Teaching: Impacting Lives through Knowledge, Skills, and Virtues - Essay Sample

Introduction

Teaching is a complicated occupation with many requirements and varied amounts of skills to facilitate the success of the teaching process. A teacher helps a student attain knowledge, skills, and virtues (Van der Heijden et al., 2015). The role of a teacher is not limited to being a tutor in the classroom, but a teacher is someone who impacts the influence on a person. Instilling competence and skills could also be related to other professions, such as being a professor, a lecturer, and even a priest. However, in the education sector, teachers have a critical role in ensuring that they acquire the required knowledge within a specified period. For a teacher to be competent, a lot of skills and virtues must be expressed since such a profession requires more than one skill to be effective.

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Handling of different students, each having their issues and personality, requires a lot of tactical experience (Van der Heijden et al., 2015). Since learning is a gradual process, each student has his or her learning speed demands for a lot of attention to ensure that all the students in the class have equally benefitted in the learning process. The handling of people in their different levels of education is a very sophisticated approach due to the varied nature of their problems. Psychological, physical, economic, and social issues affecting the learners are all channeled towards the teacher. Their no single path in becoming a teacher since a lot of learning and adaptation has to occur for a teacher to ideal and competent.

The demand for teachers has increased due to the ever-increasing number of students in the schools. More so, a lot of teacher retirements are reported each year hence reducing the number of qualified teachers in the job market (Breeman et al., 2015). Additionally, teaching experience increases depending on the number of years in the profession, hence the increasing number of retirements each year reduces the amount of highly qualified years in this field. Departures are most likely to cause a big professional gap due to the high number of recruits and a lesser number of highly experienced teachers.

As a principal, a lot of insights have to be observed to help recruit the best teachers. Since teaching is not only limited to the amount of knowledge, a teacher has depended on that particular subject but also related to other factors that determine the effectiveness of this specific process. For a teacher to be effective, they need to possess several skills that potentiate positive learning outcomes (Breeman et al., 2015). Excellent communication skills are among the most required skills in the teaching industry. Professional dedication towards teaching as a career will increase the productivity of a teacher. High productivity has been reported in employees who are passionate about their job. Enrolling employees, depending on their career expectations, allows them to increase job satisfaction, which is a critical player in ensuring maximum productivity in employees.

Students achieve mainly revolves around the nature of a teacher's approach in the learning process. A lot of strategies are required in the organization and delivering content to the students. It is quite relevant to note that different teachers have different approaches to class management. The teachers mainly adopt various teaching schemes depending on the level of familiarity. There are a lot of differences based on the experiences of teachers. The following reflections are based on personal experiences in the first year’s performance and the current teaching performance basing on Marzano and Haberman’s domain.

Reflections on Marzano’s Domains

Reflection

Selection of Content Selection of content was explicitly limited to the course outline based on the curriculum with strict adherence to the lesson plan The content selection was based on practical efficiencies based on field experiences. The flexibility of the learning activities is rigid, as the student's achievement is considered to be more critical.

Selection of Instructional Strategies The use of task cards and interviewing of students is among the most utilized teaching strategies adopted by the new teachers in their first year of teaching. The use of different sense monitoring is essential in identifying the most suitable instructional strategy to use. Monitoring the students' interest in the lesson is very important in determining whether they are understanding.

Use of Assessment for Learning Summative assessment is the most used mode of assessment I utilized during my first year of teaching. Since it is periodical, it helps in evaluating the students' level of knowledge acquired after a specified period. The most used mode of assessment currently is the use of formative assessment. Formative assessment is the best choice that it allows for the continuous evaluation of students' comprehension and can give suggestions specifically in the adjustments required in teaching strategies.

Classroom Management During the first year of teaching, a lot of adjustments needed to be as a teacher. Documentation of rules and strictness helped in ensuring all the boundaries have been observed. The use of non-verbal communication is beneficial in ensuring that the class is well managed. Students are most likely to know whenever they are wrong. However, whenever a teacher expresses disappointment in their actions, they are not expected to repeat the mistake as compared to when they are punished.

