What Makes Great Teachers Great?
“Strong teachers insist that effective teaching is neither mysterious nor magical,” says Ripley. “It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance.”
Instead, Teach for America has identified the following traits as the most important for high-performing teachers such as Taylor:
1. They set big goals for their students and are perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness.
(In the Atlantic article, Teach for America’s in-house professor, Steve Farr, noted that when he sets up visits with superstar teachers they often say something like: “You’re welcome to come, but I have to warn you — I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure…because I think it’s not working as well as it could.” )
2. They’re obsessed about focusing every minute of classroom time toward student learning.
3. They plan exhaustively and purposefully, “working backward from the desired outcome.”
4. They work “relentlessly”…”refusing to surrender.”
5. They keep students and their families involved in the process.
An expert quoted in the article summarized the findings: “At the end of the day…it’s the mind-set that teachers need — a kind of relentless approach to the problem.”
The first four traits above should sound familiar. Setting big goals, working backwards from results to process, perpetually trying to improve, relentless focus — these sound a lot like the traits of deliberate practice.
via Study Hacks » Blog Archive » On Great Teachers and the Remarkable Life: A Deliberate Practice Case Study.
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