TEACHING COMPETENCIES IN CLASSROOM LEARNING

INTRODUCTION

Teaching is not just an act of teach. It is art. It is a way of sharing knowledge so that people
can learn and change their behaviour and mind through the process. In historical view,
people give more emphasize into content knowledge of teaching, how the teacher master
his/her own content knowledge about specific topic being delivered is extremely important.
But as the world changes and more and more people become interested on focusing into
what makes a good teaching, the research has diverged into vast area. The research on
teaching has developed so fast like a wildfire, trying to define what make a good teaching,
what factors affect the effectiveness of teaching. Not to be surprised, it has many. From
content knowledge as believed for centuries, into attitude, pedagogical skills, the way the
language and intonation used and so many others. While thousands of research papers has
discussed about the teaching competencies, it is still not approaching the edge of it, the
limit. Many other factors that potentially can increase the effectiveness in teaching is still
wait to be discovered. Therefore, the research shall not stop, instead, current finding should
motivate researchers into putting more effort in discovering the skills needed for teacher in
the realm of teaching. This report discuss about some teaching competencies skills that has
been discovered in literature to increase the effectiveness of teaching. It is hoped that this
effort can broaden readers’ knowledge about existing teaching competencies that can be
employed in classroom.

When we discuss about teaching competency, we should also discuss about the importance
of it. What make it so important? Because it affect the way students perceived the
knowledge. The set of skills that the teacher has will give influence of how good the student
learn. Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of the framework for teacher evaluation to
visualize the factors that affecting pupil learning in schools (D. M., & Crook, P. R., 1980).
The research done has discovered how the teaching competency is interrelated with the
student learning. For instance, if we are going to investigate about the teachers effects on
the students, by means of the teacher competencies, we must then regard all of the factors
that affect the students’ outcome so detection of errors of measurement can be made. This
reveal that, even though teachers’ competencies has great influence on students’ learning,
but, there is also some others contributing factor that affecting. We should not see the
teaching competencies as the only major aspect that influence, rather regard is as one of
the important contributing factor alongside the others.

Figure 1 Factors Affecting Pupil Learning in School (M.M Donald, 1980)

TEACHING COMPETENCIES

Discussion about teaching competency should start with the meaning of competency.
Because it is a widely used term in a very large context, therefore it has been defined into
many different meaning according to the perspective. But generally in teaching education,
it can be defined as the requirement for the teaching to be considered as “competency-
based”, which also included knowledge, skill and values that have to be possessed by a
teacher to be success. Basic characteristic that determining the competency which are:
 1. It must be consist of a skill or set of skills that the one who use it can attain
2. It is linked to three major domains; knowledge, skills and attitude.
3. Whenever the competency is within a performing dimension, it should be able to
observed and demonstrated.
4. It should also be measurable.

These are some basic characteristic that has been described by some researchers in order
to explain competency. However, as mentioned before, indifferent context and perspective,
some domain may change. For example, some other researchers, after consensus of
research in some extend, has concluded the domain to be in knowledge, strategies, use of
language and assessment and evaluation. Researchers believed that competencies is
something that assessable, therefore it can be observed through prepared rubrics, which has
been developed in many ways around the world, in order to evaluate the teaching
competencies. There is also a movement risen to change competency from its traditional
form into more comprehensive way for example The Occupational Competency movement
which has been started by David McClelland in 1960. It focus on specific values, traits and
motivation, specifying the knowledge, skills and attitude aspect.

Some researchers believed that it is very hard to levelling the teaching competency of a
teacher as “good” or “poor” This is due to inability of defining what really is teaching
competencies in a comprehensive way (Allan. C. & Barney. B, 1995) It is also due to the
complexity that involved in judging teacher behaviour. But somehow, this does not
disprove the validity of teacher competency evaluation instrument but it is that it cannot
give a comprehensive idea on the teachers’ effectiveness in every aspect. If we considered
the new research in teaching competency, we can see the pattern of it is more on defining
effective teachers as a very task-oriented (Allan. C. & Barney. B, 1995) This may lead to
a very objective side of teaching but ignoring the nature aspect of human such as the need
of gesture, friendly, warm and also democratic value of the teacher. Research has provided
claims that most research is focusing on the quantifiable aspect of teaching while overlook
the qualitative aspect such as emotional and joy.

