The Characteristics of Successful Teachers Part I

Introduction

When I was a beginning teacher, I studied teachers who had more experience and noted their strengths and weaknesses. I found that there was a great deal of variability in people’s styles and approaches to teaching. I resolved to learn as much as I could from these teachers in order to benefit from their experience. Successful teachers are a library of information and teaching techniques. They offer real answers to the difficult questions new teachers will encounter. As a newcomer to the profession, I learned to humble myself and appreciate the teaching tips I received.

In a sense, my ambitious approach to learning was more of a survival tactic than a personal drive for more knowledge. I knew that I had to advance beyond the novice teacher category rapidly before the students took over the classroom. I also realized that these teachers had been in my situation as a first year teacher and were very willing to impart their knowledge to help me get through the difficult first days. Rather than reinventing the wheel, beginning teachers are wise to seek out successful teachers in their field to serve as mentors. These relationships create a professional network and serve both participants in positive ways.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned is that there is more to the profession of teaching than simply being an excellent classroom teacher. Although individual styles and approaches vary, there are common characteristics that are shared by all successful teachers.

In addition to the obvious traits of intelligence and a love for children, successful teachers are patient, kind and creative. They present a positive attitude every day that exudes confidence and adds to the professionalism of their classrooms. Their students benefit from a caring and challenging learning environment that places students at the center of lesson planning. Their understanding of the craft is current, time-tested, and comprehensive. They are also aware that teaching is a profession and not merely a job. There are unwritten requirements beyond the scope of the job description and a broad range of qualities and abilities are needed.

It is useful for beginning teachers to create their own list of desirable teacher characteristics and to use this list to continually modify and refine their professional conduct. You should start by reflecting on all of the teachers you have had in your own academic career and identify those who exemplified excellence in teaching. If you were to line them up and note similar characteristics, which qualities would they be most likely to have in common? Would attributes such as intelligence, social awareness, and a love of learning be on your list? Most people would agree that these characteristics are found in all good teachers. However, there are other less obvious areas of commonality as well.

This workshop will take a perceptive look at the teaching profession and define an initial list of the characteristics of successful teachers. Examine the following characteristics to see if they belong on your list.

1. Maintains Class Control

A teacher must establish an orderly classroom before meaningful instruction can proceed.

Students rely on teachers to establish and maintain a safe and orderly learning environment that is welcoming, inclusive, and allows each student to achieve his or her maximum potential. The need for student discipline requires the teacher to develop a set of rules that establish boundaries for behavior and to enforce them in a fair and consistent manner with appropriate consequences for misbehavior. Parents also rely on teachers to instill good citizenship skills in their children. Furthermore, administrators expect teachers to demonstrate adequate classroom control as the first step in providing meaningful instruction for all students. Given the degree of importance attached to this objective, how do successful teachers implement and enforce their code of conduct?

Successful teachers prepare for classroom disruptions before they begin to occur. It is important to prepare for student misbehavior ahead of time rather than trying to create a hasty response in front of a class full of students. It is helpful to imagine likely scenarios of student disruption before the school year begins and to create a list of classroom rules to manage them as they take place.

It is helpful for new teachers to seek the advice of veteran teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators as they create a set of rules. They will provide different insights and perspectives that may not be obvious to a beginning teacher. In addition, administrators can list those items that are considered required rules so that the teacher can remain consistent with the overarching framework of the school’s rules.

Although student disruptions during the first week of school are infrequent, they do occur. Successful teachers anticipate problems and have their classroom rules in effect during the first few days of school.

Along with creating a list of rules, teachers should include consequences for breaking each rule. Both the rule and the consequence should be presented together during the first week of school. Students may help the classroom teacher to construct the rules and consequences as part of the introductory events that occur during the first week of school. Student-constructed rules guarantee a degree of student acceptance and minimize misinterpretation. Teachers should begin the process of clearly establishing the class rules as early in the school year as possible.

The best way to prevent problems associated with student misbehavior is to eliminate or minimize the opportunity for them to happen. A well-constructed, student-centered lesson plan is the best tactic that a teacher can employ to avert student discipline situations. If students are actively engaged in the learning process for the full amount of class time, they are less likely to be off task. Successful teachers keep their students busy during the two crucial moments in which most disruptions take place, namely the beginning and the end of the lesson. Lessons that do not have an effective beginning fail to get students immediately focused on the learning process. Likewise, lessons that conclude before the end of the time period create unstructured minutes that present opportunities for students to misbehave.

