utilizing anonymous responses can encourage them. Consequently, ask short and specific questions and thank your students for offering their views.

Interact and collaborate with other teachers

Many professions encourage teamwork, and teaching is no exception. Indeed, collaborating with other teachers can help you brainstorm innovative teaching ideas. What’s more, you can acquire helpful knowledge and skills from your colleagues to improve your practice.

Additionally, teachers who work together can help each other plan lessons and gather materials, increasing efficiency and time management. Your students also benefit from accessing more improved learning strategies to boost their academic performance.

Therefore, you want to consider teacher collaboration if you haven’t already. Build a sense of community by relating with your colleagues personally to get started. This way, you can develop more trust and respect, making collaboration easier.

You’ll also find it helpful to agree on a shared vision and mutual goals to give each teacher a sense of ownership.

Admittedly, conflict is inevitable among a group of people, including your team. However, setting measures to address these situations will ensure that you can get back on track quickly, so keep this in mind—consequently, delegate tasks based on individual strengths and leverage technology to foster quick and effective communication.

Teacher collaboration isn’t limited to the intellectual aspect alone. Since teaching can be exhausting, offering emotional support to your team can be part of your objectives.

Learn to discipline your class

Irrespective of how impressive your teaching style and plan are, instilling discipline is still an important factor in being a better teacher. Indeed, discipline helps your students to stay focused on their academic goals while improving their performance.

It can reduce their risks of being influenced by negative peer pressure, creating a safe learning environment. You can achieve discipline by explaining what behaviors are acceptable and vice versa. If you’re struggling with difficult students, you’ll find it helpful to place them in strategic classroom seats that prevent them from misbehaving. You can also talk to them privately to ascertain why they behave in a certain manner.

This way, you can come up with solutions to neutralize the behavior. Experts advise that you focus on rewarding good behavior instead of punishing bad behavior. This encourages your students to make efforts to be on their best behavior. By all means, avoid using sarcastic, petty, or abusive comments as this can dishearten them or cause them to rebel.

Being a teacher can be exciting and rewarding, and building yourself can make it even better. Hopefully, you’ll utilize these helpful ways to achieve the best results.

*This article is based on personal suggestions and/or experiences and is for informational purposes only. This should not be used as professional advice. Please consult a professional where applicable.