Teacher Grooming

For dramatic improvement purposes, a teacher should carry on a scheduled continues review on one’s personal growth as a teacher. It is also important in a course of teaching effectively. This reflective component can illustrate how one has grown in teaching over the years, what challenges exist at the present, and what long-term goals are projected. A teacher should write down his review succintly and honestly. In writing this section, it helps to think about how one’s concepts as well as actions have changed over time. It might be stimulating to look at old syllabi or instructional resources one has created, asking about implicit assumptions behind these products. Dialogue with colleagues, comparison of practices with goals, and examination of student or peer feeback on teaching might help with the task of enumerating present questions, puzzles, and challenges. From these, a vision of the teacher one wants to become will emerge. Describing that teacher can be a very effective way to harness the overall teaching experience.

A true teacher doesnt live in vaccum or in cave. He networks with his peers and the rest. An extremely important part of teaching is the desciption of how one’s concepts about teaching and learning and goals for students are translated into action. For most teachers, this part of the statement is the most revealing and the most memorable. It is also generally more pleasurable and less challenging to write. College or school teachers may describe how they conduct classes, mentor students, develop instructional resources, or grade performance. They may provide details on what instructional strategies they use on a day~to-day basis. It is in this scenario that teachers can display their creativity, enthusiasm, and wisdom. They can describe how their No Fault Test System or videotaping technique for promoting group leadership skills implements their notions of how teachers can facilitate leaming. They can portray what they want a student to experience in the classes they teach, the labs they oversee, the independent projects they supervise. They can describe their own energy level, the qualities they try to exhibit as a model and coach, the climate they try to establish in the settings in which they teach. This approach can be very revolutionary.