If students enjoy what they are doing, they are more inclined to participate and remain focused on the lesson.

Maintaining order in a classroom is easy if rules and consequences have been clearly identified. Once students are aware of the rules, the teacher simply needs to reference them in order to control most student offenses. The difficult task for some teachers lies in learning to enforce the rules consistently and without bias. This is usually not because a teacher wishes to overly punish a troubled child. Rather, the dilemma occurs when a normally respectful student does something offensive and out of the ordinary. Should the child be punished according to the rules? Should all rules be enforced equally for all students, or is there a way to use the rules to help improve each student’s conduct in class?

Discipline can be seen as either a product or a process. Teachers who view discipline as a product see a rule as a constant and enforce each rule, every time, for all students without regard to the typical conduct or history of the offending student. These teachers focus on the rule and not the student. For those who follow this philosophy, all students who break the same rule can be expected to face identical consequences, regardless of whether it was the individual student’s first or twenty-first violation.

In contrast, teachers who view discipline as a process envision the students on a continuum of learning that includes correct deportment. They focus on the student and not the rule. They do not expect students to always present perfect behavior but look for growth over time. Teachers with this philosophy may look more deeply into the reason(s) for the offense and the number of times the student has broken a rule. As a result, students who commit the same offense may receive different consequences. For instance, a student who has an unblemished record and does something out of character is likely to get a softer judgment than a student who has a history of breaking rules, even if they are both charged with breaking the same rule.

Successful teachers use a combination of both philosophies that help students to engage in better behavior over time. For a more complete discussion of student discipline, refer to the workshop on Classroom Management.

Law and order must prevail in every classroom every day. Teachers are responsible for establishing the boundaries and enforcing them in a fair and consistent manner. Failure to do so can lead to increasing amounts of disruption from students. It is also inconsistent with the teacher’s task of creating good citizens. Successful teachers create lessons that minimize student disturbances and enforce class rules and consequences in a manner that improves the value of the learning experience.

2. Provides Deliberate Instruction, Direction and Support

Successful teachers capitalize on the fact that they are the single best resource to promote student learning. They plan lessons and masterfully coordinate the events within the classroom. The successful implementation of a lesson plan is determined by how well the teacher directs the students through the details of the plan and provides support for students in need. A well executed lesson is the fulfillment of the plan. An incomplete or unproductive lesson will not meet the original intent of the curriculum and the content will likely need to be revisited.

Monitoring students’ progress and directing them as needed, while providing support and encouragement, is a fundamental duty of a teacher.

A well-structured lesson is one in which students know what they are supposed to do (agenda), what they are supposed to learn (objective), and receive the full support of the teacher in the process. Teachers may select from a variety of instructional strategies to achieve this goal. One example is a direct approach where students proceed in incremental steps under the guidance of the teacher to a solution of a mathematical problem. Another example is a student-directed lesson where students receive the procedure for the activity and proceed to complete it at their own pace in an individual or group format. In both scenarios, the teacher is providing direction and support, but from different angles.

When a lesson is not well structured, on the other hand, the result is pandemonium. In this case, without teacher leadership and support, students are allowed the freedom to create their own learning experience. While this idea sounds promising in principle, most students do not have the maturity or the technique to teach themselves in a non-directive setting. Unstructured classes rapidly become non-productive, discipline problems occur more frequently, and student accomplishment falls to low levels. However, there is an instance where an unstructured class may provide instructional insights. If a teacher is trying to observe student tendencies such as emergent leadership, subgroup formation, or positive habits, an unstructured class may be useful as a temporary strategy. It is important to proceed with caution, however, as unstructured classes have a tendency to rapidly spiral out of control.

An unstructured lesson may generate excessive noise and movement that creates a distraction for students in a neighboring class. Also, the students may exit the class at the end of the period so distracted in their thinking and deportment that the next teacher cannot accomplish the goals of the lesson.

