There are countless views on what is involved in being good at teaching, this account will be restricted to summarising the points made by one distinguished American university teacher (Beidler, 1997). His views come from personal experience and observation rather than educational theory and he offers 10 suggestions:
1. Good teachers really want to be good teachers
They try very hard and, if they let their students know they are trying hard, their students will respect them for that. If they see that you really want to teach well then they will be prepared to help you with that. However, they will not forgive you if they get the impression that you don’t care about your teaching. 2. Good teachers take risks
They set themselves impossible goals then scramble to achieve them.
Academic freedom allows university teachers to take chances and try different things in the classroom. It is exciting to try things that may fail; if you succeed then you have accomplished something – and if you don’t succeed then you have learnt that you need to make some adjustments.
3. Good teachers have a positive attitude
We ought to enjoy, not complain about, the challenges students give us.
Good teachers try not to be cynical or negative about their students or else cast themselves as victims. We need challenges and there is none if all we have are smart, self-motivated, hard-working, wide-awake students; these don’t really need to be taught.
4. Good teachers never have enough time
Just about all good teachers are eternally busy, and this is not because of the volume of classes they have to teach. They prefer to be busy and know that the work of good teaching expands to fill every moment they can give it.
They are in their office the most hours for students to visit and they get a lot of visits, they put the most effort into providing students with feedback on their assignments, they are most in demand for committee work, they put the most work into their class preparations. They are always trying something different or else refining what they have previously tried
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