I am so excited to welcome Marcel, a guest writer to The Butterfly Teacher community. He shares smart and effective teaching tips to help all teachers improve their skills in the classroom today!
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Teachers are some of the most important members of society. They have a huge responsibility as they shape the future of their students, and ultimately, the future of the world.
It is very important that teachers keep improving their skills so that they can properly guide their students.
Any teacher who is sincere with their students is always on the lookout for some strategies and ideas to improve their skill set.
So, here is a list of some amazing teacher tips that will really help you to take your classroom skills to the next level!
Know What You’re Teaching
The first smart teaching tip to improve your teaching skills today is to know your content and subject area well.
You may think that most teachers have this part covered. But, in my days as a student, I have attended the classes of many teachers who were teaching a class just by reading and repeating the slides or the textbook back to me.
Now, I’m not saying that those teachers weren’t qualified; they all had advanced degrees in the subjects that they are teaching.
But some teachers don’t prepare their lessons before a class, which is why they aren’t able to teach their students effectively.
Apply these effective teaching tips instead:
- Before you teach a class, go through the syllabus or lessons you are about to teach
- Be sure to refresh your content in your mind
- Get supplies set up before students arrive
- Keep an organized classroom to minimize distractions
- Try to anticipate any questions that the students could ask to prepare for them
These teaching tips are easy to implement and ensure that you know your content!
Know the Classroom
Another smart tip to improve your teaching skills is understanding how to work the classroom. This includes knowing the layout of your room plus knowing your students’ learning styles.
Don’t just stand in one place while you teach!
Instead, use these easy teaching strategies to make class more interactive and fun:
- Allow students to move around the class and interact with each other
- Teach from different locations instead of the same spot at the front of the class each time
- Include more active and hands-on lessons
Ultimately a teacher should understand the layout of the room and the students well to keep the learning engaged!
Looking for hands-on teaching ideas? Check out these posts:
Be Adaptable
Adaptability is a crucial skill for almost every profession, but it is especially important for teachers.
A good teacher needs to be able to adapt to change and adjust according to the situation at hand. The landscape of education is changing a lot as it has over the last decade and any teachers who aren’t adaptable to change get left behind.
Also, teachers often run into many unforeseen problems.
There could be some sort of emergency in the classroom like a student could get sick or injured. You must be able to adapt to the situation and take care of it.
Try To Understand Your Students Emotionally As Well
Emotional intelligence is one of the most important attributes of a good teacher.
An effective teaching tip is to connect with your students emotionally, which improves the classroom atmosphere.
You are not just teaching the syllabus; but you are also helping to shape their character and build relationships.
Students can be going through a lot, and you should try to help them navigate through life as well as their studies.
Related Post: Resources for Culturally Responsive Teaching
Teach in Volunteer Programs
A great way to improve any skill is practice!
So the fifth smart tip to improve your teaching skills is to get as much experience as you can in teaching to improve your skills.
This includes teaching in volunteer programs. There are many amazing volunteer teaching programs that aim to teach language, culture and other subjects to students from different countries.
These programs even allow you to visit some amazing countries like Japan, China and South Korea and teach over there.
Teaching in a foreign environment will expand your teaching skills, and it will help you develop a more global mindset about education.
Become a Life-Long Learner
Improvement in any sort of skill boils down to one factor, which is a will to keep learning.
Learning is a lifelong process, and just because someone becomes a teacher, it doesn’t mean that they have to stop learning. Having a will to keep learning and improving is the very core of what makes a teacher great.
If teachers don’t have the will to keep learning, they won’t be able to evolve their teaching methods, and as the landscape of education is continuously changing, those teachers will be left behind.
This leads to a disconnect with their students which leads hinders the learning process!
Maintain Discipline in the Class
The final smart way to improve your teaching skills today is to develop strong classroom management skills.
Many teachers believe that being super friendly with students is the best way to teach them. They try so much to be the “cool teacher” that they lose the discipline in the class.
This doesn’t mean that you should be very strict in the class either. You should strive for a perfect balance between friendly and strict. An example of classroom management skills can be found here in this post.
Teaching is an art and a science! These seven smart tips lead to improved teaching and learning in the classroom.
Which of these teaching tips will you try today? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
About the Author:
After graduating in Industrial Engineering in 2007, from day one, Marcel has been working as a freelance writer, digital marketer, and business trainer. He’s very much into foreign cultures and learning languages and enjoys leaving his office for backpacking and hiking trips in the countryside. Together with his team, he blogs about teaching English as a foreign language on https://jimmyesl.com.
One Response
Great and informative post!