Teaching characteristics to avoid

Sometimes in a lesson, even with strong attention-gaining action at the start, things can drift. This can because the task is too long for the initial instructions, or it could be that students have diverged with some way ahead of the others; it can be because you talk too long without engaging all the students in thinking and questioning; it can be because you allow low level chat to escalate so pockets of students are way off task.

All of these things need to be addressed. At any time, you can re-set, re-explain or re-establish the level of focus and attention you require. This can be difficult to address because teachers rarely deliberately set the level of challenge too low. This emerges either because of not knowing the curriculum well enough or not knowing the students well enough.

Teaching characteristics to avoid: Three things teachers should never do

Moderation activities in CPD time are vital for setting standards; you should know what excellence might look like in any setting and be pitching for it, teaching to the top. Most often, where this pitfall arises, it relates to a sub-group of students in a class. You only find out by pushing them to see what they can do. It might also be a question of the difficulty of the assessment: you need to balance challenge with building confidence.

Again, a big feature of CPD should be around designing effective assessments that achieve a good balance.

Teaching characteristics to avoid: 1. Yelling: No one

A relatively common pitfall is confusing learning objectives and tasks. However, if you are not explicit about the learning objective for each task, it can go wrong: the students are busy, maybe engaged enthusiastically, but they might not be learning what you want them to learn. Or, it could be that an activity is far too convoluted and time-consuming relative to a bit of simple direct teaching.

You need to think about learning objectives first, tasks second. Differentiation is difficult and often problematic. Do the parents of your highest attainers and your EHCP students love you because of the attention their children get? Are you just as likely to call their parents? These are good prompts and challenges for us all. The pitfall is to ignore the issue.

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Teaching characteristics to avoid: 1. You Try to be

Students would frequently reference these types of engaging lessons and activities at the end of the year, as they had made a memorable impact. Worksheets and multiple choice drills, although they may look more controlled from an outside perspective, were not frequently referenced as having a significant impact on the students' deep understanding of the material.

Disorganization can lead to hours of valuable time lost, duplicating the workload for teachers. Teachers in my school used to spend hours searching for last year's flash drive, worksheet or lesson. Teachers are not always taught how to create a systematic way to organize lessons and materials. I created a central repository with the use of Google shared drives for everyone to combine resources.

We created a standardized lesson plan template built into a PowerPoint. Teachers could simply pull up the PowerPoint teaching characteristics to avoid directions for the activities, notes, etc. Now, my teachers know exactly where the aligned lessons are located and can focus on tweaking the lesson as opposed to repeatedly, frantically creating something from scratch.

Furthermore, teachers bought into this system because they had created the original shared lesson plan; as opposed to using a purchased, packaged curriculum. For example, a student might have put on headphones and disruptively started singing along. This would then be typically followed by a loud five-minute spectacle between student and teacher ultimately ending with the student being removed from class.

Inevitably these confrontations have ripple effects, resulting in multiple students being kicked out, wandering the hallways and missing out on even more instruction. Instead, I encouraged teachers to take preventive measures. Before these incidents multiply, identify the few students in need of special emotional support and behavior correction conferences, calls home or utilization of administrators.

Proactively build positive relationships with those students who are behaving well. Simply walking around the room and talking to students as individuals has an incredible impact on classroom culture. This can take as few as 30 seconds, but it has big payoffs. My team of teachers transitioned from one large test every few weeks that wasn't revisited until the final examto numerous mini tests and quizzes.

Now, with more frequent assessment, students have multiple attempts to show mastery of a concept. Students have hope after failing a test as opposed to just giving up and having to accept the F. We've built in opportunities for students to retest and replace poor quiz grades on large interim assessments. It encourages cramming, reduces retention, and places immense pressure on students and teachers alike to cover a huge amount of material between testing rounds.

Generally, students will perform at a level consistent with performance expectations. This means we have to consciously treat students equally, make our expectations clear and applicable to all, and constantly encourage improvement. You know the feeling—when you ask a question and receive absolute radio silence. Many of us often fail to anticipate that many students will not share our enthusiasm for a lesson.

What happens now? We answer the question ourselves, make an ironic joke, move on. The best way to deal with silence is to not be phased by it. Smile to yourself and move on, show you are still in control, and your students will feel more comfortable and be more willing to volunteer the next time. When we need to make instant decisions — ideally good ones — without much information, we rely on this sort of thinking.

Getting to know students too often comes second. The truth is, whether you learn anything about their learning preferences or not which you probably willthe gesture itself is powerful enough to increase student motivationself-expression, and performance. Explore our collection of informative and educational blog posts to stay updated on the latest industry trends and expert advice.

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