As much as teachers are there to educate, they also face the challenge of needing to constantly learning new skills. They have to navigate adaptations to their curriculum, trends, and culture regarding the current generation while also learning to integrate modern technology into their teaching approaches. Every year brings new challenges for teachers, and they need to continue learning and improving to keep up with them.
In the classroom
How educators approach teaching, discipline, and the students as a whole has a significant impact on the next generation of adults. While improving your teaching skills starts before you even get into the classroom, when it comes down to it, it really is where most of your skills develop. So, here are some tips to help improve your in-class teaching skills:
1. Learn to break down large concepts
While students may all be in the same class, they are unique and, therefore, may all be at different stages of development. This means that their perspectives and the ease with which they understand concepts will differ, too. As a teacher, it’s your job to cater to students who excel academically and those who struggle to understand certain concepts.
The simplest way to do this is to standardise how you explain concepts to your students. Learn to break down large concepts into smaller parts so students can understand them more easily. A great way to do this is to use the Adept analogy, which stands for:
- Analogy: give students an example
- Diagram: provide them with something to visualise
- Example: try to let them experience it if possible
- Use simple language: don’t use big words, try to simplify the concept as much as possible
- Add the bigger details: once students have the fundamentals understood, explain the more complex details
This should help your students retain some of the information that you taught.
2. Use technology where you can
A teacher’s primary role is to essentially prepare students for the future — teaching them the skills they will need to succeed as adults. However, the world might not look the same when they reach adulthood!
Technology will definitely be a part of your students’ future, and they need to learn to use it well. This is where you come in. Learning to integrate beneficial forms of technology into your lessons and classroom can help students become familiar with tech, learning how it can be used productively instead of just for social media or gaming.
3. Build a good rapport with your students
Building a good relationship with your students makes them more receptive to your lessons. Think about the teachers you remember from school. There were the ones who were too strict, who liked to fool around too much, and then those who genuinely put time and effort into their students, demonstrating a balance between discipline and making lessons fun. Those teachers were often the ones who left a lasting impression on their students and encouraged them to put effort into their studies.
To improve your rapport with students, here are some tips:
- Make an effort to get to know your students
- Set clear expectations and boundaries
- Try to cultivate a positive social environment in your classroom
- Give them constructive and meaningful feedback
- When appropriate, try to engage with students one-on-one
4. Learn to connect with parents
Parents play a huge role in their children’s education, and when they’re actively involved, they make life easier for the teacher (in some cases) and make things better for their children. In addition to having parents who are interested and involved with their children’s education, they can also help you.
You need to be open and upfront with parents and students about your expectations for the school year. Include parents in emails, involve them, and give them feedback on their children’s performance often. When you need help, don’t hesitate to involve parents. That said, gauge how engaged parents are in their students’ education. You can also use constructive feedback from parents to improve your teaching.
Outside the classroom
There are also some key things that you can do outside of the classroom! For instance:
1. Study further
You could study further. Generally, teachers get a bachelor’s degree in education before they start teaching. But you can go further than this, doing a graduate certificate, diploma, or even your master’s degree. There are a few benefits to this. Firstly, you’ll enhance your resume, opening up more job opportunities. And secondly, these courses provide you with new insights, techniques, and teaching strategies that you can use to improve your teaching skills.
2. Ask for feedback
We already touched on this a bit earlier. However, feedback can be one of the most effective ways to improve your teaching skills if you act on that feedback. Consider asking a colleague or a more mature student to give you feedback on how they found your lesson. Was it easy to understand? Did you make complex topics seem more straightforward to comprehend? Once you have this feedback, you can actively use it to improve your teaching strategy for the next lesson.
3. Reflect on your teaching practices
Following on that last point, doing your own intrinsic reflection on your teaching practices also helps. By reflecting and examining your lessons, you can find errors that need improvement and pinpoint areas that worked well. Then, when planning for your following lessons, you can improve on the aspects that need improvement and reuse the other effective methods. Here are a few strategies that may help:
- Do a SWOT analysis of your lesson
- Keep a teaching journal with notes to improve on
- Set SMART goals
- Try to get feedback from students where possible
4. Work alongside others and learn from them
Lastly, there’s a lot you can learn from others. Get in touch with other teachers and ask them about their teaching strategies. They might be able to give you a different perspective on how to teach a topic or another approach that could take your teaching to a whole other level.
Where to study
One of the best ways a teacher can advance their skillset and improve their teaching abilities is to do a Master’s in Teaching. This advanced education degree takes teachers a step further, equipping them with skills to help them in the classroom and with other teachers.
If you want a sure way to improve your teaching, doing a Master of Teaching online is your best bet! Here is a page from Victoria University that will give you all the information you need to know about how to go about applying and doing your Master of Teaching through their online platform.
Final thoughts
There are many ways in which teachers can improve their teaching skills, both inside and outside of the classroom. From building good rapport with students and sharpening your delivery of lessons to furthering your own education, there will always be space to improve for those who work in education. After all, isn’t that what education is all about?
