Langer (2001) states that high performing teachers know how to integrate skills into the curriculum. Instead of teaching each skill as a discrete unit, a good teacher integrates writing skills into all her content areas. She overtly states the connection between writing skill concepts into her curriculum so students can see how writing skills are used in different contexts.
In a university wide curriculum, instead of just having English teachers teach all the writing, other content area teachers need to also teach writing to their students besides just their content area so students learn continuously how to improve writing.
A good teacher knows how to teach critical thinking skills to her students so students know how to tell fact from fiction. A good teacher needs to overtly teach student critical thinking skills and metacognition skills.
A good teacher gives students rubrics so that students know the criteria and expectations of each assignments and so students understand how each assignment will be graded. Students can use these same rubrics to grade each other's papers in a peer editing exercise to further reinforce their writing skills knowledge.
A good teacher knows how to further engage students in the core concepts of the material by encouraging high order thinking and not just have students memorize facts for a standardized test. Most students claim that right after they take a test, they forget all the facts, which means students retain the facts just long enough to get a good grade on a test.
Therefore, rather than focus on declarative knowledge, a good teacher focuses more on procedural knowledge through project based activities. Once students know hands on how to do something, then students can apply that knowledge to their workplace or their lives. Procedural knowledge (hands on how to do something knowledge) is much more valuable to the student than declarative (memorized rote knowledge).
A good teacher gives their students opportunities to write about/learn about current events. Good teachers know how to tie core concepts of their class to current events so students can see how their education applies to the real world. When teaching critical thinking in ENGL 102, I taught students about how both Clinton and Trump used Ad Hominem Fallacies on each other to sway voters and how the Ad Hominem fallacy failed to get Hillary Clinton elected president.
For each assignment, I give students plenty of feedback, which is another trait of a good teacher. Students want to know how they did on each assignment and students want to know why they got the grade they got so when teachers explain areas of improvement mixed in with encouraging and positive comments, students learn how to improve their writing and grow from the class. When students simply get that low grade and not know why, students become anxious and complain about the unfairness of the low grade. Giving students plenty of feedback helps students learn and grow.
If a student has problems, a good teacher gladly gives office hours to provide remedial instruction for students who need one on one coaching.
Learning should be a shared activity where students see themselves as a community of learners. Teachers design activities (online or face to face) that promote social learning. For an online community of learners, online teachers design engaging forum activities and for face to face learning, teachers design fun group activities students can do together so students learn team work and collaboration. Having teamwork and collaboration skills are valuable soft communication skills for the workplace that never grows old or out of date.
One last trait of a good teacher is that good teachers share best practice teaching tips with each other. A good teacher shares teaching ideas with other teachers through multiple professional development classes, teacher workshops, teacher conferences or through mentoring a less experienced teacher. When teachers provide other teachers with a nurturing encouraging environment, less teachers would drop out of the teaching profession.
I would love to have this blog evolve into a discussion or community of teachers who exchange best teaching practices with each other. We can discuss each of my posts and find better ways to teach and share ideas together to inspire each other to teach our students better.
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