Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Overextension
I love that there are so many different techniques and ways to teach to different students. It's important to make the effort to try and get thru and be able to communicate with each and every student. However, spreading yourself too thin is a huge concern. A teacher is only as competent as their ability to facilitate their techniques. So if you are constantly trying new things and never mastering, or trying to juggle 10 different methods at once to appease every single student, you might be counteracting your own efforts. In my experiences being taught, the best teachers are the ones who have mastered their delivery. They have their methods, agree with them or not, but they are very confident and their method is refined. So remember to keep yourself current and open yourself to new methods, but ensure that your goal is to master your techniques.
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You make several good points especially with all the techniques and resources available and the importance of becoming confident and capable with a select group. I think part of the issue with recent graduates, like myself, is a lack of time and experience in classroom teaching and perhaps not having yet committed to mastering a particular style or delivery. Along with this comes a tendency to experiment and search for improvement. This is a good thing and an on-going process even with very experienced teachers as a part of growing and developing as a teacher. As an example of an exercise from one of my mentors, was to work on posing open-ended questions in math and not to rush to tell students what to do but allow them to make mistakes and learn to problem solve more effectively.
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