What Makes Great Teaching?

 There are many ways in which we can say great teaching comes from. For instance, I could say a teacher that teaching through mostly hands-on learning can be considered great teaching, or that teachers who get all of their students commended on the STARR too. While I think that there are many aspects in which we could just say is good teaching, after taking public education in a multicultural society, I think that my view point especially has changed on what makes great teaching. 

Below are a list of the following things learned in this class that has definitely helped me define what great teaching is:

1.) Talk, communicate and converse with other educators and your peers

After taking this course, I have realize that a lot of what I learned from teaching had to deal with learning from other educators and peers. Their experience and advice is valuable and has made me look back into my own opinion or even my own ideas on how to handle situations. It has also helped me understand more about what a lot of other peers are thinking. This is super important because I can contribute it to my teaching style, take advice from them and make it part of my own. Great educators, great teachers and great teachings all come from conversing with others. If we want to make a change as educators, we have to do it together and not just by ourselves. 

2.) Making connections and understanding Empathy limiting Mistakes

I think that part of being a great teacher and part of having a good teaching style, is to admit when you are wrong or when you make mistakes. It also is partly being understanding and willing to set aside your stereotypes so that you can understand the student better. I think the biggest mistake educators make is not getting to know their students enough to understand that things happen in their lives and sometimes it effects their learning. By making the connections with them and understanding and acknowledging that maybe as an educator we judged a student for not turning in work on time or judged them for something, we can right our mistakes and wrongs and be a better teacher. 

3.) It is important to acknowledge who the marginalized students are 

Unfortutely we live in a society in which there will always be a marginalized student. Whether it is someone being excluded for how they look or how they act, marginalization unfortunately happens often within schools. In order to be a good teacher or make great teaching it is very important to recognize this. I think after taking this course this is the biggest lesson I learned. A lot of teachers will just ignore this and are willing to move on in the day but part of great teaching is getting kids out of their comfort zones to interact with many different types of students and understand each others differences. With this you can help limit the amount of marginization that goes on in the classroom and limit stereotypes by having students interact and understand one another. 

4.) It is important to talk about current issues that matter and don't limit them.

I think especially now a days, teaching has become very sensored. It is definitely hard to talk about issues especially with higher ups breathing down teachers necks. But part of great teaching is addressing issues that matter like racism, evolution, civil rights, etc. It's important to go over these topics with students and important that as a society, this is how we learn from our mistakes. I think that by bringing up issues like these in the classroom, we are expanding our young minds and making the world better as a whole. It is our call to action as educators to use these examples as learning moments to show our students how we should act, and explain to them / point out the wrongs in these issues. Becuase These issues do matter and they do need to be talked about at school where it is an equal learning environment for all and has the least amount of influence from others. 

5.) Finally it is important to do right by every kid. I.E. have culturally relevant teaching. 

I think that culturally relevant teaching is a very important aspect in being a great teacher. This type of teaching not only connects each student to the subject at hand but it also helps us as a society grow and learn from current events going on. By making your lessons culturally relevant you're being responsive and students are more in-depth to learn about it. Being culturally relevant also helps you grow as a teacher too. It teaches us how to be understanding about a lot more than our subject and learn the appropriate instructional strategies for current issues and things that matter. All in all this helps us do right by every student. This helps us do everything we can for our students and makes our teaching better and more impactful. 

All in all it is these five things that I think make great teaching and can help us as educators grow and learn. It also helps us teach students to the best of our abilities and makes us better as a society as a whole. 

image from: https://www.ed2go.com/uark/online-courses/teaching-science-grades-4-6-self-paced/