Great Teachers Don’t Teach

“You can’t teach in a vacuum. A good teacher relates the material to real life.”

Emotional support

There are days when your students will need your emotional support more than a musical composition of information. Connecting with your students on an emotional level makes it more likely that they will listen to your counsel and take your advice to heart. Students need mentors as much as they need teachers.

Sense of purpose

We can’t all be blessed with “epic” workdays all the time. Sometimes, life is merely mundane and dull. Teachers with a sense of purpose that are able to realize the big picture can ride above the hard and boring days because their eye is on something further down the route. For many students, they have no real sense of purpose. Some students are just trying to get by until they graduate and get a job. For others, receiving good grades so they can get into a decent college is their main purpose in life. It's our job to use teaching strategies to help kids find their life purpose.

Bring Fun in Class Room

Academic studies naturally coincide with rote teaching styles and textbook work. However, it is important to make learning exciting for students with interactive activities. For example, Here’s a fun spin on the classic game of Headband. Instead of using headbands like in Headbanz, use sticky notes to write random words (relevant to the grade’s curriculum) on them. Stick one of the notes on a student’s head without allowing her to look at the word. The student has to figure out what the word on her forehead is by asking her peers for clues. If the word on the sticky note is ‘flower’, the clues can be ‘pollination’, ‘colorful’, ‘spring’, ‘petals’, etc. To help the player to guess the word!

Relate with Real Life Experiences

One of the characteristics of a great teacher is connecting the classroom-based knowledge with real life. Be it social science, English, science or mathematics. They can connect every piece of knowledge with related life examples. And when a teacher teaches through real-life learning. The results achieved by the students are maximum because learning is maximized.

Care about students

You may decide to become a teacher because you care about education and the students you’ll be working with. Once you become a teacher, you care, not just about education, but about your students’ education. Great Teachers care about their students. They want them to succeed and are committed to helping them achieve their goals. Moreover, teachers care about their students’ happiness, well-being, and life beyond the classroom.

Long-Term Memories

Great Teachers provide experiences that created long-term memories. According to the memory research, information is easier retrieved when it is stored using a cue and that cue should be present at the time the information is being retrieved. For example, the acronym HOMES can be used to represent the names of the Great Lakes — Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. The acronym is a cue that is used when the information is being learned, and recalling the cue when taking a test will help the student recall the information.

High Expectations Motivation Skills

Great Teachers have high expectations from their students. Having high expectations does not mean riding a student and punishing them when they don’t perform. It does, however, mean that you spur all your students on to do their best and you don’t accept less from a student you know can perform better. This may mean that you give them the opportunity to redo a test or a task because you know that they can achieve more. You don’t accept that a student cannot learn. You find alternative ways to make the learning accessible to the student.

Don’t need any content

Good teachers are great performers and storytellers that rivet their students' attention. A teacher should not only know the content well enough but also, they should be able to present their content in such a way that students take maximum interest in the learning process.