It is not always about data, not always about quantity, but a good and successful teacher is
the teacher that love to teach and have high enthusiasm to teach. In the end, what makes
teacher a likeable, easy to be understood, that finally can help students excel in their
academic performance, is the teacher that has capacity to accept wrongness, understand,
and appreciate students so that the student will feel good about themselves (Allan. C. &
Barney. B, 1995). It should be considered that the positive attitudes underlying the teachers
give impact on firing up the enthusiastic environment of education.

21ST CENTURY TEACHING COMPETENTCY

As we moved into new era of 21st century, research on teaching competency has revolved
around describing teaching competency in more adaptable manner in the current situation
and preparing for the future. United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) has release a working papers in 2015 to support the demand by
discussing what types of competency should be considered in teaching, by means of
pedagogical aspects. The main focus of this effort is to underlying the aspect of teachings
that can be adapted to enable transformation in teaching. Focus has been given into its
ability to ensure the education system is able to prepare student for facing the complexity
of the world challenge (Cynthia .L. 2015). The main question that underlying the
development of the teaching competency has been for years about how can teachers and
educators support students in developing skills suitable for twenty first century. It is to
reach the need of high-order thinking skills that currently been focused. In order to generate
the thinking skills, it is claimed that teachers and students should engage in enquiry-based
teaching/learning that has pure value and relevance personally and socially. The
application of real-world experiences and opportunities learners’ construction and organize
and knowledge also seemingly helpful.

Discussing about transforming the way of teaching competency reviewed, it must be

aligned with the globally transformed students’ attitude towards learning. By comparing to
traditional form, students nowadays are more likely considered themselves as a participants
in generating information and ideas. They engage more actively in classroom and learning
environment instead of just being a passive learner. To fulfil the needs of student,
UNESCO in its paper has then determining the pedagogical aspect of teaching competency
into three major principles which are; personalization, participation and productivity
(Cynthia .L. 2015).

Regarding what has been discussed, the development of teaching competency must be in-
line with the research of how the students learn to support them preparing themselves for
the complex and dynamic changing world. It has been suggested nine principles for
teaching skills that has been considered into UNESCO working paper which are;

1. Make learning relevant to the ’big picture’

2. Teach through disciplines
3. Develop lower and higher order thinking skills to encourage understanding in
different contexts
4. Encourage transfer of learning
5. Teach how to ‘learn to learn’ or metacognition aspect
6. Address misunderstandings directly
7. Promote teamwork
8. Exploit technology to support learning
9. Foster students’ creativity

The talk about teaching competencies is about the high-quality teacher. Because they have
the strongest influence on students’ achievement alongside factors like individual
characteristics and family experience. But in context of in-school, teachers are what matter
the most. Therefore teachers have to play their role to guide, discuss and measure the
progress of learners. This very important in order to build students’ learning capacity and
support students’ development into lifelong, active, independent, then the teacher would
be ‘learning coaches’ that lead the students’ performance.

While other researcher has generate the concept of 21st century teaching competency into
five different major which explain the competency in more explicit way. The competencies
are;

1. Demonstration of leadership skill in teaching

2. Creating a respectful environment for diverse population of students
 3. Mastering the content knowledge
4. Facilitating learning for the students
5. Reflection on teaching practices

In some research, it is found that teaching competency may require the same level of
knowledge, skills and attitude, but in some other researches, it is found that the variables
does not necessarily in the same level. One can have dominant tendency towards one aspect
but less possessment of the others. This writing will encompasses the teaching
competencies which somehow interrelated with the aspects discussed in the 21st century
teaching competencies to ensure its’ relevance for the time being.

CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Pedagogical aspect in teaching has been proven to give impact on learning experience has
been discussed before. But what matter more is the ability of teacher to be competent and
mastery the knowledge of his/her knowledge on the subject matter. While being able to
command the content knowledge, a teacher should always be kept updated to current
changes revolves around the subject. For example in what happen several years ago about
the declaration of Pluto no more considered as a planet in our solar system because of its
characteristic that differ from others’. In that meantime, school text book has taken such a
long time to republish the new information, but the teachers, Science teachers especially
should be able to grasp the change and foster to the class so that student can get the precise
information. This is the same situation with the rapid-update and changes made in periodic
table of element in Chemistry subject according to latest discovery by scientist. Teachers
should stay ahead for new updated information to ensure and encompasses the students’
with quality content. That is one aspect that make a high quality teacher.

In the aspect of content knowledge in addition, teacher must master the professional
knowledge according to the current curriculum objectives, pedagogy and subject content.
This should be mustered with the ability to lead in sharing and promoting culture among
the students with a vision to develop school as professional learning community, instead
just traditionally teaching-learning centre. The importance of focusing in improving
content knowledge should be emphasized. This is due to high responsibility for the teacher
to deliver a sufficient in-depth and wide-breadth of the information in education (ACTEQ,
2003). Teacher should be prepared him/herself with adequate knowledge of the subject
taught, without overlooking the content background and cultural awareness needed in the
background. Respected to the teachers’ knowledge, they must be committed in seeking
more knowledge and always improve the professionalism towards the knowledge. Develop
tolerance, and acquire greater awareness of the world community will also affecting and
helping building a better future of education (ACTEQ, 2003). Therefore, a high-quality
teacher must be able to integrate and process information from a diverged sources. Not
only acquiring new knowledge but also revising the old one and continuously making self-
improvement onto content knowledge.

COGNITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Not only learning, teaching also involves high activity on thinking process. In fact, some
view teachers as “thoughtful professional” giving more emphasize on the thinking aspect
of teaching (Peterson, P.L, 1988). This is due to the cognitive activity required to process
and deliver the information accordingly to the situation. Cognition, according to American
Heritage Dictionary is mean by the “mental process or facility by which knowledge is
acquired”. Taking into account the nature of educational practices; in order to help student
think, therefore the teachers must be able to think first. We must be able to tell that there
is a difference between knowing and thinking. Teachers might have been prepared with
adequate information about the content and subject matter to teach, but in some cases, the
‘knowing’ is just not enough. There is a time where their knowledge is insufficient in some
context because no one knows everything. Therefore, what is more important is to think
how to gain the information, knowing about the way of figuring out what they need to
know, where and how to get it. For instance, by referring to the quotation by Holmes Group
“competent teachers empowered to make principled judgments and decisions on their
students' behalf, who possess broad and deep understanding of the subjects they teach, the
nature of learning and schooling, and the world around them, and who exemplify the
critical thinking they strive to develop in students” (CFEE, 1986).

This quotation have focusing on some important qualities of what it means by “thoughtful-
Professional”. Firstly, the teacher must be engaging continuously in the process of learning
to foster students in learning to learn and facilitate to embed the high order thinking
learning. Next, is for teachers to have high level of decision-making, thinking and
judgement I which teacher engages, not just in the behavioural aspect. Therefore, the
“effective teaching” can be can be understood in a way of the ability of teachers to regulate
his/her own thoughts, cognitions, judgement, thinking, and learning processes. Finally, the
statement from the quotation suggest that there is a profound relation between teachers’
ability to handle the cognitive aspect with students’ achievement in learning and perceiving
knowledge. The ability to highly use cognitive aspect enable teachers to help students to
think themselves and additionally make the meaning out of it. It is believed that describe
and assess teachers’ thinking and cognition become an important factor to determine the
quality of teaching (Peterson, P.L, 1988).

