Act of Teaching

Chapter 10
Personal Attributes and Characteristics of Effective Teachers
Outline
Research on Teaching (348)
Defining Effective Teaching (348)
Effective Teachers: Personal Attributes and Characteristics (350)
Motivating Personality (351)
o Enthusiasm (351)
o Warmth and Humor (352)
o Credibility (354)
Orientation Toward Success (354)
o High Expectations for Success (354)
o Encouraging and Supportive (357)
Professional Demeanor (358)
o Businesslike (358)
o Adaptable/flexible (360)
o Knowledgeable (362)
Notes
Research on Teaching (348)
Defining Effective Teaching (348)
o An effective teacher is one who is able to help students learn more
in ways that can be measured (348)
Effective Teachers: Personal Attributes and Characteristics (350)
Motivating Personality (351)
o Enthusiasm (351)
Two important dimension (Good and Brophy, 2000)
Interest and involvement with the subject matter
Vigor and physical dynamism dynamic, stimulating,
energetic, expressive
People convey enthusiasm through variety in speech,
gestures, and facial expressions
While teachers often expect students to be interested in
what they said, students more often react to how
enthusiastically it is said (352)
Enthusiastic teachers are
Appear confident and friendly
Establish and convey the relevance of the subject to
their students
Use broad, animated gestures to emphasize or
reinforce points
Are creative and varied in their instructional approach
Are engaged and dramatic when they teach
Maintain eye contact with all students
 Use varied pitch, volume, inflection, and pauses to
make vocal delivery more interesting
Are patient
Are insistent that students successfully complete tasks
Are aware of and quickly deal with off-task behavior
Maintain a quick lesson pace
Have a sense of humor; can laugh at themselves
Use movement to maintain interest and attention
o Warmth and Humor (352)
Warmth and humor are important to promote a supportive,
relaxed, satisfying, and educationally productive and
supportive classroom
Indirectly promote learning
Reduces students misbehavior
Warmth positive, supportive interpersonal relationships
with students
Humor defuse tension, communicate the teachers security
and confidence, promote trust, and reduce discipline
problems
Too much of warmth and humor can reduce learning
Conveying warmth
Greet students by name at the door. Comment on their
personal achievements outside your classroom or
other aspects of their personal lives
Smile frequently
Be yourself. Convey your personality, likes, dislikes,
even opinions
Use nonthreatening physical proximity to students.
moving closer to students can be used to convey a
sense of trust and openness
Encourage students to approach you and to be open
with you. Keep most in-class interactions on academic
topics, but express interest and willingness to talk with
students about nonacademic concerns outside of class
Draw out students opinions, feelings, and ideas, and
actively incorporate these into your instruction
Provide remediation and time for all students to master
the material and to be successful
While conveying genuine interest, concern, and
acceptance of all students, avoid become one of the
students by lowering expectations or joining them
socially. This is especially true for new teachers who
may be close in the age to their students.
o Credibility (354)
You are credible when your students believe in you.
Three important elements
Your credentials
The messages you send to students
Your behavior
 Credibility and trust are the result of being open, honest, and
equitable in your dealings with students, and of opening
soliciting and accepting students comments or criticism, of
defining your expectations and the relevance of the subject,
of communicating clearly, and of demonstrating interest and
concern for your students success.
Orientation Toward Success (354)
o High Expectations for Success (354)
Clearly inform students of the lesson objectives
Provide extended, organized, well-paced explanations
Clearly relate lesson content to student interests
Set reasonable standards and modify them frequently
Plan for and provide remediation when necessary
Maintain consistent discipline and task direction
Solicit and incorporate input from students they instruct
Frequently smile, nod, and maintain eye contact
Call upon all students frequently and equitably to respond
Use wait time to allow students to consider before responding
Help students modify incorrect or inadequate responses
Use criticism infrequently
Provide extensive, frequent, and specific feedback
Seldom interrupt students while they are working
o Encouraging and Supportive (357)
Particularly important when students are most likely to
experience reluctance and difficulty early stages of
learning
How to encourage?
Use positive comments about students abilities rather
than negative comments about their performance
Be aware of and note improvement, not just perfection
Help students learn to work through their own
problems and evaluate their own work
Be optimistic, positive, and cheerful
Demonstrate good, active listening when students are
speaking
Provide several alternatives routes to task completion
and allow students some degree of choice
Professional Demeanor (358)
o Businesslike (358)
Establish clear academic goals and objectives
Communicate the goals and objectives to students
Plan lessons directed at helping students reach the objectives
Seek input from students about the reasonableness of goals
Emphasize activities and time devoted to academics
Treat the subject seriously and respectfully
Maintain a professional image
Involve all students in the instructional activities
Organize the room and equipment to minimize disruptions
Use volunteers to provide additional academic attention for
students
 o Adaptable/flexible (360)
Clearly define goals, objectives, or intentions and make them
known to students
When planning instruction, consider students characteristics,
attributes, preferences, and interests
Plan instruction that is interesting to the students and is
directed toward the intended learning outcomes
While implementing the planned instruction, systematically
and continually monitor students verbal and nonverbal
behavior to determine the appropriateness of your instruction
When the planned instruction appears to be inappropriate,
attempt to determine why and to identify alternatives
When necessary, implement an alternative and again monitor
its effectiveness
o Knowledgeable (362)
The most effective teachers combine content knowledge with
knowledge of teaching (pedagogy) and with knowledge of
students.
Reflection
Although I know that teachers need to be both professional and personal, I have
problems in balancing the two. I know teachers need to be both at the same
time, but I usually end up doing either or. I could either be personal or
professional, it is hard for me to be in the in-between. An example of this would
be my micro-teaching when I got carried away so much I the mood that I lost
track of time and found that I have only 5 minutes to wrap everything. There is
another example when I did my tutoring and I was so obsessed with time and
content that I did not consider about what my tutees were experiencing. I do not
really have a specific strategy to fix this, but I will try to keep in mind about one
when I started to get obsessed with the other.