Eight habits of highly

effective 21st century

teachers
BYPCONAUGUST 15, 2008

(Last Updated On: March 3, 2014)

We hear a lot about the 21st century learner – but what about the 21st century teacher? Andrew
Churches investigates what makes them succeed.

What are the characteristics we would expect to see in a successful 21st century educator? Well,
we know they are student-centric, holistic, and they’re teaching about how to learn as much as
teaching about the subject area. We know, too, that they must be 21st century learners as well.
But highly effective teachers in today’s classrooms are more than this – much more.

1. Adapting
Harnessed as we are to an assessment-focused education model, the 21st century educator must
be able to adapt the curriculum and the requirements to teach to the curriculum in imaginative
ways. They must also be able to adapt software and hardware designed for a business model into
tools to be used by a variety of age groups and abilities. They must also be able to adapt to a
dynamic teaching experience. When it all goes wrong in the middle of a class, when the
technologies fail, the show must go on.

2. Being visionary
Imagination is a crucial component of the educator of today and tomorrow. They must look
across the disciplines and through the curricula; they must see the potential in the emerging tools
and Web technologies, grasp these and manipulate them to serve their needs. If we look at the
technologies we currently see emerging, how many are developed for education? The visionary
teacher can look at others’ ideas and envisage how they would use these in their class.

3. Collaborating
Blogger, Wikispaces, Bebo, MSN, MySpace, Second life, Twitter, RSS – as an educator we must
be able to leverage these collaborative tools to enhance and captivate our learners. We, too, must
be collaborators; sharing, contributing, adapting and inventing.

4. Taking risks
There’s so much to learn. How can you as an educator know all these things? You must take
risks and sometimes surrender yourself to the students’ knowledge. Have a vision of what you
want and what the technology can achieve, identify the goals and facilitate the learning. Use the
strengths of the digital natives to understand and navigate new products, have them teach each
other. Trust your students.
5. Learning
We expect our students to be life-long learners. Teachers, must continue to absorb experiences
and knowledge, as well. We must endeavour to stay current. I wonder how many people are still
using their lesson and unit plans from five years ago. To be a teacher, you must learn and adapt
as the horizons and landscapes change.

6. Communicating
To have anywhere, anytime learning, the teacher must be anywhere and anytime. The 21st
century teacher is fluent in tools and technologies that enable communication and collaboration.
They go beyond learning just how to do it; they also know how to facilitate it, stimulate and
control it, moderate and manage it.

7. Modelling behaviour
There is an expectation that teachers will teach values, so we must model the behaviors that we
expect from our students. We are often the most consistent part of their life, seeing them more
often, for longer and more reliably than even their parents. The 21st century educator also
models tolerance, global awareness, and reflective practice, whether it’s the quiet, personal
inspection of their teaching and learning, or through blogs, twitter and other media, effective
educators look both inwards and outwards.

8. Leading
Whether they are a champion of the process of ICT integration, a quiet technology coach, the
21st century educator is a leader. Like clear goals and objectives, leadership is crucial to the
success or failure of any project.

ANDREW CHURCHES IS HOD INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AT KRISTIN SCHOOL

IN AUCKLAND.

Based on the article by Andrew Churches

 
 *Adapting the curriculum and the requirements to teach the curriculum in imaginative ways*Adapting to technology and
use it as tools in teaching a variety of age groups and abilities.
 *Adapting to unforeseen circumstances and being flexible.

*Having a vision of grasping, manipulating, and using emerging tools and web technologies
*Looking at others’ ideas and envisioning how it could be used in one’s own class
 *Use collaborative tools to enhance and captivate learners such as Twitter, Blogger, FB etc.
*Educators must be collaborators who are sharing, contributing, adapting, inventing

*Surrender yourself to the students’ knowledge

*Accept that there is still so much to learn
*Use the strengths of digital natives to understand and navigate new products and have them teach each other
 *Educators, like students, should also be life-long learners and endeavor to stay current
*Lesson plans from five years ago may not be suitable and appropriate to the present learners
*Update yourself with current research studies and published articles

*To teach is to show. To teach values, one must model these values/behavior.
*The 21st century educator must model tolerance, global awareness, and reflective practice.
 *Leadership is crucial to the success or failure of any project.

What is teaching without learning?

For centuries, education experts made changes on its curriculum in order to achieve its
optimum goal, to produce globally competitive learners in the real sense. Decades passed
by yet experts still searching for an answer. As a result, curriculum undergo series of
changes. In my elementary years 1980’s PRODED to 2012’s K TO 12 CURRICULUM.