For mature functioning classes, the teacher may choose to allow the students to assist in developing and implementing the lesson. When given the curricular objectives, students are often able to develop their own plan for accomplishing them. In doing so, they are more likely to work with concentration and need less moment-to-moment support from the teacher. In such a case, it may appear that the teacher is withholding direction. However, the teacher is still providing direction by confining the student-generated plan to only those curricular items that are included in the activity. The teacher may also direct the session by clearly explaining limitations, procedures, and concepts before the students begin to work. As a result, the teacher provides the overall direction for class procedure and remains free to support those students or groups who cannot progress further without direct assistance.

Successful teachers provide their classrooms with deliberate, well-planned instruction, leadership, direction and support in ways that are most beneficial to their students. A lack of structure, however, can lead to a variety of problems.

3. Exhibits Content Expertise

Parents send their children to school in order to learn from content experts. It is expected, on the one hand, that teachers will have a well-rounded education with appropriate levels of understanding in all areas. This enables them to serve as models of well-educated people. Likewise, it is important and expected that teachers are especially knowledgeable and proficient in the subject areas in which they teach.

The wealth of knowledge that teachers accumulate over the years helps them to transfer understanding to their students. Teachers become content experts through two primary means, either through learning from others, such as in school, or by learning on the job as an element of professional training. Those who achieve their formal training by going into teaching directly after their college preparation possess a substantial amount of book learning and a strong background in facts and research within the subject area. However, they often lack the practical knowledge that is characteristic of teachers who have also applied their knowledge on the job.

Neither college preparation nor on-the-job training adequately prepare a teacher for the minute details inherent in most curricula and in student questions. Those who retain a lifelong learning attitude continually increase their knowledge as they teach. All teachers who enter the profession should make it their goal to be and remain content experts in their subject area.

Teachers who select the profession as a second career bring different insights and knowledge sets to it. Like college-trained teachers, they too possess a wealth of knowledge. Second-career teachers are able to draw upon their practical experiences as professionals to apply principles and concepts in their lesson plans. They are also able to enhance learning through telling stories and weaving elements of their real world experiences into their instruction. However, second-career teachers may not have the broad view of the subject area that a college-trained teacher possesses.

Both types of teachers are well prepared to enter the classroom and no one method of preparation is preferred over another. Ideally, the varying types of teacher preparation form the foundation for cooperative teacher groups. The varying strengths of a mixed group produce different insights and experiences that teachers can translate into enrichment for their classrooms. Of course, a teacher who has both college training and work experience has the best of both worlds.

Teachers who are not content experts struggle to provide an equivalent quality of instruction to those who possess the appropriate expertise. Content experts know how to make a difficult concept easier for students to understand. They are able to provide simplified explanations that build to a larger, unified concept and easily break down difficult concepts into smaller, more understandable units. They resolve student problems at an early stage before they become a source of frustration.

A successful teacher is skilled at presenting lessons that enable students to understand and remember lesson objectives. Students must understand the instruction before they can retain it correctly in their long-term memories and be able to use and apply it at a later time. The physics teacher who is able to reduce the lift off of the latest space vehicle to a basic comprehension of Newton’s Laws of Motion simplifies the process so that more students can understand and remember the event. Similarly, the reading teacher who systematically demonstrates pre- and post-reading strategies enables more students to read for comprehension at an earlier age. Further, the skilled foreign language teacher who monitors student progress and corrects improper student pronunciations before they become engrained removes obstacles for future understanding and remembering.

Content experts are sensitive to the needs of teachers who are teaching outside their field of expertise. Consider working with these teachers on a regular basis on lesson planning and helping them gain insight into the instructional subtleties of the subject.

Content experts interweave related concepts within the instruction and possess a wealth of information about historical and other events that embellish a subject beyond the constraints of the discipline. Relating a real-life episode or recounting a special technique engages students in such a way that they are better able to remember the concepts. The teacher who links the fungus that caused the Irish Potato Famine with the massive numbers of Irish immigrants that came to certain sectors of the United States, and the resulting effects on economics, politics, and culture, provides numerous linkages for their students. The more cross-links students can form, the better they are able to connect prior learning from a variety of disciplines, and the more solidified and complete the concept becomes for them.

Teachers assigned to instruct a class outside of their expertise take on the extra burden of providing amenities of this nature to their students. It is difficult for a teacher who is not a content expert to accomplish these enhancements without extra effort and outside assistance. It is helpful in this case to become a member of a planning group for your subject area.

