Azul Terronez, in his TED talk, “What Makes A Good Teacher Great?” describes qualities of teachers through the eyes of students. Do you want to be great in the eyes of your students? Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators? What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher
to being a great teacher?
Yes, I want to be great in the eyes on my students. That is one of my main goals as a teacher/ part of the job!
ReplyDeleteYes, being great in the eyes of my students is 100000% different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues/admin. Those are two very different things. Some colleagues do not agree with my teaching method, meanwhile my students take to it SO well.
I really want to continue working on my classroom management. Although I have very few incidents where behavior is a problem, you can never have too much classroom management skills in your pocket. Another thing I want to work on is making sure EVERY single child is engaged, especially the shy ones. This is a tricky one to figure out, but I am working on it!
Do you want to be great in the eyes of your students?
ReplyDeleteOf course, I want to be great in the eyes of my students. I had an administrator ask me a similar question at my job interview. He said "Do you want your students to like you?" I said yes of course! He said "that is the right answer!" It seems very simple, but many educators would say "no, I want the students to respect me." The fact of the matter is, no one will respect you if they don't like you. You have to build the relationships and the trust before any form of respect will develop. Being great in their eyes will then develop from there. In high school, I was in awe of my choir teacher. She had a lot of credentials and she truly was a master of her craft, but at the time I didn't know all of her accomplishments. I just new that when she said something, I believed it. She cared about us, she was a dominant teacher, and she always made it happen. I teach elementary students, but I would love to give off that same energy to them.
Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators?
I would say yes it is. My colleagues rarely see me work. They see my professional interactions in the hallway and they hear about me from the students. I definitely care more about being great for my students, but it is important to have good relationships with my peers.
What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher to being a great teacher?
I think I need to be more intentional about always putting my best foot forward. If one class goes haywire or if I'm frustrated from bad behavior, I can't bring that into the next class.
Do you want to be great in the eyes of your students?
ReplyDeleteYes, I am always wanting to be great in their eyes. I think it's very important.
Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators?
I believe these are very different. My colleagues teach a completely different way than me. They run their rooms differently. I believe that if what I am doing with my students is working good for them, then I've accomplished what I want done. I believe that everyone will have different ideas/opinions and we have to just learn to respect what works. I still want my coworkers and uppers to respect me, and I will always respect them.
What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher to being a great teacher?
I believe I need to continue to build positive relationships with all my students to be a great teacher. You can teach them everything that they need to know, but the relationships that you build with your students are why they remember you being their teacher. It's not what you taught them, but it's how you taught them. What you did to keep encouraging them and making learning fun and easy for them. I also need to remember that the kids I teach are 3- & 4-year-olds, they are going to have rough days, but they don't happen every day. I need to forget about the rough times and continue to see all the good inside each child.
Trina Merideth's Response:
ReplyDeleteYes, I definitely want to be described as "great" in the eyes of my students but "greatness" is, in my opinion, seeing what each student needs to feel to be validated, respected, and noticed for.
There is definitely a difference between student vs. administration "great." Being great in the eyes of the administrator is being on time, knowing content, handling student behavior, communication with parent/guardian, and doing well on standardized tests. However, greatness for students is knowing I care about them, their learning, their grades, and their future.
Changes I would like to see is me bringing more "value" to what we do in the classroom. I try to provide the "why" but I would like to make a more obvious effort do that on a daily basis. I want students to knwo the "why."
Yes, I do want to be great in the eyes of my students. I would rather be great in the eyes of my students than in the eyes of my collegues and administrators. The way my students see me is much different than the way I'm seen by the adults I work with. All of my students, in any of the subjects I teach, will know that I love to learn. I talk about the new things I learn everyday and how I love that sometimes they are the teachers. My students know that I can be silly, like they are sometimes and that I care about them and their lives. With my older elementary students, it is harder to get through to them, and I think I sometimes just write that off as being the age they are. But, I can't do that anymore. I need to work harder to connect with them and show them that I am a "great" teacher.
ReplyDeleteI do want to be great in the eyes of my students. I don't really think that bring great I'm the eyes of my students is different from being great in the eyes of my colleagues and administrators. I think they go hand in hand. I know teachers that I think are great teachers, and it is because they care about their students and make learning meaningful and fun. I think I need to work a little bit on the different hooks we read about as well as considering whether or not I'm hitting all the Cs in order to become a great teacher.
