Attributes that distinguish a successful teacher
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Salahuddin Ahmed
What roles a teacher should play when heshe stands in front of the students? A teacher is a role model to the students; it is easy just to teach something to get through the terms or semester, but it is not easy to teach in a way so that students remember that till the rest of their lives. Similar topics can be made very easy by one teacher and for the same topic students would have terrible time to understand taught by another teacher. When a teacher teaches something, it is like a product that they sell to their students. Students are like customers and they should have trust that their teacher would give them the best lessons. A teacher should perceive how students would react the way a lesson has been delivered. A teacher should understand what their student wants; a successful teacher is someone who can look at the eyes of the students and can measure whether the student understood the subject matter. The teacher should not start the conversation in the classroom by saying what the student needs to do; instead the teacher should ask the student how heshe did in studies, studied how much, why you think your approaches did not work etc. As a matter of fact, the conversation should encourage students to develop a game plan and put it on paper. It is obvious that many times students do show concern about the exams and sometimes they show their frustration after the exam is over. To acquire information about students' perception of exams, teachers should always encourage them to think critically about their test performance, and study habits and disperse feelings of frustration. Exams, assignments, grading exams are some of the issues that teachers must go through very precisely. These are as important as class lectures. In Bangladesh, a teacher usually does not encourage students to do optional assignments. A certain number of optional assignments can be given, or students can improve their grade totals by selecting from a series of assignments. These assignments could include noting and commenting on class related material in newspapers, magazines, television and films. These assignments would allow students to participate in class related community activities and put insights which would ultimately help them to construct personal opinion on course materials. Fair grading is something that is considered as one of the deciding factor to assess a teacher's credibility. I think in Bangladesh students sometimes do not get fair grading from teachers that create an ultimate frustration among students; especially in public universities in Bangladesh this unfair grading sometimes proved to be disastrous for some students that shatters their mind completely. In the USA, one award winning teacher mentions that students should know right way how they did in the exams. Multiple questions are now been seen in almost every exams and for this particular exam it would be better to see immediately after the exam how students did in the exams. This way students leave knowing their test grade and, more importantly seeing immediately what they did right or wrong, while the test is still fresh in their minds. "Sorry, I do not have detailed syllabus for you"- if we hear anything like this from a teacher, we would then have to feel sorry for the students of that teacher. A syllabus plays a very important role in entire semester. Students would know what would happen throughout the semester so that they could prepare them fairly well. A syllabus should contain explicit schedule of each topic to be discussed, grading system, exam dates, class policies, materials that are to be used to give students heads up of the entire semester. In this era of technology, the mode of teaching has also got some different twists and flavor. In developing countries e-mail and internet has become a part and parcel of teaching. Teacher always put syllabi and other materials on the World Wide Web that makes them accessible to all students. When students miss any class, handouts and other materials they can collect these materials from the web. It is seen that many professors develop their own websites to put various information that help students know everything about the course materials and course works. In Bangladesh, utilization of modern technology is yet to be accepted by all, which should be changed in no time. We cannot deny technology this time and teaching with proper use of technology can truly make difference. Perceptive teaching should run from the very first day of the class. It is truly an important issue to get students to buy into the idea that learning is their responsibility. One scholar mentions that "I spend the entire first session discussing the process of learning and teaching". As another profound scholar mentions that the entire first session of each class teacher should discuss politics and public policy by asking the students about their best and worst class room experience, which ultimately help teacher to constitute a productive teaching learning environment. All these strategies confirm to flow an insightful teaching throughout the entire semester. All he issues discussed above merely manufacture an environment in the class room that make students aware about their responsibilities in the class rooms which ultimately help them to get better prepared for the challenging life. Success for a teacher primarily depends on creating this environment. Salahuddin Ahmed is Graduate Assistant, School of Business and Economics Ashland University, OH, USA and Lecturer (on leave), State University of Bangladesh. E-mail: sahmed@ashland.edu
What roles a teacher should play when heshe stands in front of the students? A teacher is a role model to the students; it is easy just to teach something to get through the terms or semester, but it is not easy to teach in a way so that students remember that till the rest of their lives. Similar topics can be made very easy by one teacher and for the same topic students would have terrible time to understand taught by another teacher. When a teacher teaches something, it is like a product that they sell to their students. Students are like customers and they should have trust that their teacher would give them the best lessons. A teacher should perceive how students would react the way a lesson has been delivered. A teacher should understand what their student wants; a successful teacher is someone who can look at the eyes of the students and can measure whether the student understood the subject matter. The teacher should not start the conversation in the classroom by saying what the student needs to do; instead the teacher should ask the student how heshe did in studies, studied how much, why you think your approaches did not work etc. As a matter of fact, the conversation should encourage students to develop a game plan and put it on paper. It is obvious that many times students do show concern about the exams and sometimes they show their frustration after the exam is over. To acquire information about students' perception of exams, teachers should always encourage them to think critically about their test performance, and study habits and disperse feelings of frustration. Exams, assignments, grading exams are some of the issues that teachers must go through very precisely. These are as important as class lectures. In Bangladesh, a teacher usually does not encourage students to do optional assignments. A certain number of optional assignments can be given, or students can improve their grade totals by selecting from a series of assignments. These assignments could include noting and commenting on class related material in newspapers, magazines, television and films. These assignments would allow students to participate in class related community activities and put insights which would ultimately help them to construct personal opinion on course materials. Fair grading is something that is considered as one of the deciding factor to assess a teacher's credibility. I think in Bangladesh students sometimes do not get fair grading from teachers that create an ultimate frustration among students; especially in public universities in Bangladesh this unfair grading sometimes proved to be disastrous for some students that shatters their mind completely. In the USA, one award winning teacher mentions that students should know right way how they did in the exams. Multiple questions are now been seen in almost every exams and for this particular exam it would be better to see immediately after the exam how students did in the exams. This way students leave knowing their test grade and, more importantly seeing immediately what they did right or wrong, while the test is still fresh in their minds. "Sorry, I do not have detailed syllabus for you"- if we hear anything like this from a teacher, we would then have to feel sorry for the students of that teacher. A syllabus plays a very important role in entire semester. Students would know what would happen throughout the semester so that they could prepare them fairly well. A syllabus should contain explicit schedule of each topic to be discussed, grading system, exam dates, class policies, materials that are to be used to give students heads up of the entire semester. In this era of technology, the mode of teaching has also got some different twists and flavor. In developing countries e-mail and internet has become a part and parcel of teaching. Teacher always put syllabi and other materials on the World Wide Web that makes them accessible to all students. When students miss any class, handouts and other materials they can collect these materials from the web. It is seen that many professors develop their own websites to put various information that help students know everything about the course materials and course works. In Bangladesh, utilization of modern technology is yet to be accepted by all, which should be changed in no time. We cannot deny technology this time and teaching with proper use of technology can truly make difference. Perceptive teaching should run from the very first day of the class. It is truly an important issue to get students to buy into the idea that learning is their responsibility. One scholar mentions that "I spend the entire first session discussing the process of learning and teaching". As another profound scholar mentions that the entire first session of each class teacher should discuss politics and public policy by asking the students about their best and worst class room experience, which ultimately help teacher to constitute a productive teaching learning environment. All these strategies confirm to flow an insightful teaching throughout the entire semester. All he issues discussed above merely manufacture an environment in the class room that make students aware about their responsibilities in the class rooms which ultimately help them to get better prepared for the challenging life. Success for a teacher primarily depends on creating this environment. Salahuddin Ahmed is Graduate Assistant, School of Business and Economics Ashland University, OH, USA and Lecturer (on leave), State University of Bangladesh. E-mail: sahmed@ashland.edu