Are you a student teacher who’s about to become a professional teacher? Are you anxious about how you’ll perform as a teacher? It’s said that teaching is a calling, which is more or less true, especially due to its nature. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn or perfect your skills to make an exceptional teacher for your students. This article gives tips to assist you in your profession. Read on!
1. Be Proactive With Your Profession
The world is ever-changing, and innovations are developing every day. It means learning is a continuous curve with no end. You should take it critically since students will be relying on you to pass information to them. You want to pass up-to-date information.
According to Kathleen Jasper, being proactive means learning about the current trends that affect your profession and students, as well as adjusting accordingly. If there’s a new development in teaching, you can take an online course to better your understanding. You can use online sources to update yourself.
2. Practice With An Audience
Teaching often involves standing in front of your students for prolonged periods. You want to be devoid of any stage fright, no matter the size of your crowd. As you wait to graduate in your profession, you probably have a group of close friends. You can practice as each other’s audience where you act as if you’re in class and they’re your students. As funny and awkward as it might sound, doing this will help you learn how to speak in front of your future students.
Ask your friends to take notes of aspects you lack as you make your presentation. It could be a lack of articulation, talking too fast, or any other aspect affecting your speech delivery. Ensure you take this feedback positively—it’s the only way to improve your skills and excel in your profession.
3. Work On Your Self Confidence
In the teaching profession, confidence is key—it determines how you deliver content to your students. Your students won’t take you seriously as you want them to if you aren’t confident in what you’re teaching, which defeats the purpose of teaching.
Consider being more vocal and articulate in your speech. These aspects will boost the power of your message delivery, ensuring your students take you seriously at all times. As part of building your self-confidence, consider improving your communication skills, both verbal and non-verbal. It’s said that students can read your body language and pinpoint your fear. It’s something you want to avoid.
4. Have A Student Mindset
You’ll spend 90% of your time with students as a teacher. Since you’re responsible for taking care of and guiding them when at school, it’s important to build a healthy relationship with them. It’ll allow mutual respect where you understand each other without conflict.
It’d help to start thinking like them—put yourself in their shoes and reason how they would. By doing so, you’ll know how to talk, teach, and discipline them without them taking it negatively. However, refrain from being too lenient as they might take advantage of your kindness. It’ll defeat your purpose of guiding them in the right direction.
5. Be Creative
Just like everyone is different, your students are also different regarding their learning styles. Some grasp content better by listening; others prefer to practice with their peers, loving a taste of both sides. As a teacher, you want to accommodate everyone to help them grasp what you’re teaching.
Consider mixing online, indoor, and outdoor learning. Changing the environment will make your students understand and remember their lessons. From time to time, let them teach each other lessons in your subject. It could be a simple topic they could learn on their own. Ask one student to teach the rest. Besides being enjoyable, it’ll change and break the monotony of you always having to teach.
Search the internet for tips before you start your teaching profession. Preparing in advance will give you a better and easy start, creating positive energy as you start your profession.
Conclusion
Transitioning from a student teacher to a teaching professional might seem challenging, but with the right guidance, it’s an easy process. The teaching profession is often all about students. From the discussion, it’s clear that the main aspect to master is how to handle your students. With an understanding of their behavior, you’ll know the best approach to engage with them.
The discussion gives tips to assist in transitioning. Ensure you implement them to enjoy your teaching career from day one.
