To me quality teaching is when a teachers instruction is clear and students are actively

learning, and there is a sense of positive relationships built. Teachers state learning goals and
success criteria for how their students can be successful. Students are engaged and
collaborating with one another. Teachers create a learning environment that is welcoming and
encourages all students to learn. Students show respect to their teacher and their peers.
Teachers also make sure their students’ needs are met with quality teaching. A classroom with
quality teaching would look like teacher and students both engaged in the learning. This type of
classroom would look like a place where students can be self directed learners. At a school that
values quality teaching, all classrooms follow school wide guidelines and teachers work with
one another. A school that values quality teaching would have administration, teachers, and
other staff all on agreement of what is best for students to be the best learners possible. I think
that quality teaching does extend to the community because everything students learn at
school should be applicable to their home life as well. Students should be able to connect their
school learning to their community.
I believe that I witnessed quality teaching a lot during my high school and undergrad
experiences. In high school, my teachers gave explicit instruction and different choices to
showcase our learning. Most of them always posted learning targets daily so that we knew how
to be successful that day. In college, my professors always made it clear what their expectations
were and how to meet end of the semester goals. Also, during my year student teaching, I
observed my mentor teacher displaying quality teaching all year long. She had learning targets
for each part of the day and there was a mutual respect between her and our students. All
these teachers/professors created relationships with the class. I think that these things make up
quality teaching because the teachers actually enjoy teaching and students like being in that
classroom and learning. Both the teacher and students thrive when there is quality teaching.
During this COVID-19 experience, my views on quality has changed very little. Even with
online learning, I think it is so important to have those relationships with your students and
their families. The shift to online teaching also made it clear the importance of community for
my school. The community really came together to help distribute learning packets,
Chromebooks, and food for our students so that they could continue learning through all of
this. I think that online teaching, especially for lower elementary is challenging and hard to be a
quality teacher.