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9 Useful Skills for Teachers

While teaching can certainly be a challenge, it is also one of the most rewarding careers out there.
Check out some of the useful skills for teachers to see if there are any areas you need to work on
before you become one:

Patience
This is likely the single most important skill. Kids these days are stubborn, and many lack the
inherent respect for authority that we were taught at a young age. Spending a single day in a room
full of raucous teenagers is enough to send any human being to the looney bin, which is why every
good teacher needs patience in order to find a way to work with his students and earn their
respect.

Adaptability
Different kids learn in different ways, and some lessons need unique teaching tools. Good teachers
know how to adapt their lesson plan to their students, so that all the kids learn optimally. This trait
can take some experience and practice in a classroom setting, so give it time.

Imagination
Whether you teach high school chemistry or kindergarten, nothing is a more effective tool than using
your imagination to create new and interesting ways for your students to learn. You may be
inspired by the work of another teacher, mentor or a TV commercial - it doesn't matter. All that
matters is that you take the initiative to find new ways for your kids to learn the material.

Teamwork
Teachers could have a hard time without a wide variety of support staff around them. If you feel
alone, your school principal, administrative staff, parent-teacher committee, and more are often
available to provide you help. By working as a team, you may have an easier time increasing your
students' ability to learn and have fun.

Risk Taking
Sometimes to get the big reward, you may need to take a risk. Being a teacher is about finding a
way to get kids to learn, and sometimes these new learning methods can be risky. Stick to it and
you'll soon find that others are following your teaching example.

Constant Learning
You can never know too much when you are a teacher, especially when it comes to the best way to
teach your students. Great teachers are constantly looking for ways to expand their horizons with
courses, workshops, and seminars. Make sure you don't become stagnant by taking courses to
keep the content fresh in your mind.

Communication
No teacher will succeed if they don't have good communication skills. Clear, concise, and to the
point - the better your communication skills are, the easier your lessons will be. There are
many different types of classes available to help some teachers who may need help improving their
skills.

Mentoring
Teachers need to always remember that, aside from parents, they are one of the most consistent
mentors in a child's life. That means setting a good example, at all times. Teachers may also
have students that they spend extra time with being a mentor, which means that being a good role
model is even more important.

Leadership

One of the other most important skills each teacher must have (besides patience) is leadership.
Your students need someone to guide them, to be in charge, and set the tone of the class.
Leadership is a difficult skill, meaning you may want to get outside help if you feel that you could use
more work on this particular skill, or any other for that matter.

Developing the indicators of autonomous learning


In thinking about the nature of my project, I realised that I would need to decide on
some factors that characterise autonomy in students. I had to reflect on the question
What will I be looking for when I look for autonomy in the students in my study? In
order for this study to be relevant for the school in which I work, it was important that
the characteristics of autonomy that I developed fit with the values and beliefs that my
school has about teaching and learning. Atkin (1996) writes about the need for schools
to identify how their practices relate to their core values and beliefs. Schools that can
do this are schools whose staff:
Will be engaged in reflecting upon how particular practices help them achieve
what they value and believe and their values and beliefs will be continually
revisited (p.4).
Working with students in an environment that values self-directed learning requires
constructive teacher-learner relationships to develop. Positive relationships between
the teacher and learners is essential for autonomy to develop. This relationship needs
to be based on trust, respect, care, acceptance, modelling, clear expectations, security
and belief in the ability of the learner to learn (Atkin, 1994).
Atkin, in her study of structures and approaches that enhance learning in the middle
years of schooling (Atkin, 2001), has summarised that the following elements can
enhance learning for young students:

Programmes built around learning to learn and learning to think


Teachers and students having a collaborative team approach to learning
Schools developing a stronger focus on relationships between students and teachers
Developing integrated learning approaches that are cross-curricular and use real life
contexts along with authentic assessment
Using ICT to enhance learning (p.1)

These approaches above express the strong values and beliefs of the school in which I
work, and have the potential to help build an open and supportive learning culture
through an understanding of each others strengths and weaknesses as learners
(Atkin, 2001, p.2). These provide the context in which students can be encouraged to
develop their autonomy through developing self-awareness, effective learning
strategies, thinking skills, organisational skills, cooperative skills, metacognitive
skills, strategies for effective communication, problem solving and supporting others.
These skills and strategies by their very nature encourage the development of greater
self-direction and self-evaluation (Atkin, 2001).

Using Atkins (2001) research and in particular the ideas in the preceding paragraph,
the Principal and staff at the school in which my study was carried out, were able to
develop the diagram below.