4. Masters Teaching Techniques

A strong working knowledge of pedagogy, or the art of teaching, is essential for all teachers. Teachers must be able to present objectives in ways that construct understanding and enhance retention in order to promote their students’ learning. There are many intelligent people who fail to attain excellence in teaching because they do not know how to express their knowledge in ways that students will understand. Successful teaching can be, and often is, measured by how much students have learned as a result of their teacher’s instruction. It is not measured by how much their teacher knows at the outset. Knowing how to teach is as important as knowing what to teach.

Pedagogy is the “how” of teaching. Successful teachers know that one size does not fit all and there is no one method of teaching that will reach every child or work with each concept. That is why it is essential for all teachers to have a working inventory of strategies and techniques that can be employed to craft a lesson. These techniques can also be used to differentiate instruction for the range of students in the classroom. Skilled teachers modify tactics as needed while planning their lessons and make adjustments during lessons to maximize their effectiveness.

There is a degree of experimentation that takes place as new teachers learn when to employ the many strategies that are available to them. Beginning teachers should not become demoralized because a lesson did not work as well as planned. They should learn from the event in order to achieve success the next time.

There are many different teaching techniques. Each technique has positive and negative aspects and certain techniques lend themselves better to particular situations than others. For instance, the lecture technique is useful for providing information to the whole class at one time. On the other hand, as part of lesson planning, the cooperative group model is effective in promoting student interaction and motivation. Successful teachers know under which conditions to use certain teaching techniques to get the maximum benefit for their students.

The intent of the curriculum may also determine the style of the lesson. If the curricular objective states that all students will be able to sew a button onto a fabric, then the teacher knows that the lesson must allow time for students to practice this skill. The teacher then has to decide if it will be an individual or small group practice session (or both). In the same manner, elementary students asked to observe and measure the growth of a plant will require a planting activity to accomplish this goal.

One other consideration is the preferred learning modality of the students. It is likely that in every class there exists a plurality of preferred modalities. Some students prefer to learn by reading, others by listening, and others by doing. The teacher must identify the needs of their students and construct lessons that capitalize on their strengths while encouraging growth in other areas.

Be aware that the first quiz is often too difficult and demanding for students to complete successfully.

For most beginning teachers, one of the more challenging aspects of teaching is the need to adjust the level of instruction to the learning level of their students. In most cases, new teachers present instruction at a level beyond the capacity of the students, in terms of both the degree of difficulty and the amount of content presented. It may take several quizzes and thoughtful reflection on the part of the teacher before the teacher can more appropriately align instruction with the developmental level of the students.

A more complete discussion on the “how to” of teaching is found in the Pedagogy and Instructional Design Workshop.

5. Continues to Learn

Successful teachers are lifelong learners. There are always new insights, facts, and strategies for them to learn and to implement. Their natural curiosity and desire for knowledge separate them from those who have a limited desire for personal growth. As a result, it is not likely that a successful teacher will teach the same class in the same manner twice in a row.

How does a teacher become a lifelong learner? There are several ways to remain current with the thoughts and ideas of the day. It is a good idea to start with other teachers who share the same vision. Within each school, there are pockets of teachers who are willing to share ideas and resources. In some cases, they form learning communities, either through their own efforts or through their administration. Learning communities serve to provide encouragement and accountability for teachers wishing to continue their learning.

If formal learning communities do not exist within your school, you may wish to create a formal or informal learning community to unite teachers who hold a common purpose. Most administrative teams welcome this type of teacher organization and will assist in the effort.

There are professional organizations that support teachers in extending their learning in addition to providing other benefits. ASCD (The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an example of an organization that provides samples of instructional items that support all subject areas. In most states, there are statewide associations that link with the national organization, such as the Maryland Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (MASCD) that partners with ASCD. Other national teachers’ organizations include the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA).

In addition, there are subject-specific associations that represent each discipline, such as the National Council for the Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The purpose of NCTM is to promote mathematics education and to provide teachers with the latest thinking in the continued development of new trends in mathematics education. They also provide teachers with new techniques and suggestions for teaching selected mathematical concepts. Statewide organizations, such as the Hoosiers Association of Science Teachers (HASTI) connect with the national organizations.