ReplyDeleteDo you want to be great in the eyes of your students? Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators? What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher to being a great teacher?
ReplyDeleteOf course, I want to be a great teacher. It is most important to be great in the eyes of students over being great in the eyes of your colleagues, but but would be ideal. It is different. Colleagues don't have the same relationship with you that you will form with students and visa-versa. You still want your fellow teachers to see what you do as beneficial and effective with teaching. You wAnt students to have experiences that they talk about outside of your classroom. This may clue coworkers in on some of the magic that is talking place in your room. I hope they are also doing great things. I hope we are all curious and want to take ideas from each other and share great strategies. We are all on the same team!
To go from being good to great, I will use more hooks. I will be a better performer during some of the drier lessons that still need to be understood. There are so many great questions the author gives us to draw on. Just reading them gets me excited to try some new ideas that will spark the imagination and help me do a better job of preparing my students.
Being a great teacher is important to me. I think being a great teacher to students has a higher priority to me though. Students at the end of the day are the ones that benefit most to it. There are clues to if I’m being great like students show up after I’ve had them in class to come chat or tell me how they are doing. If they take another class I teach because they are excited to see what else we will learn. Being great in the eyes of colleagues is different. It requires different skills and some I don’t interact with much, but their opinion of me is based on what students end up sharing. To me I am my biggest student advocate, but I do work to have a pleasant relationship with my fellow peers. (admin, teachers, support staff, janitors, etc.) because I respect they are also doing their best. I would say the changes I would be making is keeping up with what I am already doing well and making it greater. Sharpening my skills not letting them dull over time. Keeping my cup full.
ReplyDeleteI would want my student to feel that I am a great teacher not just a good one.
ReplyDeleteI think being a great teacher in the eyes of my students is different then being a great teacher in the eye of my colleagues/administrators. Many of my colleagues and administrators has different teaching styles than myself. You need to find what will work in your classroom to get the students engaged. The changes I would like to work on is being able to learn with my students and also to listen to my students.
Yes, I want to be a great teacher. I feel being a great teacher in the eyes of my students vs eyes of my colleagues and administrators can be the same in some scenarios and different in others. I feel how greatness in a teacher is perceived greatly depends on who your colleagues and administrators are and what their thinking/methodology is. Being a great teacher in the eyes of my students is more important to me than being one in the eyes of my colleagues and administrators.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I became a teacher is because I wanted to instill a love for learning in children and I believe that love is greatly impacted by their teachers and the teaching environment.
Something I want to change is to notice when kids are struggling and not make assumptions. This is hard for me currently because it’s easy for me to assume that everyone has the same or similar home life, values, and ethics especially since we are in a Christian homeschooling co-op. However, that isn’t always true and it can be destructive to my lesson and relationships with my students making that assumption and hence assuming inaccurate attitudes of my students. I also really enjoyed his comments on how children want teachers who think like a kid but act like an adult and children want teachers who aren’t teachers but who love to learn and inspire kids to learn. I love that.
I want to be great in the eyes of my students, my coworkers, and my administrators. I do think being great in the eyes of my students is different than being great in the eyes of my coworkers. For the most part, coworkers don't see you in class as you're teaching. They don't see your classroom or behavior management, or how you handle conflict between students. A great teacher does all those things, and then takes it to another level. A great teacher is someone who goes above and beyond every day, even if they don't want to go above and beyond. They are empathetic and encourage a positive and safe learning environment. Something I can do to go from a good teacher to a great teacher is to provide my students the opportunity to provide feedback on my teaching, the activities we're doing, etc. As a great teacher, I would not only listen to that feedback, but also use it to guide my teaching in a more positive and beneficial way for my students. If there are ways that I can be a better teacher, why would I not want to use that feedback to push me to be better? On the flip side, how can I give my students feedback, and expect them to follow through, if I can't do it myself?
ReplyDeleteI want to be a great teacher for my students, colleagues, and administrators. I do believe that being great in the eyes of my students is different than in the eyes of my colleagues. Teachers are around their own students in their own classroom all day long. A lot of time we only see our colleagues between periods and lunch time in the middle school setting. This being said, students experience first-hand classroom management, what is being taught, how behavior is addressed, teacher energy, etc. In order to go from being a good teacher to being a great teacher, moving from just covering the content/goals needing to be taught/learned to creating more experiences where students felt the lesson. This could be done with starting more lessons off with curiosity and ending with more reflections. In “Teach Like a Pirate,” a big takeaway is that students remember emotions, not so much the busy work, like worksheets.
