I run a summer camp and am charged with training my staff of 25 in one week, immediately before campers arrive. I can’t tell them everything I know. What are the most important pieces of being a good teacher?
- Basic skills
- Smile
- Listen
- Comfort
- Support
- Keep them safe
- Advanced skills
- Model
- Challenge
- Bond
- Feedback
- Cooperate
- Improve
- Let them be in danger1
- Basic Knowledge
- Safety policies
- Fun activities
- Hard skills: Cooking, pitching a tent, adjusting a pack (multiplying, dividing, solving a system of equations)
- Advanced Knowledge
- Edifying activities
- Stages of child development
- The bigger picture of skills: Where’s the best place for a tent? (Why do we solve systems of equations?)
Anything else? Look how much summer camp has in common with math ed!
The basic categories are easy enough to teach, but let’s look at some advanced topics in closer detail. These are the skills we use in math class, too.
Feedback
Praise should be specific and direct. Criticism should be specific and direct. All feedback should be timely: “see it, say it,” right? How do you teach someone else to give good feedback? We all struggle with giving more and better feedback in our classrooms, and my counselors have as many kids as we do.
Challenge
Kids on a bedrock of support and success will learn best when they’re challenged. We want them to feel comfortable most of the time, but acknowledge that most learning happens at some stage of discomfort (though we must avoid stages of panic). How do good teachers move kids out of their comfort zones in a safe way?
Improve
We want our kids to improve themselves, and as their role models we must improve ourselves. At camp, staff meet with supervisors once per week. In school, my PLC meets 1 or 3 times per month. How do you teach someone to improve?
Edifying Activities
At camp we have kickball, right? And in school we have, for example, properties of exponents. Both of these can be lead in a basic level 1 way or an advanced level 2 way. At level 1 we have kicking, running, adding, multiplying. At level 2 we have working as a team, changing the rules to make the game more fun, understanding why exponents are added, building on previous knowledge, verifying results. How do you teach someone to build level 2 into their activities? How do you convince them it’s important?
- a safe amount of danger, of course ↩
Mr. H
March 29, 2010 at 3:57 pm
You can’t teach people to improve, only how to. You can try to encourage change with carrots or sticks, but ultimately it’s up to them.
One of the biggest problems for a new teacher is inconsistency in enforcing classroom/school rules. You can show examples of what consistency looks like and maybe even drop in to classes to see. Even with that, it still took me a while to get it down.
Riley Lark
March 29, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Hm… you really don’t think you can teach people to improve? Where do they learn?
One of my primary goals as a summer camp is to teach kids to improve. A stated goal of many schools is to create “life-long learners.” I hope you _can_ teach people to want to improve.
Mr. H
March 29, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Regarding training teachers:
You can show them a better way and even provide them with the means (tools, methods, technology) to get there. They could even learn those skills while in training, but whether it translates to action is up to them.
I have seen colleagues go through the same training as I have only to see them not use any of the strategies or tools they learned. It’s hard changing habits. One might argue that they already have a pretty solid repertoire and the new tools may disrupt what they are already doing. This is true while we are still learning new skills, we almost always perform worse with a new skill at the beginning and then the improvements become noticeable. Many people give up on new skills way too early.
The nice thing about camp staff is that they actually want to be there. It usually means that motivation is taken care of. They come wanting to learn of things to try out and to work with you. Make sure there are easy strategies that they can implement or try immediately. It helps them build confidence and feel positive about taking a chance in the classroom.
Regarding creating life-long learners:
I think the most important thing about creating life-long learners is nurturing curiosity. If you’re curious enough, you can’t stop learning. Every answer begets another question.
Teaching kids to use Cornell Notes does not nurture curiosity. It helps them be more effective in learning and organizing knowledge. It might give a student the feeling that they have a secret weapon that makes them do better than other students. It might improve their engagement that way. I know plenty of kids who will do the work for points and are good at it but who are not particularly interested in or curious about anything they do.
Riley Lark
March 30, 2010 at 7:46 am
You said, “Make sure there are easy strategies that they can implement or try immediately. It helps them build confidence and feel positive about taking a chance in the classroom.” and that seems like great advice. From my own experience I know I feel best after PD with small, specific things I can implement easily. I will try to give at least one easy strategy with each training segment.
re. life-long learners:
How do you feel about provoking curiosity or passion, instead of only nurturing it? I try to model these things to get kids excited – and in this way I think you can teach kids to be curious, and teach them to want to improve. I agree with you about notes: notes systems can help kids organize their own knowledge, but they are unlikely to excite anyone by themselves. However, a student with organized thoughts may be more easily able to _advance_ his thoughts!
grace
March 30, 2010 at 7:56 am
Love this post– in my day job, I’m working on getting teachers outside the safe (and boring) routine of lecture + examples while students take notes (however guided or organized) and then doing pages of worksheets, which means:
Building mindsets: Our kids deserve great teachers. Being a great teacher takes time, effort, and continuous self-reflection. It’s really hard but that makes it even more worth doing.
This happens in part by showing teachers the alternative– what if we just let our kids memorize procedures rather than explaining why exponents are added?– and is difficult precisely because many of us never experienced the type of instruction we’re working towards or if we were lucky enough to have great math teachers, never really thought about all it takes to make that happen. Having the right mindsets drives teachers to action, and then they need skills and resources.
Building skills: how do we ask good questions? Good questions not only push students to higher levels of thinking, but also show them that we care about them and their learning. How do we meet students where they are and slowly scaffold them up to where we want them to be?
Training teachers in a short amount of time is really tough. Thanks for sharing and good luck