There are numerous national, state, and local organizations that are dedicated to promoting education and teacher development. New teachers are advised to survey the opportunities that exist in their area and consider joining one or more of the many professional organizations that are designed to help them.

Professional organizations are always in search of classroom teachers to serve in various capacities. Active engagement in these organizations will provide learning opportunities for participating teachers and increase their sphere of influence.

Once a teacher becomes a member of a professional organization, he or she receives their periodical or newsletter, invitations to serve on professional committees, and announcements of conventions and conferences. The periodicals and newsletters are designed to keep the teacher informed and up-to-date on current information. They often feature items submitted by other teachers that are immediately useful and easily implemented in the classroom. These organizations are an excellent way to remain current and to learn from resources that extend beyond those available at the school level.

Professional committees draw their membership from working teachers representing a variety of backgrounds. The committees are charged with a purpose that may involve resolving a problem or providing direction for future growth. Professional committees serve a vital function for the profession and allow classroom teachers to network outside of their school and become active in their profession.

Every teacher who participates on a committee sponsored by a professional organization is exposed to information and insights beyond the normal reach of the classroom. Their experience is multiplied when they use their new information to serve as leaders in staff development activities.

Conferences and conventions are generally multi-day events that are designed to provide resources to every teacher. Subject-specific conferences provide current knowledge and useful techniques for teachers of the subject area. Networking opportunities are enhanced since every teacher has the same teaching assignment. Conferences that are more generic in nature tend to be larger and allow participating teachers to see the interconnectedness of various subject areas. In both cases, vendors of educational products are present and showcase their newest merchandise. It is interesting to note that the vendors are usually very current in their thinking. Their products express new ideas and ways of teaching and serve as a means for teachers to update their knowledge. They will be more than willing to demonstrate the usefulness of their product. Attending conferences and conventions is a great way to remain current and to become recharged and rejuvenated. To the extent possible, new teachers should try to attend them on a regular basis.

Teachers who remain lifelong learners model the importance of continual learning for their students. They advance the profession by introducing new ideas and strategies that may then be transferred to other teachers. The continued improvement of the profession makes teaching a dynamic and stimulating experience. Teachers who continue to learn inject energy into education, and usually themselves, through the process.

6. Organizes Resources, Classroom Procedures, and Lesson Plans

Successful teachers know where to obtain particular educational resources. The educational resource may be an item the teacher wishes to incorporate into a lesson plan, such as a quote that solidifies a philosophical argument or a video that illuminates the architecture of the Renaissance. It may also be a piece of equipment that either the teacher or the students will have to use in order to complete the activity, such as a thermometer or a volleyball. The resource may also be a person, such as a guest speaker for a health class or a judge for an art contest.

Successful teachers are able to pull material from a variety of sources, such as college notes and famous quotes, to illustrate curricular concepts and improve student retention and understanding.

To that end, successful teachers are also organized and are methodical in their methods of filing and classifying information. This enables them to produce a superior lesson because they are able to find instructional items when needed, easily manipulate lesson plans to improve a learning experience, and maximize the efficient use of student time with standardized classroom procedures. Disorganized teachers are condemned to spend needless amounts of time looking for items that are needed for a lesson, are disadvantaged when adjusting lesson plans to provide a better match for students, and waste instructional time in recreating classroom procedures every day.

Those who spend an inordinate amount of time searching for resources have less time available for other things, including a life outside of teaching. Sometimes very disorganized teachers fail to find the resources they have in mind. When this happens, their students are deprived of a learning experience, and the teacher loses the opportunity for a great lesson. To prevent this from happening, it may be helpful to catalogue educational resources by curricular concept so they can be quickly referenced. Remember that teachers who are organized are more productive than those who fail to achieve a sense of order.

The lesson plans of successful teachers are always flexible and open to change. After reflecting on teaching a particular sequence of lessons, a teacher may readjust the contents of a lesson plan and/or the sequence of plans within a unit to better suit the students’ needs. The teacher may also decide that a component of one lesson plan might work better when combined with another lesson. It is not unusual for a teacher to decide to add or modify lesson plans to help create a bridge between students’ prior knowledge and current objectives, keep the lessons current, or to use them with specific subpopulations that may need additional help.