ReplyDeleteI would rather have my students think I am a great teacher than my adminstration. My students see the WHOLE; admin sees a snapshot of the short time in my class. Or, they see "data". There is so much more to teaching than data and test scores or grades! I like the quote in the TEDtalk about Great Teachers aren't in the classroom. The effects of a good (great) teacher will be remembered beyond the classroom. I am happy when I run into students I have had 10 years earlier that remember my class, a lesson, a project, or even a fun thing that happened. To me as an art teacher, I know that most of my students won't go on to be artists, or even art teachers. But I want to teach them How to Learn - so they keep learning. And I want to teach them the Joy of Art - so they keep creating. I don't think running into an admin from 10 years ago would provide a deep sense of satisfaction that I did well with my purpose in this world. Yes, I believe in being a professional and giving all I can to my school and my team, but my allegience is with my students I see every day. I want to honor them.
ReplyDeleteYes, I want to be great in the eyes of my students. Yes, being great in the eyes of my students can look different than being great in the eyes of colleagues or administrators. Students are children and therefore think differently than adults. I can become great by making sure I connect with the students with more than just the content I am teaching. I can be mindful of what is going on in their lives outside of school and ask them about interests they have outside of the classroom. I can also give the students more opportunities to be engaged. I can always be a better listener. Listening is so important and sometimes I forget to listen because I am focused on all content I am teaching.
ReplyDeleteI certainty want to be viewed as great from both students and colleagues, but especially students because as their teacher, they are my priority. Being great in the eyes of students is different from being great to colleagues or administrators because students respond to how engaging, supportive, and inspiring a teacher is. Being great amongst colleagues and administrators often evaluated through professionalism, organization, and results.
ReplyDeleteTo move from being a good teacher to a great one, I want to focus on building strong relationships and creating lessons where students feel seen, challenged, and motivated, because even if they don’t remember every detail, they will remember how the lessons and subjects made them feel. I also want to incorporate more creative and interactive activities, connect lessons to students’ real lives, provide opportunities for student choice, and continually reflect on and adjust my teaching strategies to make learning more meaningful and memorable. For each classroom, for each subject, and each new year might mean different things for this. However, teaching a subject like social sciences is a lot of story telling and flexibility, so i cannot be afraid to take these risks to reach those goals listed above.
I do want to be great in the eyes of my students. This is very different from being seen as great by colleagues or administrators. For my students, it means they feel safe, trust me, and see that I can be silly, serious, and energetic all in one. When students feel this connection, they are more engaged and motivated to learn.
ReplyDeleteTo go from being a good teacher to a great teacher, I want to bring more creativity and excitement into my classroom and lessons. By making learning playful, hands-on, and meaningful, I can inspire my students to be curious, confident, and enthusiastic learners.
Being great in the eyes of my students would be one of my main goals as a teacher. In my classroom, I strive to build solid relationships with my students that help them to feel safe, cared for, and pushed to do their best. I hope that my students have a desire for learning and coming to school because they enjoy being in my classroom. I hope that my students feel safe and heard when they enter my classroom. I hope my students feel equipped and pushed to do their best when they enter my classroom.
ReplyDeleteI feel that this is different than being seen as great in the eyes of colleagues and administrators because the students are in my classroom for the majority of their day. I spend much quality time with them, learning about them, and encouraging them. Time, in my opinion, has a lot to do with being great.
When I go back to the classroom, I would hope to do an even better job of portraying this every day.
While I feel like it is definitely important to be great in the eyes of your administration for career purposes, I feel like I'd rather be great in the eyes of my students. If my students are genuinely excited to come to my class, view my classroom as a safe space, or even just like to stop and chat with me in the hallways, I think that means my influence or impact on them is beyond that of just being a teacher.
ReplyDeleteWhile the daily content is important, I think that the teachable moments (distractions or off-task behaviors) are the things that I often like to focus on, because its the real world scenarios that they will really latch onto and hold meaningful.
If your students think you are great, it will carry over into how they behave in your class and the effort they put forth into your class. Your administration and colleagues will eventually notice those things.
