by Terry Heick
This message has been updated from a version published in 2013
Good teaching is a major company.
Make no mistake – teaching has never been easy. But as we arrive in 2014, as a profession Teaching is more and more characterized by its possibilityliability and persistent change. Which makes a challenge to do, a lot of GOOD.
The answer to these challenges is a mixture of professional development in the building, Improvement of teacher self-directedand a disturbing amount of professional exhaustion of teachers. So, how can you be a smarter teacher rather than just growing worse?
What are the “teaching secrets” that lead to growth?
7 Teach secrets for long -term growth
1. Place the large rocks first
It is not a question of simply “prioritizing”, but in a fairly aggressive and strategically prioritizing way.
As a teacher, my main survival strategy was to prioritize. And the highest of these priorities? In -depth understanding of power standards. This is what made sense to me in the light of the academic expectations of the school and the reality of students sitting before me. This can be different for you, and that’s good, but whatever your priorities, choose them carefully – things that will last, and that can be exploited to make other things possible. (More things about this in another post.)
This might not be logical to suggest focusing on certain things, because it implies that you neglect others. And to a certain extent, it’s true. You cannot do everything, and if you are not going to do certain things, it is better to start with what is most important.
My father told me that if you fill a pot of rocks, so that everything adapts, you need to place the big rocks first.
2. Operate technology for You
The use of technology to automate learning has obtained a bad blow and for a good reason. It is the path of lazy, without imagination and ineffective. But if you have to do a multiple choice test, why not do it Auto-diploma test Using Google Drive forms?
You absolutely cannot replace a teacher with a teacher with an iPad. The use of Whiz Bang technology to automate bad teaching is the horrible formula. But you can Use technology to automate the parties of the teaching and learning process that harm you as well as students of what is important.
Operate technology for You. Not easy, and is not always worth the effort, but is always worth it.
3. Do you know
Do you know – Your ideal place as a teacher, learning facilitator, colleague, teacher head. Know your good side, your weaknesses and the needs of those around you.
Do what you can to support the occupied machine that most public learning institutions are. But be honest with yourself too. Know what you do well and when you are inclined to be a means or worse. Know what you are inclined to forget, where your best sources of ideas are and what helps you to see the overview when everyday life becomes vague.
4. Teach in the moment
Adopt a Zen approach to your teaching. No matter how the last lesson took place, the fact that the notes are due, or the procedure step by step unforeseen that missed the best part of your lesson and caught you the 90 seconds that you do not define the classroom with wisdom, teach at the moment without regretting for the past or concern for the future.
Do not leave the battery of the request you should note or the staff meeting 90 minutes after school stifling your joy for interaction with the children in front of you. It is easier to say than to do, but the first safer step is to live in the moment. Here, right now, anything is possible. The majority of the friction you feel are illusions in your own head – life products in the past or try to lean forward in the future.
5. Defend for yourself
Especially in terms of time. Protecting your planning period by closing your door is not “back teaching” is a survival strategy. It is not because your doors are closed for 25 minutes that they are closed metaphorically. There is a difference.
Have you asked to join too many committees or other projects that distract you from your priorities as a Educator? This is delicate, because there is a fine line between defending yourself and shirking your moral and professional responsibility to help school to run. Try first to refuse respectfully and offer other ways to help you. Suggest alternatives to save time. Or join a slightly decreased role, but turn it where you seem to be in it.
When asked to do something that seems substantial, out of your ideal point, or that just comes at a bad time for you, try to understand the great idea of demand as much as the details of the request itself. In this way, you can better support school rather than just do what you are told in a dizzying tornado of daily tasks.
6. Find new success measures
This one is simple. This is not your class. These are not your standards. These evaluations are not for you. Your name is not at school.
The increase or slowdown in their reading levels, or the movement of all the apprentices high to competent or competent for apprentices – even the student who explains in detail and in detail that you are the alpha and omega of their educational experience and that they come to school only for your class – are not your failures or your successes.
If you want to work smarter and not more difficult, while we are heading towards classrooms that focus on literacy, critical thinking, self -directing and innovation, we, as teachers, must find new internal measures – and evidence – for our own success. This does not move away from responsibility, but the restoration of logic and rational thinking to an industry apparently determined to make its own disappearance.
7. Open your doors in large class
When things become difficult, depending on your type of personality, you may be tempted to do more in a Here, let me approach him. AAnd it is this kind of thought that causes us trouble as educators. You need help. Admit it. Cry. Get on the school roof. It is not the sign of a weak teacher, but of an honest and strong teacher.
And not only to help to do better tests, but to ask questions, to develop new habits of thought, to grow as learners and to reflect on wisdom instead of fantasy.
Contact teachers inside and beyond your building. If you do not think you need help, you already suffer from certain fairly important blind spots – probably the products of self -defense mechanisms to keep you healthy.
Try education based in authentic and local communities. Consider learning-based learning that connects your students to an attentive peer network, or even niche experts themselves. And these open doors in class do not only allow traffic – they should allow students to move in search of mobile learning experiences which destroy them once and for all from your well -intentioned class walls.
