Sunday, May 22, 2016

The 7 Bad Habits of Ineffective Teachers

1. Focusing on being liked.
I think everyone wants to be liked, but if you keep thinking about how you want your students to like you, this is absolutely going to affect your teaching. And not in a good way. You’ve gotta’ focus on being a good teacher whom your students can respect. Ironically, students normally end up liking teachers they respect more than ones who are trying to be the cool teacher.

2. Yelling at the students.
** I think all of us have yelled at some point, but if this is your habit, it’s not a good one. Yelling rarely produces any good results and almost always results in a loss of respect. So instead of berating students and flying off the
handle, try taking a deep breath, getting really quiet, then calmly but firmly saying what needs to be said.

3. Letting little things go.
When I first started teaching I let a lot of little things slide because I didn’t want to whack kids on the head for seemingly insignificant things. The problem, though, is that if you fail to address little problems, they fail to stay
little. They quickly grow, and soon your class is out of control and you are definitely not effective. What I learned is that I needed to address each issue, even if it was simply saying something like, “Ian, please sit up in your seat.”

4. Being inconsistent.
It’s tough to be consistent. Believe me, I know. But being inconsistent in our classroom management leads to a multitude of problems. So we’ve just gotta’ do it. We’ve gotta’ learn to be consistent.

5. Failing to properly prepare.
We all have days that we realize last minute that we forgot to make copies of that worksheet we really need, but if you find yourself habitually starting class not sure what you’re doing today, you’re in trouble. Yes, you might make it through the class, but you’re just not going to be as effective as you could be if you’d prepared adequately. So determine to do your best to prepare as much as possible. And if you’re feeling completely overwhelmed, do what you can now and determine to really put in the work over the next summer so you’re not in this position again.

6. Being defensive.

Whether it’s a student, a parent, or an administrator who’s critiquing us, when we get defensive we rarely deal with the issue correctly. We need to seek first to understand and be open to the possibility that there might be a
better way. We’ll grow as teachers and also gain a lot of respect. A little humility sure goes a long way.

7. Thinking that you’ve figured it out.
Whenever we start to think that we’ve got in down, that we don’t need to keep learning and growing, we start stagnating. And we’re less effective than we could be if we kept looking for new ideas and better ways to teach.
Have you fallen into any of these bad habits? Are there any other habits you think contribute to ineffectiveness? Share your thoughts with a comment below.

This blog taken from Tech 4 The Heart