Yes, to have my students see me as a great teacher would be a treasured honor. Being their teacher is my passion; I love teaching them and I love learning with and from them. Providing them a safe place to learn and grow, succeed and fail, have fun and be serious, to be seen and heard, and to feel accepted and appreciated for who they are, not only by me but by their fellow learners is always first and foremost in all I do as their teacher.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that being great in the eyes of my colleagues and administrators is also very important to me, and in many ways, it entails the same qualities of a great teacher that Azul Terronez mentioned: passion for students, educating, and learning; finding balance between working with and supporting each other and life away from school; being an active listener; not judging or assuming; offering support and helping each other grow as teachers; not taking each other or our jobs or careers overly seriously; being brave enough to take risks and to fail; etc. The difference comes as stated in other posts that relationships between colleagues are adult in context and different rules or nuances of engagement apply.
Changes that I would like to make in order to become a great teacher would be to offer my students more choice in what and how they learn, to be more comfortable with being a facilitator rather than always the leader. I would like to get them up and moving more to more actively engage them in their learning. I think that I do well in encouraging them to take risks and helping them realize that mistakes are okay and are opportunities to learn and grow. (I provide myself as Exhibit A quite often!) What I do need to do more of in risk-taking is to "let my hair down" more and allow myself to "sing"...I need and want to incorporate more of Dave's Hooks into my lessons. Maybe, the most important change I need to make for myself and my family is to find more of the "balance" Azul spoke of. For way too many years, I have allowed teaching to consume too much of my personal time.
Azul Terronez, in his TED talk, “What Makes A Good Teacher Great?” describes qualities of teachers through the eyes of students. Do you want to be great in the eyes of your students? Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators? What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher
ReplyDeleteto being a great teacher?
Yes, I was to be “great” in the eyes of students. At school, I am their person, their sense of safety. I am their first school experience and in many cases, their first adult to care for them besides their parents. I build a relationship with them right away and continue building it the whole two years I have my students. I show them love, patience, and create a love for learning. I create routine while also keeping things fun and interesting for them. I want them to want to keep coming back each day and to be excited to find out what we get to do and learn.
I feel being great in the eyes of our students is different than being great in the eyes of our coworkers and administrators. They see us on the outer layer of our greatness. They see our class management and interactions with them at meal time and recess. They see the projects we do. They see how our students respond to me. They never get to see fun activities that we do or lessons that we’re really successful unless I share it with them. I would like the chance to observe my coworkers in the classroom sometime to learn from their greatness as well.
I feel we always have room to grow and to become more great, I feel we should never stop being willing to learn and try new things. I want to keep bettering myself as a teacher so that I will always provide my students with exactly what they need. Every year is different with different students and so I will continue to do what it takes to be “great” each year.
Azul Terronez, in his TED talk, “What Makes A Good Teacher Great?” describes qualities of teachers through the eyes of students. Do you want to be great in the eyes of your students? Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators? What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher
ReplyDeleteto being a great teacher?
Yes, I want to be great in the eyes of students because kids are the reason that I went into education. My goal has always been to be a great for my students so that I could have the most impact on their lives. According to Azul Terronez, students say great teachers connect with them, listen to them, and have a passion for learning. I need to do more than deliver my content. I need to take an interest in who they are by taking the time to get to know them. I need to let them know that I care about them beyond the classroom. I need to really listen to them. Not just hear the words they are saying. I need to listen to them so I understand their lives, successes, and challenges...they need to know I hear the message of their experiences. My students need to see my passion for teaching. I need to show excitement for all my students by providing engaging lessons each and every day. Therefore, if I want to be a great in the eyes of my students, I need to connect with my students, listen to my students, and demonstrated a passion for learning.
To a degree, being great in the eyes of students is different than being great in the eyes of colleagues or administrators. Teachers and administrators regularly evaluate teachers on things such as curriculum, classroom management, and meeting professional and ethical responsibilities. In fact, these are the types of things that are included in my annual reviews with my administrator. However, students measure greatness on things such as how teacher connect with them, such as feeling supported and respected, and how engaging their lessons are.
Changes that I want to make in order to go from being a good teacher to great teacher include learning not only my students' names but also their interests. I will listen more to my students so they feel heard and cared about. I want them to know that I genuinely care about them. I plan to attend more of their activities, as well. Other changes I plan to make include increasing student engagement by making my lessons more engaging. I plan to utilize a variety of the hooks described in the textbook which will help move my lessons from dull to engaging. I know it will take time to make all of my lessons great, but I am ready to start working on them.
