What is an Effective Teacher?

Sandra Roberts

Summer 2002

EMG 807

What is an effective teacher?

A kind of teacher that can change the course of a students’ life.

A FAVORITE teacher!!

How Effective Teachers Perceive

Themselves

Their students

Teaching

Their subject

Effective Teachers Never Forget

Positive self-perceptions Doesn’t take misbehavior PERSONAL! Works WITH students not just NEAR. Never forgets what it is like to be a KID. Empathic Feels good about themselves and are

effective people in general.

Effective Teachers are Effectively NAI VE

Positive perceptions about students. HIGH EXPECTATIONS Believe that somewhere down deep

there are good kids in everyone just trying to get out.

Sustains POSITIVE expectations even when presented with negatives.

Effective Teachers See the BIG Picture

Focuses on two important things – KIDS and EDUCATION.

Believes their job is to produce effective, happy competent human beings.

“How will these kids be better ten years from now because of what happened in class today?”

Effective Teachers Know Their Stuff

Knows their subject and gains personal satisfaction from sharing what they know.

Uses enthusiasm, humor, dramatics, and self-disclosure.

Nine “M’s” of Motivation

1. Emotion – Control the emotions and you control the message. 93% of the message is the emotion and sensory associations.

2. Imagination – Get students to imagine or envision new actions. Imagination is so rarely tapped. At-risk learners fantasize regularly and become skilled at it. Imagination taps the natural, practiced cognitive processes of some learners. Imagination can be bold, daring, impractical, and even absurd.

Nine “M’s” of Motivation

3. Movies of the Mind – Communicate so learners can access remembered life experiences related to your content. Use sensory or evocative language (images, feelings, odors, touch, taste).

4. Motive – Answer the question “Why” in compelling and attractive ways in the first three minutes of your communication. Remember that your motive may not be the learner’s motive. Get students to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Nine “M’s” of Motivation

5. Mind Sets – Like a flashlight pointed in the darkness, we find only what we look for. Mind set often reflect our beliefs and remembered associated experiences. When you change the mind set, you change the meaning.

6. Metaphors – The mind is metaphoric. Use stories and analogies as a way of expanding meaning and motivation. Ask students to draw a picture of your message.

Nine “M’s” of Motivation

7. Models of Excellence – We become a lot like the people with whom we spend time. We mimic or parent like we were parented and teach like we were taught. Getting learners to identify and describe admired adults provides a frame work for understanding subliminal meaning making and motivation.

Nine “M’s” of Motivation

8. Mottos – Voices of the past become platitudes of the present. Most of us repeat internal “self-talk” unconsciously which reflects an internal dialogue as an effort to make meaning. Inquire about the self talk. What are the mottos of the learner?

9. Morphic Resonance – The culture of a peer group or climate of a classroom has implied rules for acceptable and unacceptable responses. To change the culture, you must change the rituals and often the informal leaders who unconsciously determine the rules and reactions of others.

Model What You Want

Teachers who preach futility and practice helplessness develop impotence in their students.

Teachers who are enthusiastic have enthusiastic students.

Teachers who are cynical promote apathy in their students.

Teachers who are hopeful have students who are optimistic.

Teachers who model combativeness and hostility produce angry, self-centered students.

Teachers who are kind and respectful to others have students who show compassion.

Classroom Rituals

Rituals are activities that are repeated that communicate, “What’s Important Here!”

What are the existing rituals in your classroom? What’s important here? How is improvement celebrated? What is the dominant emotion of learners? How do you handle questions, attendance, discipline, grades, parents, humor, conflict, homework, etc?

Choosing the Classroom Ritual

Questions the teacher should answer in selecting a ritual:

1. What is important here?2. What is the legacy I want to leave with learners

today?3. What am I teaching worth remembering for a

lifetime?4. What is the dominant emotion I want learners to

feel?5. How can I connect what I am teaching to learner

mind motives?

We find what we look for…

Look for improvement, not perfection.Acknowledge indicators of improvement.Celebrate quality performance and efforts

at improvement.If we look for problems and imperfection,

we will find them and encourage and expand them by drawing attention to them.

One of the greatest gifts is to hear…

“You are my FAVORITE TEACHER!!”

References

Wasicko, M. (2002, July 10). Building successful relationships with children. Educating Kentucky’s At-Risk Kids: Best Practices for Alternative & Non-Traditional Setting Conference at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY.

Phillips, G. (2002, July 12). What teachers do to succeed with students who fail. Educating Kentucky’s At-Risk Kids: Best Practices for Alternative & Non-Traditional Setting Conference at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY.