6 Tips for Great Teaching
Passion, which led (most of) us to the classroom, is a good start. But what actions can teachers take to shift from “being good” to “doing great”?
When I walked into my first classroom, I had one goal:
Be a good teacher.
At the time, my definition of “good” was as nebulous as my knowledge of engaging high school students in the finer points of English Language Arts. As a result, “good” came to mean what I saw the teachers around me doing. Covering the curriculum. Using tests and essays to determine how much content the students had learned. Providing opportunities for remediation or enrichment depending on the results. Hoping for the best.
A few years into teaching, however, I no longer wanted to be good.
I wanted to do great.
After several more years of observing impactful educators, researching teacher efficacy, and experiencing countless rounds of trial and error in the classroom, I’ve come up with six tips for great teaching — guidance that applies across grades, contents, and continents and gives us the chance to rediscover the passion that led us to the classroom in the first place (a passion that for many of us, myself included, waned amidst the challenges wrought by the pandemic). Let’s dive in.
1. Great teachers learn.
Great teachers seek out opportunities to build their knowledge of both content and pedagogy. Great teachers are intentional about connecting with experienced and innovative educators, whether those educators are in the classroom next door or on platforms like Medium, YouTube, or Twitter. Great teachers also keep a pulse on the research to implement evidence-based practices that will have the most positive and immediate impact on their students.
2. Great teachers build relationships.
Because great teachers recognize that learning happens in community, they build relationships with students, families and caregivers, teachers, administrators, and staff members (especially the short-handed custodial crew we see working tirelessly to make our classrooms shine). Great educators model the communicative and collaborative skills they strive to develop in their students, all while leading with empathy and emotional intelligence.
3. Great teachers co-create.
Great teachers develop syllabi, classroom rules, and performance criteria with their students, knowing that this process creates buy-in and encourages students to take ownership of their learning. Great teachers actively promote student agency, enabling student voice and choice to drive instruction because it results in more meaningful learning.
4. Great teachers get out of the way.
Great teachers decenter themselves in the classroom so that students take on the heavy lifting of research, evaluation, synthesis, and creation. Great teachers are often seen on the “fringes,” conferencing with small groups of students while the rest of the class is engaged in independent or collaborative learning. These teachers often pass up the role of “lecturer” in favor of “facilitator” so that students are empowered to drive their educational experiences (Ravitz, 2006, p. 609). In this way, curriculum is “uncovered” rather than “covered.”
5. Great teachers share the wealth.
Great teachers invite other educators to “look behind the curtain” of their classrooms. Great teachers post, present, and publish, sharing best practices while maintaining transparency about what’s working and what isn’t. Finally, great teachers look for opportunities to collaborate with their peers and mentor aspiring and beginning teachers, thus impacting an even greater number of students.
6. Great teachers reflect and revise.
Instead of depending on a meticulously organized file cabinet or Google Drive of lessons and units, great teachers adapt to the ever-changing strengths, needs, and interests of their students and design meaningful instructional experiences. Great teachers also gather and implement feedback so that they can continue to provide students with relevant learning opportunities in safe and inclusive classrooms.
I’d like to conclude by returning to the insightful words of Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), one of the first books I read as an aspiring educator: “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.”
In other words, a good teacher instructs her students.
A great teacher grows with them.
