Daniel,
Very nice! Confidence always strengthens the foundation of a course. You're right, no one has all the answers, yet giving all we have (and getting unresolved questions answered) shows preparation, competence, and models a professional demeanor.
Barry Westling
Understanding yourself as an instructional leader is very important. You will have an impact on your students for the best or the worst.
As a good instructor, you want the impact to be positive and also to contribute to the retention and progression of the students. In this light, an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses is of paramount. Maximize the use of your strengths while working on improving your weaknesses. An instructor is a change agent thus the change must start with you by taking small steps to improve in area of your weaknesses.
Lima,
When we have a good understanding of where we shine (and where work is needed), we can be most effective relying on what we know will work best. But we also need to not avoid weaker areas that need improvement, and I think a personal goal should be to work to make the weaker area among the stronger areas. With this attituide, we can expected continued, ongoing progress and improvement.
Barry Westling
When I first started teaching, I taught the way I learned - in an auditory style as I went to Catholic school and "learned" (!) from the strict, rigid focused approach of the nuns who stood at the front of the class, ruler in hand, and only ever talked.
So when I first started teaching, I realized that I wasn't connecting with the other learning styles in the room as I was locked into/comfortable with my own "auditory" style.
I quickly learned to look at course content and ask myself "self, I need to teach this in at least 3 styles- how do I do this?"
As I incorporated this in class, a lot more "light bulbs" when on over the heads of the students!!!!
As the old expression goes - "all roads lead to Roma" but I learned that instructors need to travel all the roads too...
Brenda,
Great self analysis and description of your past experiences. As instructors, we have to learn continuously, and make improvements as we go.
Barry Westling
I am so glad that Brenda brought up learning styles as an area of understanding ourselves as instructors. We teach most naturally in the style in which we learn the best. Discovering our own learning style, helping our students identify their primary learning style, and then working to expand our teaching methods to include variety is so important. Providing students with methods to study that fit their personal learning style will help each individual student become more successfull.
Lisa,
Good points. I belive we can potentially turn our weaker areas into stronger areas if we are willing to work on improvement. This takes determination and humility, as not every action will result in a rousing success. But with persistence, we can become beytter instructors, thus helping studenjts better.
Barry Westling
When I first began teaching, I was just regurgitating what the book said, and was not getting the results I wanted. I stepped back and looked at my career in design and realized that my experience is the selling point to the students. By looking at myself as an instructor with a unique skill set, I was able to incorporate "real world" uses for the theory I was teaching and got great results.
It is a good idea to understand your own personality so that you can understand how to make a more positive impact on the students. Knowing personal weaknesses is important so that we don't allow them to get in the way of positive instruction.
I believe that understanding yourself as an instructor applies to not only the methodology you use in the classroom and the type of interaction you have with your students, but it is a main driver or indicator of how well you will be able to get across to your students exactly what it is they need to know - what is at the core of the subject matter, and precisely what they need to know. This is a very intrinsic part of being an instructor, and it isn't always something that comes with a degree. It involves life experience, personality, subject matter knowledge, and ability to interact with students to a meaningful degree.
Clay,
Yes, it's important to remember the instructor is the expert, and the textbooks and related resources are merely supllements to assist students in their learning. The instructor is a facilitator of learning, using their own experience and knowledge, alomng with other materials that can create an effective learning system.
Barry Westling
Michele,
Good point. We want to relate and interact with our students in the most positive manner. Gradually and consistently working away at areas identified as weaker will ultimately become among the stronger traits if we recognize the value of self improvement.
Barry Westling
Greg,
I agree, and I think experience both in the subject area and with dealing with students (diversity makes us stronger) can effectively convey the degree of competence an instructor demonstrates to their students. Students are people afterall, and being able to relate to all personalities types is necessary to approach instruction with optimism and enthusiasm.
Barry Westling
It is very important for a instuctor to understand their teaching methods as well as about themselves. A instructor needs to evaluate themshelves for their strong and weak points to make sure they are delivering the material in the best way possible to their students.
Vickie,
I think we all teach to our strengths; those willing to make improvements, work on weaker areas will probably find the weaker areas can become among their strongest, if they're willing to work at it.
Barry Westling
I completley agree. You should always seek self evaluation to see area that you can improve as an instructor. As all things new techniques and technology are are always changing and we as instructor should embrace that as new and exciting for us instructors to teach our students.
This is all so correct, makes sense to me, and seems a lot easier than it really is. I have learned a lot about teaching skills from this site, however, when I actually try to make this all work for me, it just doesn't come together for me as I would like. I still struggle with being the instructor that I would like to be. My question is: is there such a thing as an individual,instructional coach, or something that I can do to make this work for me to my liking?
Vickie,
Yeah, its like someone who says they have 10 years experience, when really its more like one year experience, 10 years in a row.
Barry Westling
Nancy,
Well, experience teaches us all much of what is described and it's a fact there is no teacher better than experience. I think being a natural, genuine version of ourselves, honest with students, and with applied skills of patience, courtesey, and confidence, we improve ourselves and our students will benefit as well.
Barry Westling
By understanding your stength and weaknesses, you can be a better instructor. Natually, we like to gravitate towards our strenghts,. However, if we are student centered in our teaching, we need to make sure we also teach methods that too, as that may be the ways some students learn best. By working on our weaknesses, they can become our strenghts. Also, by always focusing on our strenghth in the end they could be our weakness as a instructor if that is all that we focus on.
We need to be a role model for our students and to continually learn and grow, as that is what we ask of them.
