Becoming an engaging and effective educator requires more than expertise in an academic field. It is about interacting with people and helping them to understand the different phases of the world in creative ways. However, the engagement itself is a “learning” word but it takes as an “entertainment” (Barkaoui et al., 2015).
This is not an easy task, it requires various techniques to teach effectively. Good educators always have several common qualities. According to the cheap essay help UK standard, an effective and engaging educator is one who is well prepared, sets clear and fair expectations from all the students, is patient with the students, keeps a positive attitude, and evaluates their teaching method on a daily basis.
However, it is compulsory for an engaging and effective educator to adjust their teaching method according to the students and the material. Also, keep in mind that every student learns in different ways some would like to take education essay help from you, and some don’t need it at all.
As an educator, you are a role model and mentor for your students who set the tone of the class. Your basic job role is to provide knowledge and education to the students (usessaywriter, 2022). When an educator shows commitment and enthusiasm students are more likely to do the same. In contrast when you show negative, impatient, and unprepared behavior in your teaching method your students will reciprocate it.
Hence, there are some qualities that every educator must know in order to become an engaging and effective educator. Below are the common qualities available in an engaging and highly effective educator.
1. Be positive
Keep a positive attitude in the class in order to engage the students. Teaching becomes interesting if students are motivated to learn by desire instead of grades or degrees. Many educators are first time confused by getting new authority and mistakenly pressurize students for respect. Think that your students are your teammates, not your opponents. Teaching and learning is an overwhelming task but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy and have fun in the class. Make sure to be creative and innovative to motivate your student toward the topic.
2. Be prepared
It is crucial for educators to know the materials. As students are expected to read the assignment and attend lectures, you are also required to do the same. Most of the faculty expect newly graduated TAs to attend lectures, even if they haven’t taught that course before. If you have any confusion review key concepts especially if it has been a long time since you have worked on that topic. Think about how to demonstrate and design a strategy or method to teach students a particular topic. The best way is to create an outline or notes so you can review them while giving a lecture. This will also help in not missing any important points. Moreover, also prepare overheads, handouts, diagrams, and teaching aids in advance. Prepare them one day before and don’t wait until morning.
3. Be organized
As you have a plan on what you want to teach. Now your job is to demonstrate the key points and important context in order to help students to integrate the work such as lectures, reading, labs, papers, exams, etc. As there is not enough time to cover everything so choose the most important concepts to teach and show them how they are related. Explain the ideas that will help students to build material that they have mastered whether from your course or previous class. Don’t just only focus on what you are teaching but Demonstrating to students that they are learning now is helpful in the next course. Keep your goals in mind and pace yourself according to them, this way you will not run out of time.
4. Be clear
The most important personality of an effective educator is that they always explain things in simple ways whether it is a complex or easy topic. For most educators, it is easy to forget that students have no knowledge of a particular subject. Help students understand the new concepts so they understand the tone of your discipline. Such as drawings, charts, diagrams, slides, etc. Make sure that these visual aids are large enough to clearly see and read. Be sure to have positive body language. If you observe your teaching by someone else or videotaped it, you will get to know the habits that you never knew about before.
5. Be active
Usually, the concepts you teach only a few students to digest while others remember a small fraction of the topics that you studied. A lecture is an efficient way to deliver concepts to a large audience but it is also an inefficient way to deliver lasting knowledge and skills to the students. Leave some time for classroom activities other than traditional lectures, discussion, and questions and answers sessions. Include problem-solving exercises as it doesn’t take much time, and yet allows students to engage in the material.
6. Patient
Remember what it is like to learn something new. Give some time to your students to process things. Know that students can make mistakes and in this way, they can learn from them. Even though learning new concepts is difficult to process for the most motivated student. Rather than blaming students for why they don’t understand the concepts, consider changing the method of your teaching to teach them more effectively. Also be patient with yourself, as teaching can be overwhelming sometimes. Consider giving the same opportunity to yourself to make mistakes and learn from them.
Final thoughts
Working as an educator or teacher starts with commitment rather than a job. Develop a sense of how to involve students in each class. By doing so, you develop teaching goals for your career as well as link your classroom performance to those goals. After developing the sense and teaching goals you automatically create a professional development plan in all areas of your growth that were discussed above. Remember that everything takes time so in becoming an engaging and effective educator. Always remember that to become an engaging and highly educator occurs when you start thinking that teaching students is part of the learning process and you work to transform who you are and how to function while interacting with the students.
Reference list
BAW., (2022). Effective Ways for Teachers to Manage Work on Contracted Hours. Online Available at <https://www.usessaywriter.com/effective-ways-for-teachers-to-manage-work-on-contracted-hours/> [Accessed on 26th May 2022]
Barkaoui, K., Barrett, S.E., Samaroo, J., Dahya, N., Alidina, S., and James, C., 2015. Teachers’ conceptions of student engagement in learning: The case of three urban schools. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 61(1), pp.80-99.
