Robert John Meehan said, “We are not just teachers, we are the managers of the world’s greatest resource: Children!”.
It is in this light that we, teachers, should make ourselves even more competent on how to manage and handle our learners by equipping ourselves with riveting ways on how to develop teaching skills.
The most important moments are those times that we see our students learning joyfully in our classrooms. It’s really worthwhile to witness their progress as they learn to think critically and to work creatively.
Likewise, it’s a great joy seeing them getting along with their classmates and working cooperatively. All this is possible with the support of a capacitated teacher!
Teaching can be very exhausting and challenging. But, with our strong desire to contribute to students’ achievement and improvement of the school, teaching can be very engaging after all.
We should consider improving our teaching skills to keep going.
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Do you aim for meaningful engagement in your classroom and become an active teacher? Here are incredible tips to become a highly productive teacher.
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The Essence of the Teaching Profession
Getting overwhelmed in this profession doesn’t mean sitting back and just feeding students with information by lecturing.
Obviously, based on my teaching experiences, that’s not the way towards the achievement of quality instruction. It’s more about doing our best to become good teachers who motivate students to learn at their best!
This is the essence of teaching which we need to make a difference.
As teachers, we are open to certain realities in classroom scenarios. There can be heartbreaking results. Blast! Such situations will bring doubts about our performances as teachers.
Let’s admit it. As the captain of the ship, we precisely know what’s happening.
When I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, I felt the confidence to take the Licensure Examination for Teachers for me to become a full-fledged licensed teacher.
However, when I passed the board exam for teachers and eventually received my license, I felt the great pressure of teaching.
It seemed that I had the gripping need to study again the Principles of Teaching, Teaching Strategies And Approaches, and Measurement & Evaluation subjects.
Yes! The foundations in the education course all came back to me like a bolt of turbocharged lightning! I was immersed in my killer doubts! “Would I step back?”
My mind was even in doubt! But then, my strong desire to teach, which was situated in my heart, whispered softly yet firmly, “Oh! Absolutely, do not step back! No retreat! No surrender!”. Hence, I am here today!
Once already in the teaching profession, you have nothing to aim at but to provide quality education to young people to help them change and improve their lives for the better! Such is a great teacher!
Before I considered education as my lifetime career, I traversed the qualities of an effective teacher. Since I came from a family of teachers, it was then easy for me to observe their ways and to see their great examples.
I made this consideration because I didn’t want to become a failure in the long run.
A Great Teacher Makes a Difference
Teachers can make a big difference in a student’s life. But, a great teacher offers a world of difference in the life of the learners! Do you agree? For me, a great teacher is efficient and effective.
As teachers become efficient and effective, they are as well, very skillful in all areas of the teaching profession. This I admit, that as a teacher, I need to always update myself to develop my teaching skills.
We are not talking about short-term success here. We are considering the long-term success of our students in real-life scenarios. With our strong desire to positively influence our student’s life, we should never stop improving our teaching skills.
As teachers, we all know that teaching and handling students is much harder than most people imagine. Our mastery of the subject matter isn’t a guarantee that we can be successful in this career.
We need to keep the focus of our learners for learning to be productive.
Our students should realize the learning goals in the constructive manner possible. Therefore, there is a great need for us teachers to develop and to possess a wide range of skills and techniques in teaching.
So, how do we develop our teaching skills? Bear with me on this one. To make our teaching ventures a lot easier, let’s take in the following great ways of how to develop and enhance our teaching skills.
5 Riveting Ways on How to Develop Teaching Skills
1. Support on Education’s Call on Time-On-Task Management
Time-On-Task Management concerns increasing students’ time in learning. School-related tasks are to be given utmost importance over non-instructional activities.
However, the increased learning time of students is not a guarantee that quality learning is achieved. Still, the best teaching skills of teachers are highly needed.
It just means that the best implementation of Time-On-Task Management lies in our hands as the managers in the classroom and the facilitators in learning.