This is a great question that at the surface seems simple, but it is very complicated. Yes, I want to be a great teacher in the eyes of my students. Yes, being great in the eyes of your students is different than being great in the eyes of my colleagues and or administrators. I can be great to one student and not to the other for a variety of reasons. The same can be said for colleagues and administrators.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes me great for a student (understanding, compassion and empathy) is not the same that would make me great for administration. For administration I need to make sure that I am on time, I am getting all of the things that are expected of me done, that I am going above and beyond what the bare minimum is. In regards to my colleagues, I think it is important to listen to them vent, to help them with questions that they have about different situations, to have a laugh with them and be polite and help them when they need it. Ultimately, to be great in the profession, I need to make sure that I am great for my students as that is why I am there and if I get the respect or approval of my colleagues and administration, then great, but ultimately, I need to be great for my students.
I think this is simple in terms of putting your students’ needs as a person ahead of that as a student. Let your students know that you care for them as humans, their health, safety and give them a safe place to talk, but be honest with them that there may be sometimes when you have to get others involved because of your professional duties.
I feel that being a great teacher in the eyes of your students, your colleagues, and yourself all have an intertwined level of importance. First and foremost, your students need to feel respected, valued, and cared about from their eyes in regards to their teacher. If these things occur, then learning and growth will happen. Teachers need to have good relationships with students and provide a classroom that encourages laugher, excitement, and fun! This is what our students see and remember. They don't know or comprehend what happens behind the scenes. This is where we have to be a great teacher in our own eyes. We know the standards that the students need, the soft skills that we should be teaching, and the learning that is not necessarily academic that needs to take place. We also have an obligation to be a great teacher in the eyes of our administration and colleagues because we are all in this together. We as adults can learn and grow from each other. I want other teachers to use my ideas, strategies, and feel that I can be someone they turn to when needed.
ReplyDeleteBlog Post #8
ReplyDeleteAzul Terronez, in his TED talk, “What Makes A Good Teacher Great?” describes qualities of teachers through the eyes of students. Do you want to be great in the eyes of your students? Is being great in the eyes of your students different than being great in the eyes of your colleagues or your administrators? What changes do you want to make in order to go from being a good teacher
to being a great teacher?
Yes, I want to be a great teacher in the eyes of my students. A great teacher in the eyes of students shouldn't differ from being great in the eyes of colleagues and administrators. If our goal as teachers is to listen to our students' needs and interests, and to teach them in a way that they truly see us as great, then by being a teacher who inspires our students, we should also be viewed as a great teacher by our colleagues.
I admit it. I am not always the best listener. I want to be intentional in my desire to 'hear" my students when they speak. I am going to ask my students the same question. What makes a great teacher? I am looking forward to finding out the answers.
I do spend time every morning talking with the students, allowing them to share important events in their lives, etc. If we skip "share time," I will have students ask why we didn't take time to share. Building and maintaining relationships is so important. I want each student to feel like they belong and are important in the class.
I think if you are a great teacher to the students, then is translates to being a great teacher amongst your fellow teachers and also to the administration. Listening is an important aspect of being great. Caring is another aspect of being great. Having content knowledge is also part of it as well. I remember one of my teachers being many of my classmates favorite teacher. He/She listened to us. Played guitar in school during class. They had a wonderful sense of humor and made us laugh. They got to know us at a very personal level. But being our favorite did not translate into being a great teacher. We read our textbook, listened to lecture, and did worksheets every day. He/She was not a great teacher in the sense of teaching and learning, but because of all the things I listed above, they were many students' favorite teacher. I hope this makes sense.
ReplyDeleteYes, I want my students to see me as a great teacher, but a great learner as well. Being great in the eyes of my colleagues is not as important as being a great teacher in the eyes of my students. I care more about what my students think of me.
ReplyDeleteFrom the moment I meet my students, they learn of my struggles in school and that I’m not only there to teach them, but to learn with them-learn things I didn’t pick up along the way. I feel my kids relate better to me because I struggled in school. I’m not an expert in anything, but rather, aspire to be one through learning and practice. It’s also ok to make mistakes as long as you own it and talk about what you’ll do differently moving forward.
I was so happy to hear Azul Terronez stress the importance of teachers learning with their kids. If your students see your excitement and love for learning and growing, it will be easier for them to develop those feelings too. Every day is a new experience when you’re in the trenches learning and discovering with your kids.