Yes, change is inevitable in all aspects of life. Education must adapt changes in order to
keep abreast with the fast changing society. New dimension of teaching-learning comes
in as DepED is catering new breed of learners.

On the other hand, teachers as prime catalyst of change should be upgraded to be worthy
being 21st century teachers. Andrew Churches formulated the ” Eight Habits of Highly
Effective 21st Century teachers, as a guide in developing competence . This Eight Habits
of Highly Effective 21st Century teachers is a challenge to all who are engage in teaching
profession specially the old ones with pessimistic attitude to take the risk in keeping
themselves current and updated in order to embrace the challenge, a change.

As teachers, we should not be outmoded. Upgrading competence should be prioritized in

every teachers professional goal. In doing so, we must acquire the the eight habits of
highly effective teachers, to wit;

THE ADAPTOR
Teachers must be able to adapt the curriculum and the requirements to teach the
curriculum in imaginative ways. They must also adapt the new trends of technology for
teaching both software and hardware designed into tools utilizable by a variety of age
groups and abilities. However, when it all goes wrong in the middle of a class, when the
technologies fail, the show must go on.

THE VISIONARY

Imaginative skills are  crucial component of the educators of today and tomorrow,
teachers must see the potential in the emerging tools and web technologies, acquire it and
manipulate them to serve their needs.

The visionary teacher can look at others and envisage how they would use these in their
class, one that can make links that reinforce and value learning in other areas, and
leverage other fields to reinforce own teaching and the learning of their students.

THE COLLABORATOR

As teachers, we must be able to use Blog, Wikispace, Bebo, MSN, MySpace , second life
a collaborative tools to enhance and captive our learners enthusiasm to our lesson.We too
must engage in collaborative learning in order to leverage ourselves to our learners’
learning style.
THE RISK TAKER

Effective teacher takes risk towards changes. As it is inevitable, we must be fluid to flow
smoothly in the current trends.

Sometimes we must take risks and surrender to the students knowledge.

THE LEARNER

Teachers motivates and mind sets every child to be a ” lifelong learner”. But before doing
it so, isn’t it right that teachers must acquire first the competence of being a lifelong
learner for them to have a right perspective in molding learners. As the saying goes ” You
cannot teach the things you don’t know” .
Teachers must learn more and adapt in order to be effective in teaching.

THE COMMUNICATOR

Learning took place anytime and anywhere as stipulated in new dimension of teaching
learning setting. So, teacher also must be anywhere and anytime using its communicative
skills via the full advantage of technologies. A 21st century teacher must be fluent in
tools and technologies that communication offers.

THE MODEL

The proverbs ” Don’t worry if the children don’t listen to you; Worry if they are watching
you”. explains best the theory of modelling being the best way of teaching.

Teachers being the most influential person in every child’s life must be a model in every
deeds and actions. So, We must be be keen observant of our behavior because children
often imitate us.

Learners have always high expectation on what we deed, so being beautiful inwardly is
somewhat a requirement for us teachers.

THE LEADER

Teachers must possess a sense of leadership.

How can we teach if we can’t lead learners? Leading them in  right way takes a lot of
skill because everyone has its unique characteristic and different level of tolerance.
So,being 21st century teacher entails a lot of leadership skills.

This is a big challenge for all teachers to take all the possible opportunity in
developing these eight characteristics of 21st Century Teachers in order to be competent
in dealing the 21st century learners.

This is a challenge for a the a change!

Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century Teachers
With this blog posts come a great article as well as some news concerning my career.

First of all the great article! When I was at Region 16 ESC one of the trainings we offered
was a Web 2.0 Boot Camp. I have written about the details of this training in the past,
but I bring it up now because we ran a 2009 version as well. One of the participants of
that course shared some great bookmarks with me on delicious and one of them was right
up the alley of this blog.

Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century Teachers is a great article written by Andrew
Churches who is in charge of Information Technology at Kristin School in Auckland. He
believes that teachers who strive to be considered a "21st Century Teacher" exhibt the
following eight qualities:

1. Adapting
2. Being Visionary
3. Collaborating
4. Taking Risks
5. Learning
6. Communicating
7. Modelling Behavior
8. Leading

As I reflect on these 8 qualities, I realize that these are qualities we also want to
encourage in our students to be successful in the 21st century. My question is, then, does
this mean that to be able to successfully prepare our students for life after school, we
must also be willing ourselves to step outside the box of traditional teaching? I will even
go as far as to say the task is near impossible to prepare students for the 21st century life
for the strickly traditional teacher.

As I've mentioned before, I am not saying that things "we've always done" should go out
the window, but I encourage and challenge today's teachers to take a long hard look at
what you do in your classroom and ask yourself:

How is this relevant to learning?

