Teachers Best Practices

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  • Becoming a Microsoft Certified Educator

    A Microsoft certification for education is a highly sought after certification for teachers, which will validate you as a teacher who is technologically literate. The Microsoft certified educator, or the MCE certification is recognised globally as a great qualification, and can be a massive benefit to teacher’s careers.

    The MCE certification is gained by undergoing an examination, which will test your abilities in educating with technology. The test is widely viewed to be very vigorous and requires a fair amount of training and expertise to be undertaken successfully. Preparation is therefore essential, and Microsoft can help you in this regard, with a free learning curriculum for individuals looking to gain the qualification, called the Teaching with Technology e-learning curriculum.

    This course is sometimes confused with another certification offered by Microsoft, the Microsoft Certified Trainer certification. This other course is where you can become certified in using Microsoft technological tools, such as Microsoft Office, which is also a good certification for teachers.

  • Understanding the Reading Ability of Students

    Being able to read is the most important part of having a successful education. Every single class you do at school requires reading to some extent, and while there are some practices in place to help dyslexic students get by, most of the time they’ve been proven to be inadequate. Therefore, one of the most important tasks for a teacher and for a school, is to be able to correctly gauge the reading abilities of students.

    Determining reading ability isn’t such a clear cut process though, as to get a good understanding of their abilities you need to have a break down of them. The two main areas which determine reading ability is vocabulary and comprehension; or being able to an individual word, and then being able to understand how the meaning of these words is determined by the context in which they’re used. If there is a problem with either of these areas, you can then decide whether or not you need to focus on improving a students vocabulary, by helping with definitions of words, or if you need to focus on improving their understanding of grammar.

  • Improving Your Teaching Repertoire

    Teaching is a difficult task to get done right and involves a great deal of expertise to be done professionally. Some of this expertise can be gained prior to actually starting out your career, but this is mostly of poorer value than what you can learn in work for a number of reasons:

    As with most standardised training, the goal is to standardise results, which, in the case of teacher training, results in teachers whom have a solid understanding of the basics. While the basics are essential, they aren’t always enough to produce great teachers. Likewise, not continuing formal training as a teacher, and relying purely on your own experience to develop your skills, will cause you to have gaps in your understanding of how to teach a classroom.

    To develop your teaching skills, you should rely on a mix of formal training, for instance during teaching training days and various teaching conferences, as well as your own experiences. By using the formal training as a means to discover new ideas, you can then use your experience to determine which ones you’ll be able to apply easily and effectively.

  • Advancing Your Teaching Career

    Career advancement is a very important thing in teaching, and it can be quite difficult as well. While those who’ve made other career choices have the ability to leave their current workplace and seek work (and a raise) at a new place, teachers are generally more limited.

    To overcome this, schools try their best to provide clear career advancement opportunities in the same building, but taking advantage of this opportunity isn’t always so clear cut. As with most things, it comes down to striving at what you’re currently doing. This will over time result in your superiors relying on you more and providing you with more responsibilities which will eventually convert into increased pay and promotions.

    Sometimes however, despite your best efforts, there is simply no position available above your current position, but striving is still a good choice, as it will be reflected in any letter of recommendation your employer could write for you.

  • Improving Your CV

    Like with any jobs, first impressions in a job application are all important. This generally occurs in the form of a CV or resume, so getting it right and making it stand out from the competition is key.

    Depending upon the amount of responsibilities the job you’re applying to has, you may need to expand more than for an entry teaching position, but you should always make sure that it is at least a couple of pages. It needs to provide; some background on who you are; what you’re interested in, what motivates you and what you want to achieve, and then it needs to provide some information on your time in the workplace; your experience, expertise, qualifications and licenses.

    What you need to try to do in your short introduction is demonstrate how enthusiastic you are about teaching. If the job is particularly competitive then this could mean showing how you’re willing to go above and beyond the minimum requirements, maybe by setting up an after school program or something else which is likely to help improve students’ results.

