What is the most important contribution that a teacher can make in the classroom?

Are you thinking of becoming a teacher? Or are you looking for ways to become more successful in your teaching career? Well, you should note that teaching is not that easy, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. With patience and hard work, you can become a great teacher.

Luckily, there are countless strategies you can use to increase your success as a teacher and help your students succeed as well. Here are a dozen things successful teachers do.

1. Believe In Your Students’ Potential

A teacher’s success begins with the success of their students. Always have high expectations for your students. Believe in their potential to succeed and make sure you push them to their limits.

Believing in your students is one of the simplest but most powerful teaching methods. It also works when coaching in sports and in the workplace. Kids will do anything for a teacher who believes in them.

Even when they fail, motivate them to try again and to work harder. This strategy helps you to pull them out of their comfort zones. They can pursue success knowing that you are there to pick them up each time they fail.

2. Learn Everything You Can About Your Field

Being very knowledgeable in your field of study is also a crucial stepping stone towards a successful teaching career. It’s true that even the most successful teachers don’t know everything. But, the more you know, the easier it will be to teach your students and to offer them prompt answers to their questions.

Learning never stops and that’s why, as a teacher, you need to feed your mind with as much information as it can take in. Remember that students always prefer consulting teachers who are known to possess in-depth knowledge about a specific field. Knowledge indicates authenticity.

3. Be Fun and Energetic

Did you know that most students are more comfortable sharing their academic problems with humorous and enthusiastic teachers rather than the grumpy and “ever-serious” ones? Yes! The way you carry yourself greatly determines your approachability.

Make a point of smiling each time you converse with your students, crack a joke or two and so on. This helps to ease any tension or fear that the students may be feeling when approaching you for help.

4. Take Risks

They say, “No Risk, No Reward!” Taking risks plays a crucial part in a person’s success. Your students watch and observe all your moves. Therefore, if you take risks by trying new things every once in a while, they’ll also be confident enough do the same.

An environment that allows for expression and some risk-taking pushes students to burst out of their bubbles. You’ll effectively encourage students to explore the unknown, nurturing their risk-taking skills and eventual success.

5. Be Creative and Think Outside The Box

The strategies you use to pass on information to your students need to be creative in a way that captures the attention of your classroom. Strive to make each learning lesson a thrilling one for your students. This not only makes their learning experience fun but also ensures that they are fully engaged during each class and always eager for the next one.

6. Be Consistent and Decisive

To be successful at teaching, you need to be coherent and resolute. If you say something, stick to it! If you say you are going to do something, make sure you see it through! If you set rules, stand firmly by them! Avoid making exceptions or playing favorites.

7. Always be Up-To-Date

A successful teacher knows how important it is to be abreast with the latest news, educational advancements, technology and so on. Sharing this information with your students helps you to keep them updated too. In turn, this adds value to the learning experience.

Sharing new knowledge also pushes students to research and learn more about things that happen beyond the confines of their classroom. They might also do more outside of school hours, boosting knowledge instead of forgetting (e.g. see summer learning loss).

8. Communicate

Communication is a powerful learning tool. Whether it’s with a student or with their parent, dialog helps you to pass critical information and recommendations that may be crucial to the student’s success.

Communication is a make-or-break skill. Communicating well helps you form closer relationships, bring cohesion to teams, and take on leadership roles.

Mallory

To help students succeed, getting their attention is a basic step. Students who aren’t listening aren’t learning what they need for academic success. Communicating well, especially by reinforcing key points and take-away messages, is the next step. Effective communication helps students to really learn and retain critical information.

Adjust your pace and style and even your body language. Be interesting to help to keep your students captivated and in a learning state.

9. Listen and Show Empathy About Personal Issues

Failing an exam does not always mean that the student failed to read for it. Sometimes, it may be due to external factors. That’s why successful teachers always take their time to listen and to advise their students.

Always treat each pupil with sensitivity, as if they’re your own child. That way, they’ll always confide in you in case something is deterring their success in class.

10. Provide Relevant Study Materials

This may be in the form of e-books, online resources, past papers, videos and so on – anything and everything that may be useful for their studies. Avoid overloading them with homework and assignments because it may exhaust their minds, hence slowing their learning.

11. Be Observant

To be successful at teaching, you need to observe all your students individually, separating their strengths from their weaknesses. This will help you to tailor strategies to help them harness their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.

To set appropriately high expectations, you first need a realistic assessment of where the class and individual students are at. Early testing and questioning is a good way to establish benchmark levels of knowledge and skill development.

12. Set Goals With Your Students

As mentioned already, a teacher’s success is mostly determined by the success of their students. Therefore, you need to set goals and objectives with your students. After that, work with them towards achieving these goals together as a team.

by Jane Nelsen and Kelly Gfroerer

Students feel belonging (connection) and significance (capable) when they have opportunities to contribute.