No matter how sound the TOT program is if we lack the efforts and interest, it will be for nothing.
Although education personnel have been providing training on Time-On-Task, I am showing my deepest interest and support about the program by crafting my own practical ways towards the achievement of its goals.
Through Time-On-Task, I am able to spend more time improving my skills in producing creative lessons to increase my student’s engagement for productive learning. Let me share with you my ways of implementing the TOT scheme.
Be mindful of instructional activities
As classroom managers, we have the opportunity to support the goals of the school on the effective application of Time-On-Task schemes.
By focusing more on making our students participate actively in learning activities, we will be able to overcome the challenge of time management.
To improve the quality of learning, we should begin to ask ourselves what should be the initial step to make it? First of all, we have to make our daily lesson plans sincerely. This should indicate what engaging learning activities will be carried out for the day.
The plan should be made flexible because as we all know, teaching and learning in the classroom are never scripted and there might be unexpected considerations to be made.
To be effective in this part, I mostly consider the learning goals and objectives in my daily lesson plan. Are they SMART? By making the learning objectives specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound, I am certain that my teaching time and my student’s learning time are maximized.
As the instructional time in the classroom is increased, both teachers and learners are given enough time to interact. Moreover, with fewer non-instructional activities, teachers will have enough time to motivate young learners to learn effectively.
Be organized and strengthen strong organizational skills
One of the pitfalls in teaching is by doing things haphazardly to meet deadlines and to cover all the learning competencies in a quarter. This act has a negative impact on learning.
As we hurry to finish the competencies within a period, we are sacrificing one of the most important contexts in education – the delivery of quality instruction.
How to keep organized? With the many schedules and deadlines, I always rely on effective time management. As I manage my time effectively, I am taking extra ways to keep myself organized.
By keeping a realistic schedule and spending extra hours on the weekend in preparing the things I need in advance helps me save time in the long run.
As I chip in extra hours at the weekends to prepare for the learning activities in the succeeding days, I become so organized and well-kept. An easy-to-do list in my planner serves as my guide on what to do next. Here are my favorite planners.
Time slips away too fast, hence I find being organized really helpful in time management.
Organizing my classroom, deciding how long will I teach a certain competency, recording my student’s progress, and keeping track of my students’ behavior are just some of the important things to be considered in organizing a day in the classroom.
Make Advance Planning and Preparations
The preparations and the planning might be tedious but it will be worth it as it can benefit both me and my students. I really hate cramming because it makes me lose my balance. It’s no secret that cramming will make us less effective as teachers than it does to our students.
Usually, we require our students to submit their work and outputs on time as a way of instilling discipline. In the same manner, as teachers, we should also be mindful that to keep on track, we have to be mindful of deadlines as well.
As I manage my time well, I always find time to keep an eye on instructional planning which is very important in keeping the balance of academic learning time and achievement. This way heightens the engaged time of my students in the classroom.
Well, let’s increase the engaged time of learners by maximizing their learning hours with us. As we do our best to achieve the learning targets, our students will keep going forward smoothly. As the learning-instruction time increases, we have ample time to allocate more student interactions most appropriately.
Improve Time Management Techniques
As we know, teaching takes time. Due to poor time management, most of us hurdle on overlapping tasks and faulty organizational perceptions.
This will hinder the delivery of quality instructional activities. The implementation of time-on-task management is a big help for us to maximize our teaching hours.
To increase my daily teaching time in the classroom, I delegate learning tasks in the classroom. This way makes my students not only conscious of the different classroom activities but also makes them more responsible learners. By assigning different roles in varied grouping techniques, the time for teaching and learning is maximized.
By tapping effective instructional strategies, we can make our students enjoy learning and make it lasting. Let’s delve into differentiated instruction for example.
This will provide opportunities for our learners to respond in multiple ways. Through modifications, we can make use of various grouping formats and consider students’ learning styles.