  • The Advantages of Working in a Private School

    A lot of people who don’t know much about the education sector assume that working in a private school pays a lot better than in a free school, but this is generally not the case. In fact, the pay for most teaching roles remains at a pretty equal level. However, this does not mean there aren’t advantages for teachers working in private schools.

    Private schools operate completely differently than public schools, due to two primary reasons; their budget is bigger and they are able to set their own rules. This is advantageous to teachers because it means that they; potentially have more input into the lesson plans they do; are able to establish more control over the classroom; place greater investment into students futures, thereby improving results. Also, for a number of reasons, the general air of expectation and discipline generally results in better behaved student bodies, helping to reduce the stress teachers usually encounter massively.

  • How to Keep your Class Engaged

    After a long day at school, teachers will often find their last class of the day largely not engaged in learning or paying any attention at all, which can be a very frustrating experience, both for them and for the students who are willing to learn. Keeping them engaged therefore becomes of paramount importance.

    Doing this is more easily said than done, with many of the techniques which teachers tend to rely upon in a normal class failing when there are so many students not prepared to do anything at once. One of the best ways to do it is to make sure that you time your intervention correctly; the earlier the better. A lack of attention to the subject at hand is often contagious, so tackling the issue when it is just one or two students can stop the spread, so to speak.

     

  • What Careers are Available in Education?

    Education is in fact a massive industry, with many roles which are essential for maintaining a robust apparatus. There is, of course, the teaching role, which requires a number of things to be suitable for. These requirements can change depending upon which level of education in question, but in virtually every case, being a qualified educator is necessary to work as a teacher in state-run schools.

    A teaching qualification isn’t always the same as another one either. If you take the UK as an example, they have 3 different qualifications; a primary school courses, secondary school courses, and post-compulsory courses teacher qualification. In addition to these standards, it is also very beneficial to have an additional degree in a chosen subject, such as a maths or English degree if that is the goal. There are other non-compulsory teaching courses which a teacher could opt into, which could look great on a CV, such as a qualification in teaching special needs students.

     

  • How do we Ensure Children Get the Best Chance in Life?

    This is a very important subject and one which has been endlessly examined for the answer. Results are in, and they show that the most important thing that a primary school can do to ensure the individual success of their students is to focus on making sure that their reading and writing skills are fully developed. The best primary schools in the country all know this, and work tirelessly to ensure that this happens.

    While their are lots of ways to teach reading and writing, research shows that the most inclusive method, and by that I mean it is suitable for all students, whether they have a learning disability or not, is by teaching via systematic phonics. This is where you focus on teaching them the sounds of each letter, i.e phonetically, so that from there the children will be able to sound out words more effectively.

  • Girls Outperforming Boys in Schools on a Global Level

    Around the world, in virtually every country and region, we see a gap between results attained by boys and girls in school, with girls getting better results on average. Irrespective of social class, gender equality in the host nation, or any other social indicator, the gap exists. There are only three regions where this is not the case; Costa Rica, Columbia, and Himachal Pradesh. All of this was found in a joint investigation by Glasgow and Missouri universities’ Psychology departments.

    While in general, girls did outperform boys, there was interestingly an area where this wasn’t the case, namely at the top level of performance; when you compare the results of the best performers of both genders, boys did outperform girls.

    The individual who led the study, Dr Gijsbert Stoet, of the Univserity of Glasgow is quoted as saying “At the moment we see that, with the exception of high-achievers, boys have poorer educational outcomes than girls around the world, independent of social equality indicators.” “What’s more is that this gap in not reducing.” “If policy makers are seriously concerned about gender equality in education, this ought to be their top priority.” “That it is not, is probably fuelled by a lack of public understanding of the distribution of skills, which we have highlighted in this and previous studies.” “For example, listening to many news stories in the media, one can easily get the idea that girls around the world are falling behind boys, in particular in countries with known gender inequality.” “The reality is quite different in the many countries participating in Pisa, which many may find surprising.”

    It is clear that the issue of male under-performance in education is a serious one, which is affecting their economic outlook around the world. Whether or not we’ll be able to deal with the issue is another matter, as whether or not governments around the world are likely to prioritise it is as well.