from Terry Haik
This post has been updated by a version published in 2013.
Good teaching is a major endeavor.
Don’t be fooled – training has never been easy. But as we come to 2014, as a profession Teaching is increasingly characterized by its abilityAccountability and a permanent mutation. Which makes a challenge at all, a lot does it It
The answer to these challenges is a mix of professional development at the level of construction, Self -assembled improvement of teachersand an alarming amount of burning teachers. So how can you learn more intelligently, not just move more strongly?
What are the “secrets of teaching” that lead to growth?
7 Teaching secrets for long -term growth
1. Put the big rocks first
This is not a matter of simply “prioritization”, but rather aggressive and strategic priority.
As a teacher, my main survival strategy was to prioritize. And the highest of these priorities? A deep understanding of power standards. This is precisely the point for me in the light of the academic expectations of the school and the reality of the students sitting in front of me. It may be different for you and this is good, but whatever your priorities are, choose them carefully – the things that will endure and that can be used to make other things possible. (More about that in another publication.)
It may not make sense to suggest focusing on certain things, because it means that you are neglecting others. And to some extent this is true. You can’t do everything and if you can only do certain things, better start with the most important thing.
My father told me that if you fill a cliff jar to get everything, you must first put the big rocks.
2. Get the technology to work for you
The use of technology for automation of training has received poor rap for good reason. This is the path of lazy, unimaginable and ineffective. But if you have to take a test for numerous choices, why not Self -tested test Using Google Drive forms?
You absolutely, you cannot positively replace an iPad teacher. Using Whiz-Bang Technology to automate poor teaching is the formula for terrible. But you can Use the technology to automate these parts of the teaching and training process that worsen you and the students of the important.
Get the technology to work for you. It’s not easy and it’s not always worth the effort, but it’s always worth a look.
3. Know yourself
Know yourself – your sweet place as a teacher, a learning facilitator, a colleague, a teacher leader. Guess your good side, your weak spots and the needs of the people around you.
Do what you can to support the busy machine, such as most public learning institutions. But be honest with yourself. Know what you are doing well and when you are inclined to be medium or worse. Know what you tend to forget, where your best sources of ideas are and what helps you see the big picture when it blows every day.
4. Learn at the moment
Take Zen approach to your teaching. As much as the last class may be, the fact that the estimates or the unplanned guide is due, which missed the best part of your lesson and caught the only 90 seconds you have not set fire to the classroom with wisdom, teach at the moment without regret the past or worry about the future.
Do not allow the pile of request that you need to evaluate or the 90-minute employee meeting after the school stifles your joy at interacting with your children in front of you. It’s easier to say than to make it, but the most secure first step is to stop at the moment. Right here, right now everything is possible. The greater part of the friction you experience are illusions in your own head – products of life in the past or are trying to lean forward into the future.
5. Defender for yourself
Especially in terms of time. Protecting the planning period by turning off your door is not a “back teaching”, it is a survival strategy. Just because your doors are closed for 25 minutes does not mean that they are metaphorically closed. There is a difference.
Asked to join too many committees or other projects that distract you from your priorities as a teacher? This one is difficult because there is a thin line between overlapping for yourself and the transfer of your moral and professional responsibility to help the school. Try first to refuse respect and offer other ways you can help. Offer alternatives to save time. Or join a slightly reduced role, but rotate it where it sounds that you are all.
When you are asked to do something that looks essential beyond your sweet place or just comes in a bad time for you, try to understand the big idea of asking as much as the details of the request itself. This way you can better support the school, not just do what you have been told in a dizzying tornado of your daily assignment.
6. Find new measures of success
This one is simple. This is not your classroom. These are not your standards. These estimates are not for you. Your name is not in the school.
The increase or decline in their reading levels or the movement of all tall apprentices to specialists or apprentice skills – even the student who tearfully and in great detail explains that you are alpha and omega of their educational experience and they come to school for your class – are not your failures or successes.
If you want to work smarter and not harder as we move to classrooms that focus on literacy, critical thinking, self-hassle and innovation, we as teachers need to find new internal measures-and our own success. This does not shrink from accountability, but the restoration of logic and rational thinking of the industry, seemingly bent down to produce its own death.
7. Open your doors in the classroom
When things become difficult, depending on your type of personality, you may be tempted to make More in a Here, let me do it, get closer. AIt is this kind of thinking that creates us in difficulty as teachers. You need help. Admit it. Call it. Stand on the roof of the school. This is not a sign of a weak teacher, but of an honest and strong teacher.
And not only helps to do better tests, but also asking questions, developing new thinking habits, growth such as learners, and reasoning wisdom instead of whims.
Reach teachers within and outside your building. If you do not think you need help, you already suffer from some rather significant blind spots-probably the products of self-defense mechanisms to keep you healthy.
Try on -site education in authentic and local communities. Consider training based training that connects your students to a peer network or even niche experts themselves. And these doors in the classroom do not just allow the traffic to allow students to move in pursuit of mobile learning experiences that diverge them once and for all from your well-intentioned walls in the classroom.
