My first student teaching placement is in a 4th grade classroom at a close to idyllic grade school. The students come from many different places, most are at grade level in math and reading, the parents are greatly involved in their children’s schooling, the community supports the school and the staff is strong and active. My classroom is made up of 17 boys and 10 girls-it gets truly wild sometimes. I am working towards my masters in education through the Weekend College program. I will be licensed for elementary education with a middle school social studies specialty. My experiences thus far in my own 4th grade classroom have helped me to realize that 4th, 5th, or 6th grade, with my own classroom, might be perfect for me. We will see.
I can use five words to describe what an effective teacher is. They are: sensitive, humorous, organized, level-headed and resilient. An effective teacher will live out all of these traits during every day of teaching. These traits are also necessary for an effective teacher to keep going and stay strong and focused on educating and empowering students.
An effective teacher is sensitive to student feelings. This sensitivity involves being discrete when having personal conversations with the student—whether they are positive or negative, being aware of non-verbal signals from your students about frustrations or woes and being cognizant of the types of reactions you have to student responses or questions. An effective teacher is also sensitive to the needs of colleagues and parents, but only to a point that can be maintained—your students should always be your biggest focus.
An effective teacher is humorous. Having a sense of humor in the classroom lightens the mood when it needs lightening, helps you to establish connections with your students and can help you to refocus on your day if it has taken a sour turn. Laughter and giggles might not always be appropriate in your classroom, but they are necessary to keep the classroom climate positive.
Organization is an effective teacher’s strongest asset. Not only is organization necessary to keep your lessons, your day, your classroom and your students on track, but part of your responsibilities as a teacher are to be organized for other people. Specialists and coaches need to know who to pull for enrichment or re-teaching, which means you need to be on top of your assessments and recording them. Parents or siblings might need to take homework or work that is not yet done to sick students. This involves knowing what each of your students has yet to finish, and what they need in order to finish that task. If you team teach or team plan with other teachers, they expect you to be organized and ready to plan and pull your own weight in planning, copying and getting supplies ready.
If a teacher is to take all of the surprises and unexpected events that happen each day in school in stride, they must be level-headed. No day is ever the same in school. An effective teacher is ready for everyday to bring something new and does not let unpredictable events send the day off-track. Your students and your classroom depend on you to be ready for anything.
An effective teacher is resilient. This characteristic in a teacher is not only important for their students and their classroom, but also for the teacher themselves. If you are having a bad day or something goes horribly wrong, you need to be able to bounce back from it. You have to have a shell that you can rebuild so that you still seem strong for your students—but this shell needs to break sometimes. You can’t hold your feelings in all of the time, or you will burn out. An effective teacher can keep going and keep going strong, but they also know when to give themselves a much deserved and needed break. This resilience will also help you to focus on your future in teaching. Staying strong and in touch with your own needs will give you the strength needed to grow as a teacher.
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Your blog has really made me think about the traits of an effective teacher. I know that in my effective teacher essay, I listed things that were more broad, like using different teaching strategies and making students your focus. I still feel like the ideas I had are very important, but what you talk about is so much more specific. It is true that an effective teacher needs to be organized and sensitive and resilient. This has really made me start thinking about this topic more specifially and the need for the little things, like humor, as well as the more grand ideas.
ReplyDeleteYour blog made me reflect on what I thought were the most important characteristics of an effective teacher, and how even this early on in my education I am revisiting some of my orignial ideas. I loved that you included humor as one of the effective characteristics. I could not agree more, and did not even think about characteristic when I first wrote my effective teacher essay. It is important to remember to keep the classroom positive and fun, where students can flourish and know that their teacher and learning environment will facilitate them in doing this. I am encouraged by reading your advice, that it is important to remember to stay strong and in tune with your needs to help you grow as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteI think that you are correct when you say that teachers should be levelheaded. A teacher must be able to deal with her students in a professional manner. Even if we are upset we must not show it. Children will do things that will take us over the edge but we must not let that get in the way of carrying on what we had planned for the day.
ReplyDeleteI would have never though humor to be a necessary quality for an effective teacher. After reading this, I can see why humor is important in the classroom. Now, looking back to previous teachers I have had, I think that the way a teacher relates to their students is a crucial factor in being effective, and it seems that students relate well to humor. A little laugh here or there seems to make an environment more comfortable, particularly when discussing a more personal or stiff topic. I think it is great if a teacher is able to have fun with her students and allow some laughter in their classroom, as long as they know how to pull the class back together.
ReplyDeleteThis blog was interesting to me because when I was writing my effective teacher essay, I did not consider humor an especially important characteristic for an effective teacher, but I can see why it would be important. It is important to have a sense of humor, and see the funny side of certain issues. It will get you through the day a lot easier than if you are serious all the time. We need to remember that it is okay to have fun in our classrooms. Being organized and level-headed seem to be important characteristics for teachers as well. I also mentioned being sensitive to the needs of students from diverse backgrounds in my ETE, but I liked that Joanne mentioned being discrete when talking about matters that involve children positively or negatively. She also mentioned being able to read body language when trying to figure out childrens' problems. I think that is very important, but I had not thought of it before. Lastly, being resilient is very important. Teaching can sometimes be a stressfull and seemingly unrewarding job, but we need to remember the good times that we've had with our students. She also mentioned that we need to know when to give ourselves a break, and that we cannot always hold our feelings in. This is important to remember, especially for me becuase I tend to keep all of my feelings inside. I will definitely need to work on this. I really enjoyed reading this blog and comparing it to what I had written in my effective teacher essay.
ReplyDeleteDana Banitt
From Kendra Ackland:
ReplyDeleteJoanna's prioritization of personal and professional reflection is extremely important in terms of effective teaching of many diverse classrooms in the course of one day. This is the primary way an effective teacher learns and grows from her mistakes and successes. I also related to Joanna's comments on balance as a key component of effectiveness. In order to be effective, motivated teachers, we must be able to have happiness and fulfillment in our own lives in order to transfer that into the classroom environment. Learning to use time wisely during the school day is particularly important for teachers to create a balanced lifestyle.
From Molly Ryan:
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog about effective teaching. I agree with all of your points on being an effective teacher. Your point about how a classroom really needs to have humor was something that I liked a lot. In my effective teacher essay I agreed with you on the fact that teachers need to be level-headed.