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL COMPETENCY

Research has provided bases that give evidence on how teacher’s social-emotional
competence has strong influence in students. Study shows that when the teacher can handle
the teacher-student relationship with warm environmental classroom, it supports deep
learning and positive vibes in the classroom. In contrast, when the teacher could not
manage the social and emotional demand of teaching and it is poorly handed, students’
academic achievement and behaviour declined (Kimberly. A, 2017). Regarding to
researcher Patricia Jennings of the University of Virginia and Mark Greenberg of
Pennsylvania State University, "the quality of teacher-student relationships, student and
classroom management, and effective social and emotional learning program
implementation all mediate classroom and student outcomes”.
However, even after a research conducted concluded teachers really think that social-
emotional competency is very important in teaching, but many of them cannot implement
it in the classroom (Kimberly. A, 2017) this may due to the stressful lives of the teachers.
Study shows that the high level of stress have harm the teachers’ overall health. But it is
not just it. The stress teachers suffer can be contagious and effect student performance
(Kimberly, 2017) it is to the extent that it become a very big problem. A study reported
that in 10,000 sample being tested to study the relationship between classroom environment
and students’ mental health has revealed that teachers who have higher level of stress had
more students suffering mental health problem. This is to be specifically is when the
teachers has lacked resources in teaching like paper and pencil, furnishing, computers. It
induced more possibility for the impulsive behaviour, interpersonal problems, expressing
emotion problems, internalizing problems such as anxiety and low self-esteem (Kimberly.
A, 2017). In contrast, a good attitude teachers with warm personality, product of being
social – emotionally stable producing more suitable environment and supporting students’
academic achievement.

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

In order for the teacher to teach and deliver the content intended, one important factor that
can influence the success is the communication. While communication can be both verbal
and non-verbal communication. For instance, (Woolfolk, A. E., & Brooks, D. M, 1983)
assume that nonverbal communication does not require intentionally send or receive the
information. Some researchers believed that the non-verbal behaviour and on-verbal
communication can be used interchangeably. This is referring to Siegman and Feldstein
(1978) "Nonverbal communication, then, could include nonverbal behaviours that are
involved in the transmission of experience information from one person”. Interestingly,
teachers actually produced impression and expectations on the student in many aspects
observed, one of them is students’ non-verbal behaviour. But then, teachers’ impression
and expectation towards the student will be affecting the behaviour to the student which
then gives signal to the student. Lastly, student can “read” the message and deduced how
teacher’s perception towards him/her by making inferences based on the observation. This
cycle of impression, expectation, behaviour, observation and interpretation is continuously
happen throughout the classroom learning (Woolfolk, A. E., & Brooks, D. M, 1983). It is
also cyclic and bidirectional between teachers and students.

This non-verbal behaviour is somehow giving implicit knowledge unintentionally and

impact the performance of teaching-learning. Teachers intentionally or unintentionally has
responded to the student base on the teacher’s perception, for example, teachers tend to
create “a warmer socio-emotional atmosphere for brighter students” (Woolfolk, A. E., &
Brooks, D. M, 1983). This is a really important area to be investigated. It is due to that the
teacher’s performance has impact on student’s performance especially in one-to-one-
teaching. Study from social psychology aspect has found that people are tend to react
negatively when they feel and observe negative non-verbal reactions from others. We
should start consider this non-verbal communication as important aspect that should be
metacognitively recognized by teacher about his/ her own impression on students. Because
students in some ways can “sense” it by observing it throughout the teaching. It has been
found that there is evidence supported some teachers tend to distance students that
perceived as “low-ability”. This is in a way that sometimes the student that considered as
“low ability” has been placed so far from the teacher’s table making the student unable to
hear teaching content clearly (Woolfolk, A. E., & Brooks, D. M, 1983).

Therefore, in terms of behavioural study, teachers should be aware of the non-verbal

communication it shows to the student and gesture made to maintain students’ motivation.

REFERENCES

Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications (2003). Towards A

Learning Profession: The Teacher Competencies Framework and The Continuing
Professional Development Of Teachers. Hong Kong, DC: Author
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University of North Carolina Press, 78(3), 164-171.

Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy (1986). A Nation Prepared: Teachers For
The 21st Century: The Report Of The Task Force On Teaching As A Profession,
May 1986. Washington, D.C.: The Forum.

Cynthia .L. (2015). The Futures of Learning 3: What kind of Pedagogies For the 21st
Century? [Brochure]. Author. Retrieved March 15, 2018, from
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002431/243126e.pdf

Kimberly. A. (2017). Social and Emotional Learning and Teachers. The Future of
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Peterson, P. L. (1988). Teachers and Students Cognitional Knowledge for Classroom

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