This diagram sits in my schools strategic plan, and indicates the ways in which we
view and value student autonomy in our school. It was important for the purpose of
this project that I was able to develop a set of indicators of autonomy that I could use
with the students I would work with. It was also important that the indicators fit with
the values, beliefs and direction of my school, so that this project could be relevant to
the teachers and learners there. In this diagram you can see some parallels with
Ecclestones (2002) definitions of procedural and personal autonomy, where students
have some control over the timing, pace and evaluation of their work, and they have
an awareness of their strengths, weaknesses and choices in their learning (Ecclestone,
pp.36-37). It was through this research, Atkins work (2001) and the diagram from my
schools strategic plan above, that I was able to develop the indicators of autonomy
that are used in this project. You will notice that most of the words in the bottom
yellow boxes of the diagram are seen in the third column from the left in the
Indicators of autonomous learning table seen in this rep
Most teachers are frustrated by their unmotivated students. What they may not know is how important the connection
is between student motivation and self-determination. Research has shown that motivation is related to whether or
not students have opportunities to be autonomous and to make important academic choices. Having choices allows
children to feel that they have control or ownership over their own learning. This, in turn, helps them develop a sense
of responsibility and self-motivation. When students feel a sense of ownership, they want to engage in academic
tasks and persist in learning. An example from first-hand experience of the author is contained in Link 1a.
Teachers have observed that after second or third grade, many students begin to show signs of losing their
motivation to learn. What happened to that natural eagerness to go to school and the curiosity to learn that is so
apparent in preschool, first, and second grade students? Why do students progressively seem to take less
responsibility for their own learning? This challenge only grows as students move from upper elementary to
secondary school levels. The research summary found in Link 1b and on other linked pages addresses how teachers
can help students to be responsible and autonomous learners by giving them appropriate choices.

Many teachers fear that giving students more choice will lead to their losing control over classroom management.
Research tells us that in fact the opposite happens. When students understand their role as agent (the one in charge)
over their feeling, thinking, and learning behaviors, they are more likely to take responsibility for their learning. To be
autonomous learners, however, students need to have some choice and control. And teachers need to learn how to
help students develop the ability to make appropriate choices and take control over their own learning.

Links
Link 1a
This story began in a Colorado middle school in the United States that was working with Dr. McCombs on a project
entitled Neighbors Making a Difference. This project was aimed at fostering positive relationships between teachers
and their students (as well as between students and other meaningful adults in their immediate community). The goal
of the project was to prevent student gang involvement and drug use.
Many of the teachers at this middle school were afraid of their tough students and had concluded that there was
little they could do to reach them. Dr. McCombs decided to spend a day at the school and see for herself what was
happening. She wanted to get a closer look at the dynamics between these ill-reputed students and their struggling
and fearful teachers, so she followed a group of students throughout their day, sitting unobtrusively in the backs of
their classrooms.
Dr. McCombs learned a lot that day. Afterwards, she somewhat wryly remarked that she was amazed they [the
students] werent schizophrenic. What she saw in the different classes was like an up and down roller coaster. She
saw students behaving themselves and cooperating in some classes and not in others. Dr. McCombs was also an
eyewitness to a student fight in the hallways right before their last-period math class. She could not help but wonder
to what length such students would go to disrupt the traditionally unpopular subject of math, especially at the end of a
long school day.
To Dr. McCombs surprise, what she saw was a surreal, yet inspiring scene. Without even the visible presence of a
teacher or other authority figure, the students filed into the mathematics class and immediately became quiet and
self-disciplined. They picked out the appropriate materials from folders along the side of the classroom, sat down at
their desks, paired up in pre-set groups and began working on their current computer projects. And all of this
happened without the slightest command or provocation from a teacher.
Dr. McCombs finally saw the teacher kneeling in the back of the room looking for some reference materials. A student
walked back to ask him a question and that was when it became obvious that the teacher had been there all along.
As the students worked, the teacher walked around and checked their progress. Dr. McCombs realized that there
was much to be learned from this teacher and his seemingly effortless style in facilitating a self-directed learning
process for his students. After spending the day witnessing some of the other teachers desperately trying to control
their students in rowdy and unruly classroom settings, in this class Dr. McCombs saw a teacher who trusted his
students to be self-regulated and self-motivated. And thats what was happening. Not only was the teacher freed from
keeping his students in control, he also was able to support and engage students in meaningful assignments. The
result was positive motivation without any student disturbances or complaints.
After the class was over, Dr. McCombs could not wait to ask the teacher how he achieved such an impressive feat
particularly in light of her previous experiences at the school. The teacher explained his philosophy about the natural
desire to learn present in all students and the events that led him to his successful classroom environment. At the
beginning of the year, the teacher simply and directly told the students that (paraphrasing): This is your class ... we
can do it any way you want as long you learn the math. In other words, while the teacher did lay out some nonnegotiables the essential elements necessary to cover content standards and to ensure that the work got done
he largely left the overall options and details up to his students. Apparently, by leaving many of the choices and the
rules for how the class should be managed up to his students, the teacher gained their respect and concentration.
Most importantly, he met his students needs to have some choice and control he instilled in them the ownership
that allowed them to take responsibility for their own learning. He relayed that not only were students harder on
themselves in setting up classroom rules than he would have been, but because they felt ownership, it was their
class and they enforced the rules. His job was easier and he helped instill in his students a sense of responsibility
and motivation that transcended everything except their desire to learn. This experience culminated in the inspiration
for a book, published by the American Psychological Association, that Dr. McCombs wrote with this wise teacher,
titled otivating Hard-to-Reach Students.

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