EFFECTIVE TEACHING

What is teaching ?

IN education, teachers facilitate student learning, often in a school or academy or perhaps in another environment such as outdoors. A teacher who teaches on an individual basis may be described as a tutor.

EFFECTIVE TEACHING MEANS ACADEMIC GROWTH

Checker is right that defining effective teaching is the easy part. Hopefully we can all agree that effective teaching means helping students learn what they’re supposed to learn—a teacher’s most important responsibility. So, student academic growth should be the predominant factor in determining effectiveness (although not the only one).

WHAT IS EFFECTIVE TEACHING                                                                              

Effective teaching involves the ability to apply research finding to classroom practice. Effective teaching also combines human relations skills, judgment, intuition, knowledge of subject matter, and understanding of learning into one unified act, resulting in improved learning for students.

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE TEACHERS 

1.      Fairness Effective teachers know how to be fair and just and try their very best not to have “pets,” or students that are given unfair advantages over other students.

2.      Positive Attitude Good teachers are happy to be teaching. They share their positive attitude by praising and recognizing effort and success in their students. This “positive” influence is contagious.

3.      Preparedness Some teachers still don’t realize, students can tell when the teacher is not prepared and is just trying to “wing it.” Great teachers are always prepared.

4.      Personal Touch Students have fond memories of teachers who connected with them in a personal way. Some teachers do this just by asking students individually, how they are doing. Others intertwine personal stories and experiences with the day’s lesson.

5.      Sense of Humor It is nice when a teacher can effectively deliver one-liners that give everyone a chuckle. It’s a bit trickier to have the quick ability to react with good humor and diffuse difficult situations. This is a truly admirable skill of a great teacher.

6.      Creativity Students will often remember unusual assignments, use of props, decorations or costumes that inspired them to really think “outside the box.” Such is the calling card of the effective teacher. It could also be a saying such as, “A stitch in time saves nine.” (Benjamin Franklin).

7.      Willingness to Admit Mistakes An outstanding teacher will recognize when they have made a mistake and apologize for it. A simple act, yet a rarity among many teachers. It demonstrates the profound power of humility.

8.      Forgiving Students too often think of those teachers that would never give them a second chance. Fortunately, a few students had highly effective teachers who let students know, each day, each student started with a clean slate.

9.      Respect Since teachers expect to receive respect from their students, it only makes sense students expect the same from teachers. For example, Students appreciate teachers who keep grades confidential. They are also grateful when teachers speak privately to them about behavior issues. Teachers practicing this quality rarely have discipline issues.

10.  High Expectations Having high expectations affects the way a teacher teaches and the way the teacher interacts with students. Great teachers express that they believe in their students’ abilities. Such teachers energize and encourage students to reach new heights. They monitor those expectations and never give up on students.

11.  Compassion Effective teachers understand the importance of nurturing students in a safe environment. These are the teachers that notice when children are left out of games or other activities and take action to remedy this. Students remember these teachers.

12.  Sense of Belonging Students feel like “they belong,” in the classroom of a great teacher. This teacher gives the class a feeling of family. They work cooperatively on mutual goals and with mutual caring. This may be the most important one.

Conclusion: Blog postings are great for gathering information and I’m truly hoping this one helped you. But, the best learning is done when one studies independently. With that in mind, my suggestion is: Take these twelve principles, compare them with your own experience as well as what you find in your own study, and come up with your own list. And when you do, don’t you dare forget to share that list with me.

“Teaching is the highest form of understanding.” Aristotle

STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE LESSON PLANNING

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting.  Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:

·         Objectives for student learning

·         Teaching/learning activities

·         Strategies to check student understanding

Specifying concrete objectives for student learning will help you determine the kinds of teaching and learning activities in class.

Learning Objective

Learning objectives focus on student performance. Action verbs that are specific, such as list, describe, report, compare, demonstrate, and analyze, should be used to describe the behaviors students will be expected

·         Instructional Goals and Learning Objectives

·         Course Design Guidelines

·         Resources an

INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS AND LEARNING OBJECTIVES IMPORTANCE OF GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Clearly defined goals and objectives form the foundation for selecting appropriate content, learning activities, and assess­ment measures. If objectives of the course are not clearly understood by both instructor and students, if your learning activities do not relate to the objectives and the content that you think is important, then your methods of assessment, which are supposed to indicate to both learner and instructor how effective the learning and teaching process has been, will be at best misleading, and, at worst, irrelevant, unfair, or useless.            

 Course Design Guidelines

·         Select learning objectives according to clearly determined student needs.

·         Analyze learning objectives to determine course content.

·         Use course objectives to develop learning activities and methods of assessing student performance.

·         Analyze student characteristics to identify those factors that should influence the way these learners are taught. (Chapter 4: Knowing Your Students presents information about various student characteristics.)

·         Select learning activities that will maximize student achievement of course objectives.

·         Use media to support learning activities and their intend­ed outcomes. (Suggestions for using media are presented in Chapters 9 and 10.)

·         Evaluate the effectiveness of your learning activities, media, and teaching performance to identify areas for improvement.

Adapted with permission from Teaching at The Ohio State University: A Handbook, Center for Teaching Excellence

Teaching large group effectively

Teaching large classes is particularly challenging, and newer faculty are likely to be assigned to teach at least a few of them. The resources below can help you keep your students actively engaged and minimize the time you spend grading, effectively and efficiently.

Keeping students engaged in large lecture classes

Large lecture halls impose physical and logistical constraints on what you can do effectively. But there are tried and true techniques to keep students interested:

Interactive Lecture techniques can be used in any size classroom.Interactive lectures are lectures interspersed with brief in-class activities that require students to use the information or concepts presented in the lecture. In Just-in-Time Teaching, students respond electronically to web-based assignments, due a few hours before class. The instructor then briefly reviews student responses to see what to focus on during the class period.

 

MAKING TECHNOLOGY WORK FOR YOU

As technology becomes more complex, it becomes more daunting. But it can also be quite helpful. Here are some examples of time-saving, effort-saving technologies proven to be effective in teaching, especially in assessment.

GETTING GROUPS TO WORK WELL

Many students, particularly high-achievers, resist group work. Yet the ability to work well in a group is an essential skill for most college graduates. In addition, students who learn in collaborative settings both learn and retain 1.5 times as much as students who learn individually

USING SMALL GROUPS AND STUDENT TEAMS

Using Small Groups and Student Teams can be effective in both small- and large-class settings to encourage student participation and critical engagement with course materials. Group assignments can be as simple as a 15-minute in-class activity or as involved as a quarter-long research project.

Successful group assignments are well-structured, have clearly stated goals that are relevant to the course, and incorporate opportunities for students to receive feedback. Students won't necessarily enter your class with the skills needed to engage productively in groups, so providing guidance about students' roles and group dynamics can also increase the effectiveness of group assignments