Student Motivation Promoting the use of the right mindset among students is among the key strategies that aid for increased student motivation. Encouragement of growth mindset over fixed mindsets helps the students to work harder. Developing a learning community inside a classroom is a very important

Haberman Dimension First-Year Teaching Performance

Reflection

Persistence Reviewing and repeating were then the best measures to be applied to ensure that students had a good sense of persistence. Encouraging students to work better through persistence is fruitful in better results. However, since teaching was also a gradual process, the teacher needed to show grit by repeating the concepts until all the students understand. However, the current of enhancing persistence in the students is through constant motivations regarding positive self-talks and believing themselves. Allowing them to reflect on the number of challenges they have overcome is a clear indication that they can do better.

Protecting Learners and Learning Involving students on other productive activities apart from the tiresome work in class would help the students. The rigidities in the curriculum often make students feel burdened by the learning process. The co-curricular activities were mainly limited to within the schools with events that were student-centered such as games and other activities. More interaction with the students means learning some of the factors that excite them is exceptionally fundamental since it helps you create activities that students enjoy, hence increasing their productivity in activities outside class. Therefore, taking the students to participate in interschool competitions in sports and other competitive activities have a very significant role in student relaxation from classwork.

Application of Generalizations As a new teacher, a generalization of concepts was mainly based on how students would effectively apply their learned skills and apply them in different situations. The generalization strategy used during the first year of teaching was mostly stimulus generalization with the use of materials. The current strategy of Application generalizations in the learning process is based on various materials and different situations that are more specific to the students. With the experience now, the use of both stimulus, response, and maintenance level of generalization to students help to relate the learned concepts in different dimensions.

Approach to At-Risk Students In the first years of teaching, identifying at-risk students was based on class attendance frequency and general performance academically. Since there were no well-established teacher-student relationships, the handling of such students was not effective hence referring them to approach teachers for guiding and counseling. With the experience I possess now, handling students at risk is more extensive. Connecting with the student’s family members and other mental health-related organizations is crucial in ensuring the recovery of these students.

Professional Versus Personal Orientation to Students Orientation to students during this period was strictly professional. Personal issues were not prioritized since the demand for respect at this stage is somehow essential to facilitate efficient learning. Current orientation to students is based on both professional and personal perspectives. Some students would be more comfortable when handling you like a parent, while others would prefer treating you strictly as a teacher.

(Reaction to) Burnout During this period, most of the burnouts accelerated me towards seeking professional assistance and guidance towards managing work-related stress. With the current experience in teaching as a profession, I have familiarized myself with work-related stress; hence personal assessment of the sources of burnout is critical in ensuring its control.

Fallibility The tendency to make mistakes during this period was very high. Even though sometimes it could lead to professional stress and lack of trust in students, but reassuring them and admitting errors is critical in regaining their faith in the learning process. However, with the current experience in teaching, fallibility chances are minimal. More so, confessing to the students whenever you have made a mistake in class allows them to realize that the teacher is part of the learning process.

When it comes to the rating based on Marzano's and Haberman's domain of teaching in my first year of teaching, I will rate give a score of 6. The fact that qualification and experience are two different things is fundamental in realizing that education is not all about knowing. More so my efficiency during this period was not efficient since a lot of adjustments and adaptations to the new teaching environment, understanding students, bonding with other teachers, familiarizing with the concepts, and personal expectations required a lot of energy to be fulfilled.

However, based on my current teaching experience, I would give a rating of 9. Interactions with students and adapting to the teaching environment make it easier to work in any learning environment. Handling various challenges facing students over a long period leads to familiarizing students with issues and appropriate measures to counter them. Strong professional bonds with other staff and students allow for a favorable working environment making it easier to teach. Grasping the content makes it very easy to deliver to students through various schemes and generalizations.

Based on the current performance of students, it is quite encouraging to observe gradual improvements in the achievements of the students. Every profession is associated with both strengths and weaknesses (Carver, 2016). Among my strong points in these professions includes a good communication strategy with both staff and students. Enthusiasm and creativity play a critical role in ensuring positive learning outcomes. More so, patience is essential in allowing forceful content to grasp and learn (McGlynn-Stewart, 2015).

Among the weaknesses as a teacher, facing trouble when asking f...