an excellent teacher

Describe your conception of an excellent teacher. Think about what teachers do and what do they need in order to be successful in terms of knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes.

Prior to this semester, I would have quickly and most likely very simply described what an excellent teacher consists of. At this point in the semester, trying to describe what makes an excellent teacher seems like a LOT more complicated thing than it ever has. Part of that is because I'm now on a very real journey into discovering and uncovering just what that complicated thing consists of. I'm sure that if I was to answer this question a year from now, my answer would be different. Maybe it would contain the same types of words and ideas, but I'm guessing I would be a sharper description.

Teachers need to have a comfortable grasp of the material they are teaching. They need to have a mastery of the way in which they are going to make sure the students learn the material they are teaching. This includes picking the right instructional strategy, adapting lessons to meet the needs of all the learners, being able to properly teach a skill and break down it's critical attributes. Ideally, teachers need to be passionate about the material they're teaching. If that's not the case (as I'm sure often happens) they need to have a passion for teaching kids and being around teenagers. An excellent teacher bring an appropriate amount of energy to a lesson, along with her own personality. An excellent teacher is creative and inventive, gets to know her students personally, has high expectations for each student in her classroom and knows how to lead her students in such a way to motivate them. She's not afraid to take risks! An excellent teacher has fun in the classroom and the students know she loves coming to teach everyday!

An excellent teacher is adaptable; she knows that anything could come her way at any moment and that the only thing she can be sure of is things being somewhat unsure. An excellent teacher is not a first year teacher... or maybe even a 4th year teacher. An excellent teacher has ripened over time; but the sooner she realizes teaching cannot be perfected, the closer she gets to becoming that excellent teacher she wants to be because she's humbled by her own inadequacies, need to learn and the journey she's on. She's not afraid to ask for help along the way!

Self assessment that includes:
Identify strengths that you will rely on in the classroom in your 3 week block.

Some strengths I will bring to the classroom during my three week block are a genuine desire to be with the students and help them learn. I also have the knowledge that I have a LOT to learn which requires me to be humble, which I view as a strength because if you don't know you need to grow or need help, it's a lot harder to accept help people offer - or to grow! I know the material pretty well, though translating it through the curriculum into teachable material is still a work in progress for me. I'm fun and outgoing, so starting to get to know the kids will come naturally to me. I realize that the relationships I build with the students are extremely important; teaching the material will be a whole different thing if I have strong relationships with the students. I realize these will be hard to build over a 3 week process, but I'll be able to start on it and see how my co-operating teacher either does or does not do this (I have a feeling she will definitely be someone who does this!).

Identify what you will focus on and how you will do that (given all the constraints of the 3 week block).

I am going to focus on finding the place where I have enough cues and material to last through each lesson, achieving the objectives I've set out, but where I'm still teaching naturally. This means not relying on my notes all the time, but not just "winging" lessons either. This semester I've often felt overwhelmed by having my lesson plan to guide me, but then a powerpoint as well; I find myself trying to go back and forth between the two, but not rely on them too heavily, and then I get lost, we get on a tangent, and I have no idea where I am in the lesson. I guess more specifically that means finding a simpler way to organize my notes and my brain so that I'm more focused during the lessons on the big ideas I want the students to grasp.

I'd like to take some risks during this time, because I know it's a very unique occasion and one in which it's most safe to do so. I'm not exactly sure what this is going to look like. Honestly, the first risk might be attempting what might seem like a "boring" lesson to me, in order to keep things simple and help me get some more confidence in teaching an hour long lesson. From there taking risks in trying other instructional strategies is the direction I'll plan to go. This might look like experiential learning, group work, among others.