How do you reach your full potential to become a master teacher? This article looks at how to achieve that.
Here are three simple tips. If you follow them, you will become a master teacher for sure.
1. Learn
The main goal of a master teacher should be learning and creating the conditions to help students to learn.
So, what is learning?
Learning is the process of acquiring and using new knowledge and skills.
Thus, learning should involve the ability to use new knowledge and skills to solve problems or create products.
Learning might also be said to include making new connections between pieces of knowledge or
different experiences in order to bring about new understanding, new insight, and change.
A master teacher should put in his mind these scientific assumptions during his journey to learn:
* Humans are naturally inclined to learn
We want to find out about the world around us. Our big human brain is always ready to acquire knowledge. We are curious creatures who try to make sense of the world that confronts us.
* Learning is something humans do from the moment of birth to their last days
Every day we should add new knowledge to our heads, save new memories, develop new insights,
and generate new ideas. That’s how we grow and change.
* All humans learn quicker if the learning material is interesting and presented in interesting ways
If the learning material is interesting and links new information to the learner’s needs or personal interests, it will be perceived and saved quicker in the learner’s long-term memory.
* Human learning is cyclical, not linear
Humans need to revisit skills and concepts several times and in different circumstances. With each visit, we learn skills and concepts at increasingly higher levels.
2. Learn To Teach
You will not become a master teacher immediately after your undergraduate education.
Learning to teach and to teach well occurs over time and involves three components: Knowledge,
Skills, and Practice.
a) Knowledge
Teachers need to have an organized body of knowledge related to teaching. This organized body of knowledge will enable you, as a teacher, to decide on the suitable approaches and strategies to use in your class to enhance your students’ learning.
There are four specific types of knowledge that you need to become a master teacher:
- Knowledge of learners and learning = you need to know about human development and how students learn.
- Pedagogical knowledge = you need to know a variety of teaching strategies, techniques, and skills.
- Content knowledge = you need to know the subject you’re teaching.
- Pedagogical content knowledge = you need to know how to teach specific content or skill and how to deal with learners who have trouble in learning particular skills or concepts.
b) Skills
Good teaching does not happen by accident. Master teachers always develop the skills related to teaching.
One of the most important skills related to teaching is planning.
Master teachers plan well for their lessons and teaching practices.
They decide exactly what they want students to learn, the teaching strategies they will use, the questions they may ask students, and related activities and assignments.
Mastering planning enables you not only to do purposeful and effective instruction but also to develop much more skills related to teaching.
c) Practice
This third component is where you actually teach your lessons. Here you present the material to be learned using a variety of research-based methodologies and teaching strategies.
You will not be able to function well here unless you address the first two components beforehand.
3. Reflect
What separates really master teachers from others is the time they dedicate to reflecting upon their teaching.
This is in contrast with teachers who blame the students, the curriculum, the weather, the media, parents, or something else when a lesson goes badly.
Master teachers are reflective teachers
Master teachers are strongly identified with their ability to reflect upon their lessons.
They ask themselves two kinds of questions:
The first relates to lesson effectiveness.
- How did it go?
- Was I effective in getting ideas across?
- Did learning take place?
- Were students able to take away something of importance?
- Were students able to construct new knowledge?
- Is there anything I could change or do better?
The second relates to the alignment of their teaching practice with their teaching philosophy.
- Am I in harmony with what I value?
- Am I practising what I preach in regards to best teaching practice and what I believe to be the purpose of education?
- Is what I am doing consistent with my teaching philosophy?
- Is what I am doing consistent with what the professional literature says?
Asking these kinds of questions will ensure your continued growth as a teacher and guarantee your success to become a master teacher.
Thanks For Reading
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