“Effective teachers dedicate their professional lives to not only teaching children the content required by the curriculum, but also to providing opportunities for their students to develop a love of learning and experience personal transformation through learning”
– Christopher Burton, one of the winners in the 2015 Future Teacher Scholarship Essay entitled “Teaching – why it’s more than just a job”.
Becoming a teacher is not an easy job. Others are saying everyone can teach but not all have the passion. I really agree with this statement. But there are questions arise in my mind when talking about learning of students. How to be an effective teacher? How to create a classroom that improve learning? In this essay, I am going to discuss factors that affect classroom learning.
To begin with, teaching inside a classroom is very difficult especially the students comes with a lot of differences. This is why, to become an effective teacher we need to prepare our lessons before the start of class. Robert J. Walker (2008) mentioned in his “Twelve Characteristics of and Effective Teacher” that a teacher is effective because they are ready for their class. But is this enough? Does being knowledgeable to your subject matter will make you an effective teacher? Will this improve classroom learning? I am a terrible teacher if I will answer yes. To be effective, a teacher must engage and encourage students to take part. Heritage and others (2013) said the depth and quality of student learning is greatly influenced by the capacity and opportunity to effectively communicate ideas, feelings, perspectives, and understanding. It means to me to improve student learning, one must be democratic and treat everyone in class without reservation.
In the Philippines, in my experience as being a student before and as a teacher now, there are some teachers have this practice I called “discrimination of competence”. This is where a teacher always give attention to those top ranking students in class to discuss and provide examples. They tend to ignore other students especially those who are below average. They don’t encourage other students to take part in class discussion. This greatly affect the participation of students in the classroom. If a teacher is very selective, ignoring other students, then learning will not be effective and equal.
To achieve effective learning, a teacher must create a classroom where everyone can gain support, respect and most importantly not being criticized by other students or by a teacher itself (Susak, 2016). Also, Heritage and others (2013) highlighted that a teacher’s classroom must be a place where:
- A place where students have to say.
- Encourage questions, contributions, suggestions, and learning from mistakes and successes.
- Enable risk – taking.
- Value every student’s contribution.
More so, a teacher should practice “engage more – talk less”. It means that conversation should be about 30% from the teacher and 70% from the students. It is one of the ways in promoting student-centric learning. In this approach, students have more chance to discuss the subject matter with other students and a feeling of belongingness. Ultimately, a teacher must not just adhere to what the curriculum says, but also to provide learning that will transform students intellectually and personally.
References:
Burton, C. (2015). Cristopher’s Essay. Teachers Mutual Bank (pp. 4-5). Homebush: Teachers Mutual Bank.
Margaret Heritage, Barbara Jones, Glory Tobiason and Sandy Chang. (2013). Fundamentals of Learning. From the common core state standards to teaching and learning in the classroom: A series of resources for teachers, 10. Los Angeles, California, USA: The Regents of the University of California.
Susak, M. (2016, April 4). Factors that Affect Classroom Participation. Retrieved from RIT Scholar Works : https://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=10526&context=theses
Walker, R. J. (2008). Twelve Characteristics of an Effective Teacher. Retrieved from files.eric.ed.gov: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ815372.pdf
Image:
Dissolve Limited, Canada. https://dissolve.com/stock-photo/Elementary-school-kids-sitting-around-teacher-royalty-free-image/101-D430-35-422
Life is what you make it. 