What makes a teacher effective? Report by Fer, Pedro and Moni

WHAT MAKES A TEACHER EFFECTIVE?
Decision Making
Making decisions has taken an important part of the teacher role when teaching. In order to be a good one, the teacher not only needs to have the theoretical knowledge but also the one with the subject, certain skills and attitudes in the classroom so that he or she maximize the student learning.
Something important we must be aware of when teaching is the so-called reflective teaching. Feedback is not only for students but also for ourselves as teachers because just of this way we can realize of our weaknesses and strengths teaching to improve it in the future.
Something that happens many times is that teachers reach a zone called “zone of comfort”, which means that when a teacher reaches certain experience of teaching, they feel comfortable and forget about up to date, information of the subject , topics, strategies for teaching and so on. It is very important to know not just what went well in our teaching but also what could be improved. We have to be very careful of this because society always changes, and adapting material, techniques and other aspect of teaching are our responsibility as facilitator of knowledge.
The aspects to consider when giving a lesson must be based on who, what, how am I going to teach and why. Once analyzed, we will have a strong base of a lesson plan for our students and surely guaranteed a good enough teaching.
On the other hand, most of people believe in that our attitude it is crucial for a successful teaching. If teachers are warmth, empathic, sensitive, etc. the teaching would be more likely to be successful.
The Teacher’s Attitude toward Peers and Parents
Much of what we have mentioned about teachers’ attitudes toward themselves and toward children also applies to their attitudes toward peers and parents. Some attitudes enhance a teacher’s effectiveness, and others detract it.
Authority and collaboration, teachers may find it hard themselves while dealing with people who outrank them in position or prestige. If teachers can assume a role of collaboration with those in authority, seeing themselves as part of a valuable partnership in the enterprise of education, they may be able to overcome any predisposition to hostility or any anxiety unwarranted by reality.
When talking about competition and cooperation, some teachers develop a strong drive to compete with other teachers for recognition from both authority figures and students. They try to be the most popular teachers. As a result of this attitude, they sometimes cut themselves off from much needed help and severely limit their ability to be of help to others.
In superiority and acceptance, one attitude never fails to cause trouble for teachers is a feeling of superiority to other teachers or parents of students. They may feel intellectually superior to colleagues or socially superior to students’ parents, or in some cases of both. They have little tolerance for people who differ from them in values, cultural background, or economic status, and as result, they treat others with disdain and contempt rather than patience and respect.
Effective teachers are those who work well with colleagues and parents to empower children to achieve and show attitudes of acceptance. They need to be real or genuine, value other persons as worthy in their own right, and show empathy. In that way they will be better persons in and outside the classroom, and they will influence in students thinking in a good way.
What Teaching Skills are Required of an Effective Teacher?
Furthermore, another important topic to talk about is what teaching skills are required of an effective teacher? Well, they are different and what teachers should take into account is that students vary in backgrounds and in educational experiences. Besides, there are nine categories about teaching behaviors presented that help us to distinguish the effective teaching.
Classroom Management
There was a research project carried out by Jacob Kounin which brought interesting results. He discovered that effective managers kept students involved in academic tasks, minimized the frequency with which students became disruptive, and resolved minor disruptions before they escalated into major ones. This contribution is very important because it is giving us some key strategies that we as teachers can use in our classrooms and that can help us to encourage and to guide our students to learn and to be independent in their learning process.
From this research, we can take three basic concepts that might help us in our teacher role:
- Establish clearly defined rules and routines
- Ensure students’ compliance with rules and demands
- Involve families
Questioning Skills
Most of teachers tend to ask questions that require analysis of information from students. As a result, they just answer in a simple way and most of the times their responses are memorized facts.
On the other hand, effective questioning strategies engage students in verbal discourse and promote genuine learning. This means that teachers should have an objective or goal in mind to be focused on and to carry out a good lesson, but they have to let students know the utility of that specific topic, otherwise students will not see the purpose and they will not be motivated. That is why establishing an objective plays an essential role when planning a lesson.