Effective teacher

What makes and effective teacher? This is a common question in the teaching profession, and numerous scholarly works have been produced to ask the same.

Harry Wong addresses the question in a series of videos that aims at equipping teachers with the necessary knowledge the expectation of professional and effective teaching. The seventh part of the series explores the aspect of a professional educator. What are the characteristics and practices that define a professional educator?

Wong addresses this question by exploring the various characteristics of a professional educator. Wong opens the video by stating that a professional educator is an educator who constantly learns and grows. The definition emphasizes the importance of professional development as one of the single most important aspect of a professional educator.  Every proposal for educational reforms and every plan for school improvement emphasizes the need for high-quality professional development. Our knowledge base in education is increasing rapidly and the knowledge in nearly every subject area and academic discipline. As these knowledge bases expand, new types of expertise are required of educators at all levels. Like  other practitioners, teachers must keep abreast of this emerging knowledge and  be prepared to apply it to refine their teaching skills continually. In addition, teachers  work in a constantly changing environment including the curriculum, school policies and programs, teaching environment and  many other external and internal factors that influencing the teaching practice.  One of the propositions addressed in class is that a teacher should know the subject and how to teach the subject. Mastering the content and selecting the best teaching strategy are greatly influenced by a teacher’s experience and professional development.

Wong states that the key to becoming an effective teacher understands that every student can learn and to persevere in using of new strategies.  Professionalism in teaching is punctuated with constant learning; learning new materials and teaching strategies. Therefore, for one to be an effective and professional educator he or she needs to be receptive to information and knowledge.

Wong emphasizes the importance of maximizing instructional time through various teaching techniques. The list of the techniques provided by Wong is similar to most of the strategies addressed in class.  However, Wong helps one to reflect on some of the instructional activities that seem seemingly unimportant but have a great effect on the outcome of class activities. For example, focusing the attention of the student is one of the trickiest activities especially while dealing with young children and children with learning challenges. Selecting the best attention getter is always a challenge the teacher needs to understand students to be successful.  Wong emphasizes the importance of sharing and encouraging fellow teachers to try new strategies and build a culture of learning and collaborating.

Wong identifies successful schools as those that have frequent school-wide meetings, identify problems together and define solutions together. Inclusivity in managing school is one of the key success factors. School administrators and teachers need to view the school as a community with a common objective and with each member having a definite but complementary role.  Numerous literatures have outlined the importance of including parents and other stakeholders in designing and implementing success school programs. The role of parents in ensuring the academic success and holistic development of a student cannot be overemphasized.  The benefits of school-staff working as a team are beyond doubt.   Wong notes that schools with poor performance have a lot of complains, lateness is common, and meetings are informal.  Although these factors may seem small, it is clear that they affect the performance of schools significantly. For example, lateness is a common complaint in most public schools.  Lack of motivation, reluctant, poor management of workforce and unfavorable working environment can discourage teachers and reduce their enthusiasm to attend classes.

Staff development, consistency and culture are identified as vital elements of success school programs.  As stated earlier, professional development is vital in ensuring teachers have up-to-date teaching strategies, and they master the ever evolving knowledge. Through professional development, teachers can acquire evidence-based practices that improve their effectiveness in achieving results.  Wong encourages new teachers to commit on consistent professional development by taking control of their future teaching professional. He defines teachers who stagnate in their professions as “processionary caterpillars.” Some of the harmful habits among teachers include being unreceptive to information and ignoring chances to learn. These attitudes hurt the professional development of a teacher leading to ineffective teaching.

Leadership is an integral element of a professional educator. Wong states that one is either a leader or a worker.  He holds that leaders focus on enhancement and cooperation while workers concentrate on time and money. He notes that a leader has a career, but a worker has a job. This distinction is interesting and unique. It gives a new insight and a paradigm shift on how one views teaching. The point that workers concentrate on money and time, and they do not have a career they only have job is critical. Therefore, for one to adapt teaching as a career, one has to commit to enhancing not only his or her abilities, but to promote cooperation between professionals and students. However, a common practice is that most of us are focused on time and reimbursement.  These factors are important in the life of every employee and in most instances they are determinate factors on choosing a career.  I believe that these factors should  be considered because even a teacher need to manage time effectively.  Reward, whether monetary or otherwise, is a great motivator and should not be ignored in any effort to increase teachers’ productivity. However, it should not be considered as the only factor. Teachers work in a dynamic environment that involves numerous confounding factors that need to be addressed.

A professional educator appreciates learning differences and diversity among children, has a conviction that all children can learn and have realistic expectations on every student. Inclusion of students with learning challenges and the need to meet the unique needs and learning ability of different students require a teacher to be informed of various teaching strategies.

Conclusion

The video was educative and informative. The various topics addressed in the clip relate directly to the concepts we have covered in the classroom. Therefore, the video provided a brief, but effective way to reflect and synthesise materials we have covered in class.  The emphasis on professional development as a key element in becoming a professional educator is essential. In addition, the coverage of various element of an effective teacher prepared us to the future teaching career.

 

References

Sonia B (2013). Managing professional development in schools. Routledge publishers.

Author is associated with MeldaResearch.Com which is a global custom research paper writing service provider. If you would like help in essays, research papers, term papers and dissertations, you can visit MeldaResearch.com

Reviews

[Levi Levin]

Your articles are great! I love research!