Mentors can help apprentices recognize and develop the skills they need to start becoming master teachers.Master teacher is still unclear term in education, but some understanding of what the term entails is emerging. According to Robyn R. Jackson, he has identified seven principles of effective instruction that the best teachers practice through his work helping teachers. Although mentors who guide new teachers may not yet have attained all the qualities of a master teacher, they’ll have a better idea of what to aim for, and they can help new teachers understand what great teachers do.
Here are seven principles of mastery teaching that mentors should explore with teachers early in their careers.
1. Start where students are.
Master teachers strive to see students in terms of strengths instead of shortages. They know students well enough to help them make personal connections to classroom material. They also try to understand the “currencies” students bring to class, meaning the behaviors students use to acquire knowledge, respect, or other rewards.Teachers generally value such currencies as listening in class, whereas a student’s preferred currency may be showing off his or her knowledge to gain peers’ attention. Master teachers try to accept students’ currencies—such as by allowing an outspoken student to make a class presentation—but also help students broaden those currencies.Experienced teachers can provide guidance in how to relate to students as a caring adult would, not as a “cool kid.” They should model strategies for allowing flexibility while maintaining classroom control and for finding ways to motivate reluctant learners. New teachers also need guidance in teaching students how to succeed in class by introducing and reinforcing “soft skills” like organizing one’s time well.
2. Know where students are going.
Great teachers connect standards to learning objectives and activities (in that order). They know how to unpack standards, teach both content and processes connected to standards, and plan rigorous learning objectives. Novice teachers need planning time with grade-alike and subject-alike teachers who can help them understand the scope and sequence of each course. They need a conceptual understanding of rigor and the process of planning rigorous units, practice interpreting standards, and support in designing formative assessments.
3. Expect to get students to their goal.
Master teachers maintain high expectations of both themselves and their students. They teachers acknowledge where they need to improve and take steps to broaden their teaching repertoires. They confront the cruel facts about students’ learning gaps but maintain faith that students will learn what they need to, no matter the obstacles.This may involve reflective conversations about teachers’ beliefs and values and how those beliefs affect their instructional choices and views of students’ abilities.
4. Support students along the way.
Rather than wait for students to fail, master teachers plan proactive interventions and supports for struggling students. They learn to anticipate confusion that students are likely to have with certain kinds of content and to uncover misconceptions early.Experienced teachers should provide guidance on effective remediation practices and detailed instructions on how to set up intervention strategies that will catch students before destructive struggle derails them. Because master teachers focus on acceleration rather than remediation, even for struggling students, new teachers need to be shown how to set students up for success through accelerated work.
5. Use feedback.
Part of supporting students along the way is providing feedback that facilitates learning. Accomplished teachers reinforce students for working hard, not for “being intelligent”; help students interpret grades; and help students internalize feedback and apply it to future learning.
New teachers need guidance on how to build meaningful grading systems, including examining models of experienced teachers’ systems. They need instruction and practice in how to clarify the learning that an assessment targets, provide feedback that addresses that target, and give feedback that’s specific, descriptive, and replicable.
6. Focus on quality, not quantity.
Master teachers know how to avoid overworking. New teachers often want so badly to do the right thing that they end up doing everything, and being ineffective. They need help to prioritize standards and objectives, assign purposeful homework, and separate what content students need to know from what is nice to know.
7. Never work harder than your students.
Master teachers are careful not to do work that is actually students’ work, and they ensure that students know how to do their jobs. This includes providing laser-sharp directions and expectations, picking one’s battles in terms of pushing resistant students, using logical consequences, and tolerating a certain amount of discomfort and productive struggle for students.
Working harder than our students is an easy trap to fall into.
We can help new teachers by identifying what constitutes teacher work and what constitutes student work and modeling strategies that make productive student work more likely, such as setting up classroom rules and using de-escalating language. Mentors should give mentees feedback on how well they are letting students do the thinking in the classroom.Introducing new teachers to the approaches they should adopt as they strive for mastery takes the frustration out of the first years of teaching. By mentoring novices like this, we cultivate mastery from the beginning and make it more likely that new teachers will thrive.
In a nut shell, we can help teachers meet this fate by helping them see, from the beginning, that mastery is the result of consistently practicing a few principles of effective instruction. Thus, these principles serve the new teachers as a road map to mastery and help them understand their own strengths and weaknesses.
Excerpt from: Robyn R. Jackson is president of Mindsteps and author of Never Work Harder Than Your Students (ASCD, 2009) and the Mastering the Principles of Great Teaching series (ASCD/Mindsteps, 2010).
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By: Ma. Gemma C. Dela Fuente | Teacher III | Limay Elementary School | Limay, Bataan
