7 Professional Ways To Improve Your Teaching Skills
The classroom is a dynamic environment bringing together students from different backgrounds with different abilities and personalities. Being an effective teacher requires implementating creative and innovative teaching strategies to meet the individual needs of students. Whether you've been teaching for two months or twenty years, it can be difficult to know which teaching strategies will work best for your students. As a teacher, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Here is a set of effective teaching strategies you can use to inspire your practice in the classroom.
1. Visualization
Bring faded academic concepts to life with visual and hands-on learning experiences, helping your students understand how to apply their education in the real world. Examples include using the interactive whiteboard to display images, audio, and video clips as well as encouraging your students to get out of their seats with classroom experiences and local field trips.
2. Cooperative Learning
Encourage students with mixed abilities to work together by encouraging small group or whole class activities. By orally expressing their ideas and responding to others, your students will develop their confidence as well as enhance their communication and critical thinking skills, which are vital throughout life. Solving math puzzles, doing science experiments, and making short dramatic drawings are just a few examples of how cooperative learning can be incorporated into classroom lessons.
3. Inquiry-based Instructions
Ask thought-provoking questions that inspire your students to think for themselves and become more independent learners. Encouraging students to ask questions and investigate their ideas helps improve their problem-solving skills as well as gain a deeper understanding of academic concepts. These are important life skills. Queries can be science- or math-based, such as:
How do we solve this math problem using a different method? What are the different ways plants can adapt to their environment?4. Differentiation
Differentiate your teaching style by assigning assignments based on students' abilities to ensure no one is left behind. Assigning classroom activities to students' unique learning needs means that individuals of higher academic ability are given enough challenge, and those who struggle are given appropriate support. This could include handing out worksheets that vary in complexity to different groups of students or setting up a set of workstations around the class that have a variety of tasks for students to choose from. Furthermore, using a learning tool like Quizalize can save you hours as it automatically groups your students for you, so you can easily identify the learning gaps for the individual and the whole class.
5. Technology in the Classroom
Incorporating technology into your teaching is a great way to actively engage your students, especially as digital media surrounds youth in the 21st century. Interactive whiteboards or mobile devices can be used to display images and videos, helping students visualize new academic concepts. Learning can become more interactive when technology is used as students can participate physically during lessons as well as immediately search for their ideas, developing independence. Mobile devices such as iPads and/or tablets can be used in the students classroom to record results, take photos or videos, or simply as a behavior management technique. Plus, incorporating tutorials like Quizalize into your lesson plans is a great way to make formative assessments fun and engaging.
6. Behavior Management
Implementing an effective behavior management strategy is critical to earning the respect of your students and ensuring that students have an equal opportunity to reach their full potential. Noisy and disruptive classrooms do not encourage a productive learning environment. Developing an atmosphere of mutual respect through a combination of discipline and reward can be beneficial to you and your students.
Fun and interactive reward schemes for younger students where individuals move up or down based on behavior with the top student receiving a prize at the end of the week. Golden time can also work for students of all ages, choosing activities as diverse as games or no homework as a reward for their hard work.7. Professional Development
Engaging in regular professional development programs is a great way to enhance teaching and learning in your classroom. With educational policies constantly changing, it is extremely beneficial to attend events where you can get inspiration from teachers and other academics. It's also a great excuse to get out of class and work alongside other teachers just like you!
Sessions can include learning about new educational technologies, online safety training, advice on how to use teaching assistants, and much more.Being an effective teacher is a challenge because every student is unique. However, by using a range of teaching strategies, you can approach the students' diverse learning styles and academic abilities, and make the classroom a dynamic and motivating environment for students.