What Is the Art of Good Teaching?
Good teaching is a combination of science and art. A good teacher knows the methodology of what happens in a classroom and conveys that knowledge to students in an effective and interesting way. A good teacher understands her role isn't to give knowledge to students, but to help students learn how to gain that knowledge for themselves for the rest of their lives.
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Accessibility
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A good teacher is there for students, both physically and intellectually. A student needs to feel a certain amount of trust in a teacher in order for teaching to be effective. Accessibility helps build this trust. Though 24-hour-a-day contact is unreasonable, a teacher's complete attention in the classroom, and reasonable availability by telephone or email at other times, instills trust in students and sets a good example of academic responsibility.
High Standards
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Many students do what they have to do to get by. By setting and enforcing high standards, a good teacher helps these students realize that work and tenacity are required to achieve anything in the academic world. A teacher who lets a student slide with substandard work isn't doing that student any favors. Students won't receive that same treatment when they enter the world outside of the schoolroom. They need to learn this lesson in school.
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Enthusiasm
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Teaching is as much about inspiration as it is about the transfer of information. A teacher who attempts to instill knowledge into students without conveying his own interest in and enthusiasm for the subject matter is bound to fail. If a teacher conveys to the student a sense of the world as an endlessly interesting place worthy of investigation, this single attitude will help the student more than any number of inanimate facts.
Flexibility
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A classroom full of young people is not a predictable place. While teachers need to have lesson plans in place and work through them at a a reasonable pace, they also need to be responsive to the changing needs of students. Allowing students to digress from the planned lesson, if it's in the interest of a greater learning, is a quality of any experienced and talented teacher. This flexibility keeps students engaged and gives them a sense that they're participants in the learning process, not dormant receptacles of a teacher's lectures.
Knowledge
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Underlying all of these qualities, of course, is a deep and dynamic grasp of the subject matter. A good teacher is constantly learning about whatever is being taught, and maintains a breadth and depth of knowledge that is ideally just ahead of the students. This requires a consistent commitment to reading and investigation, something that, while at times challenging, is also a pleasure to any skilled teacher. The best teachers understand that in order to do their job properly, they must always remain a student as well.
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References
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- Photo Credit teacher image by Twilight Dragon from Fotolia.com
