Teaching+Tips+and+Ideas

=__Teaching Tips and Ideas__=

__Teamwork__
__10 Characteristics of a Well Functioning Team__ 1. The team must take responsibility and accept credit for its actions as a group and not individually. 2. Teams must be committed to a common purpose and goal. 3. Teams must be provided clear expectations and adequate resources to accomplish its goals. 4. The team must be able to communicate effectively with each other. 5. Team members must encourage new ideas from others. 6. Members of the team must be trustworthy. 7. Members of the team must put the team’s goals ahead of self-interests. 8. Members of the team must learn to appreciate the diversity of knowledge that the other team members have to offer. 9. Members of the team must be creative and unafraid to share opinions, ideas, and suggestions. 10. Members of the team must avoid conflicts when challenges occur, and instead focus on overcoming those challenges.

1. Fairness is Key
Students have a distinct sense of what is and what is not fair. You must act fairly for all students if you expect to be respected. If you do not treat all students equitably, you will be labeled as unfair and students will not be keen to follow your rules. Make sure that if your best student does something wrong, they too get punished for it.

2. Deal with Disruptions with as Little Interruption as Possible
When you have classroom disruptions, it is imperative that you deal with them immediately and with as little interruption of your class momentum as possible. If students are talking amongst themselves and you are having a classroom discussion, ask one of them a question to try to get them back on track. If you have to stop the flow of your lesson to deal with disruptions, then you are robbing students who want to learn of their precious in-class time.

3. Avoid Confrontations in Front of Students
Whenever there is a confrontation in class there is a winner and a loser. Obviously as the teacher, you need to keep order and discipline in your class. However, it is much better to deal with discipline issues privately than cause a student to 'lose face' in front of their friends. It is not a good idea to make an example out of a disciplinary issue. Even though other students might get the point, you might have lost any chance of actually teaching that student anything in your class.

4. Stop Disruptions with a Little Humor
Sometimes all it takes is for everyone to have a good laugh to get things back on track in a classroom. Many times, however, teachers confuse good humor with sarcasm. While humor can quickly diffuse a situation, sarcasm may harm your relationship with the students involved. Use your best judgment but realize that what some people think as funny others find to be offensive.

5. Keep High Expectations in Your Class
Expect that your students will behave, not that they will disrupt. Reinforce this with the way you speak to your students. When you begin the day, tell your students your expectations. For example, you might say, "During this whole group session, I expect you to raise your hands and be recognized before you start speaking. I also expect you to respect each other's opinions and listen to what each person has to say."

6. Over plan
Free time is something teachers should avoid. By allowing students time just to talk each day, you are setting a precedent about how you view academics and your subject. To avoid this, over plan. When you have too much to cover, you'll never run out of lessons and you will avoid free time. You can also fill up any left over time with mini-lessons as described elsewhere on this site.

7. Be Consistent
One of the worst things you can do as a teacher is to not enforce your rules consistently. If one day you ignore misbehaviors and the next day you jump on someone for the smallest infraction, your students will quickly lose respect for you. Your students have the right to expect you to basically be the same everyday. Moodiness is not allowed. Once you lose your student's respect, you also lose their attention and their desire to please you.

8. Make Rules Understandable
You need to be selective in your rules (no one can follow 180 rules consistently). You also need to make them clear. Students should understand what is and what is not acceptable. Further, you should make sure that the consequences for breaking your rules are also clear and known beforehand.

9. Start Fresh Everyday
This tip does not mean that you discount all previous infractions. However, it does mean that you should start teaching your class each day with the expectation that students will behave. Don't assume that because Julie has disrupted your class everyday for a week, she will disrupt it today. By doing this, you will not be treating Julie any differently and thereby setting her up to disrupt again (like a self-fulfilling prophecy).

1. Sense of Humor
A sense of humor can help you become a successful teacher. Your sense of humor can relieve tense classroom situations before they become disruptions. A sense of humor will also make class more enjoyable for your students and possibly make students look forward to attending and paying attention. Most importantly, a sense of humor will allow you to see the joy in life and make you a happier person as you progress through this sometimes stressful career.

2. A Positive Attitude
A positive attitude is a great asset in life. You will be thrown many curve balls in life and especially in the teaching profession. A positive attitude will help you cope with these in the best way. For example, you may find out the first day of school that you are teaching Algebra 2 instead of Algebra 1. This would not be an ideal situation, but a teacher with the right attitude would try to focus on getting through the first day without negatively impacting the students.

3. High Expectations
An effective teacher must have high expectations. You should strive to raise the bar for your students. If you expect less effort you will receive less effort. You should work on an attitude that says that you know students can achieve to your level of expectations, thereby giving them a sense of confidence too. This is not to say that you should create unrealistic expectations. However, your expectations will be one of the key factors in helping students learn and achieve.

4. Consistency
In order to create a positive learning environment your students should know what to expect from you each day. You need to be consistent. This will create a safe learning environment for the students and they will be more likely to succeed. It is amazing that students can adapt to teachers throughout the day that range from strict to easy. However, they will dislike an environment in which the rules are constantly changing.

5. Fairness
Many people confuse fairness and consistency. A consistent teacher is the same person from day to day. A fair teacher treats students equally in the same situation. For example, students complain of unfairness when teachers treat one gender or group of students differently. It would be terribly unfair to go easier on the football players in a class than on the cheerleaders. Students pick up on this so quickly, so be careful of being labeled unfair.

6. Flexibility
One of the tenets of teaching should be that everything is in a constant state of change. Interruptions and disruptions are the norm and very few days are 'typical'. Therefore, a flexible attitude is important not only for your stress level but also for your students who expect you to be in charge and take control of any situation.