Becoming a Better Teacher

Posted by Dorit Sasson Jan 20, 2008

Before getting down to business, have you entered February's Giveaway Contest for teachers? The deadline is until February 28th and the subject is about success stories. I know you all have been experiencing successes in their own small ways. Let's hear those stories!

Success as you know already and especially with those hard to handle students, does not happen overnight. There are many problems teachers face and the road to success is based on various issues.

Reflective teaching is one way to improve troubled areas of your teaching.

• Problem identification: Is it really a problem in the class? Preliminary investigation involves asking teachers and ask students. A short route is using reflective journals to explore issues and problems. The bottom line is to ask yourself if there is change with students with yourselves.

How often should you practice reflective teaching? It's entirely up to you. Reflective teaching is not only about keeping a reflective diaries but also maintaining a list of questions that you ask yourself automatically once a lesson is over.

Reflective Teachers Study - based on a 15 year old study in Holland which showed that reflective teachers:

• have better relationships with students
• have a higher degree of job satisfaction
• realize the importance of a student's self-learning
• can structure experiences and problems
• have personal security and self-confidence
• are capable of seeing a bad lesson as a positive learning experience
• focus on the learner
• can talk and write about the problems and also the successes