Blogger 9

 I believe that in order to be an effective teacher you must have a certain set of natural characteristics lets discuss three of them: empathy, patience, and strong communication skills. These may sound like basic skills to some but in reality many struggle with these things, it is important to continuously work and build on those skills.  A teachers empathy level needs to be at a point where he or she has the ability to genuinely understand students feelings, backgrounds, etc in order to build the trust that it takes for a student to learn effectively. Understanding a child's background allows teachers to respond thoughtfully to the student rather than too harshly or not stern enough. Every child is different and have different struggles so it is important for teachers to not only know the child but to understand them and that takes a lot of empathy and sometimes a lot of patience. Patience is another big characteristic needed as students learn in many different ways and at many different paces. It is important that teachers have enough patience to not get frustrated when it feels like their instruction isn't working but to redirect and figure out how the students will learn most effectively. Both empathy and patience include having strong communication skills. When a teacher has strong communication skills in not only models to students how to communicate effectively but it also allows teachers to communicate with the students in a clear, calm, and straightforward way. Having strong communication involves being able to be an active listener as well as this will help your students feel heard leading to them feeling more comfortable. All of these traits run together and there are many more but I feel that these are the base level. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student Diversity

 Student diversity is of course a gift, this being said I can expect that my students will be different from me in ways such as family structure, socioeconomic status, family structure, learning styles, religious beliefs and the list goes on. To better understand my students in order to help each student learn as best as they can I will work on building friendships with them, with the end goal of obtaining respect and trust. My goal is to make my classroom as comfortable and safe as possible, when students walk in they should not be full of dread, feeling a bit nervous for a test in normal but feeling uneasy about going into a classroom every single day in unexceptable. When I speak to my students I will allow for plenty of time for them to reflect and respond, during instruction I hope to build enough respect with my students that they want to listen and do not feel forced or trapped. If needed I could also learn more about specific students through family communication but I woul...
Read more

Blog 3

 In school the two standardized tests that stuck out for me was the SAT and of course the ACT.  I distinctly remember the moment in middle school when I was told that the ACT had everything to do with my college success. My first thought was how is this fair, one test determines rather each of us get equal opportunities to go to college? As I have gotten older I understand why these tests are in place but I do not think it should be such a stressful subject. Each school wants to have the highest combined ACT and SAT scores for the area, I believe that fact should not be shared to the students as it was made obvious to us as students leading us to feel the pressure of not only our future academic success but also the pressure of disappointing the school leaders proud (like the principle). In my personal experience it felt like the reason test prep was pushed so heavily was because our school just wanted to "win". I do think the ACT is somewhat necessary considering it is our o...
Read more

Blogger 10

 One of the most challenging things I have had to face head on is developing confidence, while I know teaching is my passion I believe that makes it that much scarier. Standing in front of a classroom and making decisions that impact students sounds intimidating and although I am not there yet I am already working on plan after plan as I know that I cannot just have one plan and hope everyone goes with it. I as the teacher must be flexible with my methods and vigilant enough to know when one is not working. I have had to learn that it is close to impossible to automatically get it right. For others who may be struggling with the same thing I would suggest not putting so much pressure on yourself as long as your heart is in the right place and you strive for student success it will all work out. While I of course still struggle with confidence levels I know that once I get through school everything will fall into place as it should for I trust that I truly do have good intentions. C...
Read more