1. Think of all the things you do that could be done by your students (bulletin boards, door greeters, even teaching some lessons). Assign these tasks to your students.
2. Verbally appreciate how much they contribute to the positive classroom atmosphere.
3. Involve students whenever possible. “Students, we are having a problem with disruptions right now. I need your help solving this challenge.”
4. See “Jobs” and “Class Meeting” cards for other ideas on providing opportunities for contribution.

In contrast to behaviorism, which advocates for external rewards and punishment in the classroom to motivate change, Positive Discipline tools teach the best way to change behavior is from the inside out. And, one of the most important tools to develop intrinsically motivated students is Contribution.

Excerpt from Positive Discipline Tools for Teachers 

Many teachers today share how difficult their job is because parents send their children to school with a sense of entitlement. This complaint may be true, but teachers can’t change parents. They can, however, make sure their students learn the art of contributing, a skill that will serve them throughout their lives. Adler believed that the primary need of all people is a sense of belonging and that Gemeinschaftsgefühl is a measure of mental health.

Gemeinschaftsgefühl essentially means “social consciousness and a desire and willingness to contribute.” Thus, belonging and contribution are equally important. Many parents have done a good job of helping their children feel a sense of belonging. However, the scales are out of balance when children are not also taught the importance of contribution. When contribution is missing, children develop a sense of entitlement.

Research shows that children seem to be born with a desire to contribute. Warneken and Tomasella found that children have a natural instinct to help others starting at a very early age. In one study, eighteen-month-olds and their mothers were brought into a room where they watched the experimenter drop clothespins. The toddler would watch for a few seconds before picking up the clothespin and handing it to the experimenter.  In another scenario the experimenter tries to put books in a cabinet with the doors closed. The toddler watches him bump into the cabinet several times before he walks over to the cabinet and opens it for the experimenter. If you want your heart to melt, watch the video below for yourself.

Too often, even when children want to contribute, they are discouraged from doing so. A two-year-old may plead or demand, “Me do it, me do it.” Instead of taking time to honor this desire to help, adults some- times discourage the child’s efforts by taking over. Perhaps the adult is in a hurry or doesn’t think the child can do it “well enough.” Parents don’t realize that with such discouragements they are denying their children an important opportunity to fulfill their innate desire to contribute. It is important that this pattern not be repeated in the classroom. As children grow older and become accustomed to having things done for them, they are at risk of losing their natural desire to contribute. They get used to having things done for them. Some seem to see it as a burden, or even an insult, if they are asked to do anything for anyone else, often at the same time they are making constant demands on others. In school they seem to want and expect the same special treatment.  

The more one wants to contribute (in his or her family, classroom, and community, and to the planet), the greater his or her overall mental health. Contributing promotes a sense of belonging and capability. We shouldn’t rob children of these gifts by doing too much for them. Classroom meetings provide the most comprehensive way to teach contribution, though there are many other ways. Anytime you involve students in problem-solving and focusing on solutions, they learn a little more about how to contribute in a meaningful way.

Tool in Action 

In a high school class of fifteen-year-old students I was doing Positive Discipline sessions. I was going to talk about the brain in the palm of the hand and Positive Time-Out; however, the students’ chatting was very annoying, and we could not concentrate or hear each other. At one point I decided to ask for the students’ help and said, “I need your help. Tell me what we need to do to have a productive atmosphere and be respectful of what others say.” They looked at me, surprised, and replied, “Three hours of detention.”

They are in a very strict school where teachers give detention very often. I told them I was not willing to give them detention. Instead, I needed us to brainstorm and find another way. They started thinking and making suggestions. The person responsible for deciding who would talk would pass the talking stick. I asked them more questions to help them think. At one point a big, heavy silence filled the room. I had, I think, asked too many questions and not given them enough space. I asked, “What is happening now?” and a girl said, “It’s oppression.” I laughed and asked, “Would there be something in between oppression and incessant chatter?” Someone said, “What if we raise our hands when we need to talk?” Another said, “But that is what all teachers tell us to do.” The girl who had used the word “oppression” said, “Guys, when we decide we want to raise our hand, we are free. When the teachers tell us to do so, then it is oppression. What do we want to choose?” Now we had this deep, sustained silence once again. Then they all decided they could raise their hands and still be free! It took only ten minutes for them to reach this conclusion because they were invited to contribute their ideas, and in the time left the students were respectful and the class atmosphere was incredibly positive. And they learned a lot. They taught themselves what freedom was about!

—Nadine Gaudin, Paris, France 

    Certified Positive Discipline Trainer