What is an effective teacher? An effective teacher is one who runs an effective classroom, and touches the lives of children. An efficient teacher is one who knows what they are doing and does the right thing consistently. To be and effective and efficient teacher you must have three very important characteristics for student success. Positive expectations, extremely good classroom management skills, and know how to design lessons for student mastery. Positive expectations are essential to student success. When the teacher has high expectations, not high standards, the students will perform to your expectations. If you believe that all students are above average and that they all are capable learners, these expectations will transmit to the student, and the student will succeed. If these expectations are apparent toward all students it will benefit both the teacher and the students. Good classroom management is important for student success. For this to happen, the teacher has to be very organized, and consistent in everything. The teacher must maintain control so that instruction and learning can occur. Much of the control that a teacher has over a class is effected by what the teacher does on the first day of school. If you can maintain control during the first week, that is an accurate indicator for how well the students will do for the rest of the year. Designing lessons for student mastery is also very important for student success. To teach for mastery, an effective teacher must do two things, know how to design lessons in which the student can learn, and know how to evaluate the learning to see if the student has mastered the concept. You can learn to be an effective teacher by learning from your mistakes as well as from your mentors and fellow teachers. Every one of us is both a student and a teacher. We are at our best when we teach ourselves what we need to learn. .