Keeping lesson plans on a USB drive with a back-up saved in your email or on a cloud storage service is a helpful technique. If this is not practical, a three-ringed binder with one lesson on each page, in sync with the curriculum, also works well. With this level of organization, the teacher is able to find items by topic.

For instance, a teacher may decide to add a directed dramatic reading before allowing the students to proceed with a more casual reading of a similar passage or that performing an experiment before the supporting content rather than after it makes it more memorable. With organized lesson plans it is much easier to make additions, deletions, and modifications to whole lessons, parts of lessons, or lesson sequences.

Organized lesson plans provide another benefit to teachers and students. The internal consistency of a lesson plan serves as a road map and prevents the teacher from rambling through lessons in no particular order. Lessons have an articulated beginning, middle, and end that facilitate student mastery of the lesson objective(s). Following an organized plan assures the teacher that the necessary elements of a lesson are presented in the correct order with appropriate emphasis and repetition. In addition, when lesson plans contain internal consistency, students are able to follow the train of thought established by the curriculum. This makes the progression of ideas more logical and easier to comprehend. It also simplifies note-taking and promotes connections between prior learning, current instruction, and related topics to allow students to construct meaning. Internal organization of lesson plans aids the teacher in maintaining a directed focus during a lesson and assists students in their development of knowledge.

If relevant for your grade level, collect student notes on a regular basis early in the school year. This will show you if students are actively participating in class and provide insight into how they are recording the daily instruction. Do the notes resemble the teacher’s lesson plan and the curricular intent? If not, the teacher may have to make changes to the presentation of curricular materials.

The amount of information, resources, and general knowledge that a teacher needs to assemble for instructional purposes is staggering. Classifying and cataloguing resources is helpful in referencing useful instructional items. Teachers who utilize effective organizational strategies are able to maintain depth and richness within their instruction and to eliminate the tremendous stress that accompanies a disorganized routine. Teachers without a plan are often condemned to work harder, get behind in their work, and left with superficial lesson plans. They also tend to feel more stressed while fulfilling their duties. Remember that students will arrive at the classroom ready to proceed regardless of whether the teacher is prepared or not. Organization improves the efficiency and proficiency of teachers while disorganization wastes valuable time and opportunities.

7. Maintains Current and Accurate Records

Teachers are expected to maintain current and accurate records for a number of reasons. Typically, they are responsible for recording such items as student attendance, grades, and discipline referrals. In addition, teachers usually have to maintain state and local forms recording free and reduced lunches, families living on federal property, and remediation efforts for high stakes assessments. In almost every case, anything that a teacher is required to record can also be subpoenaed as an exhibit in a court of law. For example, attendance records are a good source of evidence in a trial that attempts to place a student at the scene of a crime.

Federal and state forms are a high priority because they affect the amount of funding received by the school through the school system or district. On the local level, attendance records and student grades are the items most often reviewed by local authorities and parents. Parents have the right to see how their child is scored and how grades are calculated based on data entries. Thus, it is very important to keep accurate records.

For items in the category of daily record keeping, such as attendance and grades, successful teachers establish an organized procedure for collecting and maintaining accurate records. One method is to create a seating chart for each class period and record absences as part of the clerical duties at the beginning of class while the students are completing their introductory activity. A seating chart is a graphic or illustration of the room including the student seats. The teacher either assigns or allows students to select their permanent seat and this location is recorded on the seating chart. From that time forward, the teacher simply observes empty seats and notes in a permanent record each student that is absent.

When conducting an investigation of an offense that happens during class, one of the first items needed is the record of students that the teachers allowed out of class during that time period. It confounds the investigation when a teacher does not maintain accurate and current records. This situation becomes magnified if the offense is great enough to warrant police assistance.

A related record that is also important is the documentation of students who are excused to leave class for any purpose, such as going to their locker or to the lavatory. Unsupervised students in a hallway present opportunities for misbehavior to take place. Wise teachers limit the total number of students who may leave the class for a given period and the number of times a particular student leaves class for a given number of weeks or months. Furthermore, the teacher notes the exact time the student leaves and then re-enters the classroom.

In most schools, attendance forms are collected from each class during the first class period. This information is often summarized into a master list and returned to teachers. Middle and high school teachers may use this list in later classes to determine if a student is deliberately missing a class. The form is also used by administrators and the police to determine if a child is present in school.

