Great teachers
“What is wind?”
The Atlantic article, What Makes a Great Teacher? looks at data collected from the Teach for America program to identify the traits of those teachers who are able to dramatically improve the test outcomes of their students. Read the whole thing here:
Their findings:
They found that the school itself does not matter as much as the teacher; teacher quality varies more within schools than among schools so choice of a particular school does not necessarily mean getting a great teacher .
There was no correlation between earlier experience working in poor neighborhoods and teacher effectiveness.
Having a track record of perseverance seemed to be the best predictor of success.
'Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues have actually quantified the value of perseverance. In a study published in TheJournal of Positive Psychology in November 2009, they evaluated 390 Teach for America instructors before and after a year of teaching. Those who initially scored high for “grit”—defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, and measured using a short multiple-choice test—were 31 percent more likely than their less gritty peers to spur academic growth in their students. Gritty people, the theory goes, work harder and stay committed to their goals longer. (Grit also predicts retention of cadets at West Point, Duckworth has found.)'
Teachers who scored high in “life satisfaction”—reporting that they were very content with their lives—were 43 percent more likely to perform well in the classroom than their less satisfied colleagues.
These teachers “may be more adept at engaging their pupils, and their zest and enthusiasm may spread to their students,” the study suggested.
Past performance—especially the kind you can measure—is the best predictor of future performance. Recruits who have achieved big, measurable goals in college tend to do so as teachers.
Grade-point average and “leadership achievement”—a record of running something and showing tangible results. However, college GPA alone is not as good a predictor as the GPA in the final two years of college. If an applicant starts out with mediocre grades and improves, this curve appears to be more revealing than getting straight A’s all along.
A master’s degree in education seems to have no impact on classroom effectiveness.
Other results:
Great teachers tended to set big goals for their students.
They constantly look for ways to improve their effectiveness by reevaluating what they are doing
They recruit students and their families into the education process
They maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning
They planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome
They worked relentlessly, refusing to give in to poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.
Specific teacher actions identified :
Frequently checking for understanding
Steven Farr's (Teach for America training and support) book , Teaching as Leadership, detailing the research and its findings, will be published in Feb.
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