2. Always Monitor Student’s Performance
By using formative and summative assessments, we can track if our students have achieved learning goals. The results of the assessments will help us in instructional decision-making.
The student’s performance requires us to reflect on our teaching techniques. By doing it, we will be able to point out what went well and what went wrong. Assessing our teaching styles is important in meeting expectations of improving students’ performance.
The results of the assessment will let us know if our teaching strategies have been successful or not. Is there a need to re-teach using other helpful strategies? The totality of these questions mirrors our teaching skills.
Moreover, the results will help us decide if the majority of our learners need reinforcement or only a few need remediation. However, the type and the execution of assessments will matter too.
That is why as teachers, we need to upgrade ourselves with proper assessment tools to get the proper data on students’ performance and utilize them properly.
3. Adopt and Share Best Teaching Practices for Other Teachers
Collaboration is the key. Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance as it pays very well to be open to suggestions and recommendations. On the other hand, if you have best practices and teaching experiences, always be willing to share them with others.
Pitching into the best classroom practices of other teachers will greatly help in developing our skills in instructional delivery and in our overall teaching skills.
It’s never an issue when we seek assistance. It’s just a matter of acceptance that no man is an island.
Yes, we might be confident that we are equipped with the best teaching strategies and techniques but knowing that teaching is much more of a real hands-on process and that things may alter against plans, we should be open to direct changes and modifications.
As researchers put it, teachers and school administrators today have witnessed the good impact of collaboration has on teaching and have an increasing interest in how to collaborate. As most people say, two heads are better than one.
The importance of teacher collaboration has long been seen in the education arena where teachers work in teams, share responsibilities, provide feedback, and build trust.
Our regular interactions with our colleagues and other teachers will help us gain the support we need to improve our teaching skills.
By sharing our best practices and findings, we can develop our teaching skills and become effective teachers. Additionally, this way will help us build a lasting professional relationship with other teachers and it will help boost our confidence in teaching. The genuine support we get for our fellow will industry will also be the kind of support we give to our learners.
Hence, we should admit that we need others in the name of the delivery of quality education. Mentoring helps and it should be put to use.
4. Continue Learning
“In a world that is constantly changing, education, teaching, and learning cannot remain stagnant.” – Georges Filippousis
Education is constantly evolving. This is by far one of the biggest challenges that we teachers are facing.
Besides providing appropriate skills to our learners, we are also in a situation of developing our skills as best facilitators in the classroom.
One way of equipping ourselves with the new and relevant pedagogical methods is by pursuing our studies and attending teacher training and seminars for professional development.
No matter how brilliant we are as teachers, we still need an upgrade of our capacities or else we will be left behind.
Updating myself with the current trends in education makes me more capable of improving teaching and learning. This is an insinuation that I am serious about my role as the mediator in the whole educational process.
5. Do Your Best to Become Good Teachers
In the teaching profession, as teachers, we should not only teach because it’s our job and that we are obliged to. This belief will make us teach just for the sake of teaching. We have to bear in mind that a number of learners are being entrusted in our care.
Being able to gain our student’s interests and focus with appropriate teaching strategies, engaging and creative lessons, and with our positive attitude is a way to become good teachers.
As we do our best to become more engaging facilitators in front of our classroom, our students are more likely to perform and participate in the different learning activities.
Envisioning ourselves to create a big impact on our student’s life will help us create a positive learning environment. We should not only aim at being well-versed in the subject matter we teach but also we should be skillful enough at classroom management, application of best discipline techniques, and maintaining open communication with our students.
After All, Is Said And Done…
As teachers, we need to cope up with the ever-changing world. Fellows, let us remember that we are not in our positions right now by chance. We are here for a purpose.
This is our threading line to always do our best and exert valuable efforts to make a world of difference in our student’s life. Last but not least, let’s act together and it pays off in our student’s life.
Therefore, as we aim at the challenges of the 21st century, we should never stop learning. In a similar manner, we should never stop sharing.
Is there anything you can recommend to improve ourselves as teachers?