What
is the purpose of this task?

If the answers to those questions do not reflect a 21st century type of learning, then
maybe it's time to retire that lesson. With the way things change so quickly, it is no
longer "okay" to create your lessons once never to have a look at them again.

Do you have any other questions teachers should consider when evaluating their
lessons according to 21st century learning and education?

Now for the news! I have left my job at Region 16 Education Service Center. There were
many reasons behind my decision to leave - some of them personal - but one of the main
reasons is because I would like to focus more on instructional technology and the job, for
various reasons, was turning into a grant management position. While grants are
necessary and very helpful, I found that I was not able to focus as much on getting
technology into the hands of teachers and changing classrooms. After much discussion
with my husband, I felt this was the best move for me - both personally and
professionally.

I do have plans to stay heavily involved in the Instructional Technology world, though "the
plan" is 100% ready to go so I shall refrain from discussing that until it's all ready to go. I
have also been blessed with the opportunity to teach some online professional
development classes for Texas Virtual School. This has helped keep me busy during the
day (though I've been plenty busy trying to get my house in shape after moving into our
new house in March), plus provide some extra spending money.

Stay tuned for further developments and hopefully you'll see more and more posts with
some great information!

Go forth and be a great 21st Century Educator!

My Reflection on The Eight Habits of Highly

Effective 21st Century Teacher
Leave a reply
      The world is changing. We are now in the
computer age. We enjoy luxuries of communicating people through web. Meeting new old
and new friends through internet. Knowing people in just a click of the mouse and sending
messages with no hassle.
        I admit, I am in this age but I am still seeking additional knowledge to be a one of the
21st century teacher. Learning more about teaching strategies using multimedia is a
challenge to me. Be one of the Guro 21 learners is a though task but I am learning. Even I
failed on some of my activities, having difficulties in time management but I am happy of
what I gain in this course. 
        When I am given a chance to create a blog, to give my opinion and reflection on the
readings, I choose to have the Eight Habits of 21st Century Teacher. This truly help me in
seeking more knowledge and able to adopt the new learning and teaching trend.
        As 21st century teacher, I must develop the eight habits of 21st century teacher. I must
learn how to be an adaptor of new knowledge using ICT . Eager to learn how to integrate the
use of multimedia in teaching and the new curriculum to be used. I must be a visionary,
create imaginative way of learning.  A collaborator of learning, communicate through
different social medias. Share ideas and insights. Making this blog is an example to this. Risk
taker, we are all risk taker. We take challenge for our students. A learner. we must
continuously seek learning for change and learn as the horizons and landscape changes.
Having the Guro 21 course is a one of this. A communicator. it means we can have learning
anywhere and anytime. we must change the scenario of just being in the classroom. Let us
explore different place of learning so we can give our students a lifelong learning. As
teacher, We must possess model behavior.  A model of learning and good characteristics.
Also in global awareness, that we have to promote equality of learning in our students.
Lastly, a leader. Knows how how to deal with situations, knowledgeable enough to handle
situation and adapt the new world of learning.
       With this habits,I’m sure teacher like me will be ready to face the new challenge in
teaching. Makes everyday learning meaningful and productive. Creating a lifelong learning to
our students and as well as to ourselves.Teacher of 21st century , Lets make a difference! Let
us not scared to face challenges!
 TEACH. TOUCH LIVES. INSPIRE This blog features significant ideas on being in the
noblest profession of touching and influencing lives - TEACHING.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2017

Insights Learned from the article "Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century
Teachers" by A. Churches (2008)

Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century Teachers

by A. Churches (2008)*

Andrew Churches identified in this article the characteristics of a highly effective

21st century teacher. I remember Henry Adam’s quotation about teachers: “The teacher affects
eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops”. If well lived, the eight habits will absolutely
liven teachers’ spirits to have great contribution to the civilization today and beyond.

            This article opened my mind and heart about the positive attitudes that I must live on as
a teacher in this century: adapting, being visionary, collaborating, risk-taking, learning,
communicating, modelling behavior, and leading.

I need to be fully developed with these characteristics so that they will become my
habits. If I demonstrate these habits, they will help me a lot to become an effective facilitator of
learning. I believe adapting, modelling behavior, communicating and leading are my strong
points. On the other hand, I need to improve on collaborating, taking risks, being visionary and
learning. It is because I have to enhance on my online collaboration skills, taking risks in
producing outputs, on being more imaginative in creating learning tasks, and continue learning. 

  With right attitude and optimism, the characteristics will hopefully become my habits.