In a similar process, teachers typically record grades by listing students alphabetically or according to the seating chart in their permanent grade book. They are careful to label columns that indicate the total number of possible points and the title of the event. For example, an entry could be listed as “Quiz 1: The Alphabet” and include the date of the event. On lines that intersect the columns, the teacher enters the students’ names. In this way, student scores are recorded by date and by activity in the event that they are called into question.

A number of vendors have created electronic grade books that serve as an aid to organize the record keeping, calculate the current grade for each child, and create a hard copy upon demand. Although teachers often have to enter their own students’ names into the electronic record keeper, the organization is comprehensive and the calculations save time. These records can also be easily accessed by administrators and central office specialists for system-wide aggregation.

Once the intricacies of electronic grade books have been mastered, they are a very useful tool to efficiently record student grades.

There are occasions on which it is important for a teacher to keep track of the number and types of discipline situations in which a particular student has been involved. It is always a good idea for teachers to monitor and record student discipline activity that involves any action beyond a verbal warning such as a detention or referral to the administrator. It is equally important to record the date of the phone call to the parents informing them of the disciplinary action.

Like the grade book, the teacher can create a form by labeling the date, the date of the parent phone call, the nature of the offense, and the disposition by the teacher. If a student continually misbehaves, a running record of the events allows the teacher to escalate the consequences and actions to an appropriate level. It also gives the teacher evidence when talking with parents or administrators. Cumulative discipline records for several teachers may be combined by administrators to create a holistic picture of a child who needs special attention. There are also circumstances when a teacher may be asked to provide a recommendation for a student, such as for the National Honor Society or for clubs around the school. In those situations, the cumulative discipline log is a helpful reference document.

8. Maintains Clear and High Expectations for Students

High expectations reflect what a teacher believes students should be able to achieve, taking into consideration their academic achievement, social adjustment, and capacity to work towards goals. High expectations are the marks or standards that the teacher sets as goals for the students in a given time period. These expectations are designed to be realistic and to allow students to grow to the desired level within these domains. Successful teachers always couple high expectations with the tools and resources for helping students to reach them.

There is a growing alarm over the tendency for minority students to perform at lower academic levels than their white peers. One factor may be that teachers do not expect the same level of achievement from all students.

Setting high academic expectations for students is one of the most important duties that the public expects teachers to fulfill. Above all else, parents send their children to school to earn a quality education in the subject disciplines. The expectation is that the teacher has a clear vision of what the students are supposed to learn during a given school year and also a workable plan for ensuring that they learn it.

The teacher has to ensure that the expectations are curricular-based and are commensurate with the existing level of student progress. This is an important point because the students may have prior knowledge that indicates that they can easily meet and exceed the established benchmark and are therefore in need of a new, more advanced standard. On the other hand, some students may not have the prerequisite knowledge needed for success. In these cases, the teacher will have to create additional learning pathways for the students.

The standards for student achievement may begin at the same point for all students in a grade level, but they can be adjusted upward for students in need of additional challenges. Lowering the standards is not a wise decision because the students would then begin the next grade behind other students and with less time to catch up.

In most situations, the academic achievement goals are established by the approved curriculum. The teacher decides how the lessons will be designed to maximize student learning of these goals. It is common practice for a school or a school system to have a comprehensive curriculum for teachers that defines particular achievement goals based on state or national standards, a series of lessons designed to teach each goal, and an assessment to measure if the students have met or exceeded the goal and if the information needs to be re-taught. This curricular complement makes it much easier for a teacher to create aligned lesson plans.

The Every Student Succeeds Act underscores the fact that it is important for teachers to hold every student accountable to the benchmarks established for a subject. Students and teachers are encouraged to go beyond the standards if they can demonstrate mastery of the expectations. Teachers are discouraged from lowering standards for any student or subpopulation of students.

Students will perform up to the level that is expected of them, and occasionally go beyond it. Challenging students to perform at increasing levels of achievement inserts growth into the vertically articulated curriculum. If students do not grow, the spiraling effect of the curriculum dooms them to continued failure and a feeling of hopelessness. Only by intensive and concentrated efforts will these students be able to perform at the level of their peers who have met the expectations.

Expectations, therefore, are self-fulfilling prophesies. When a teacher has high expectations and provides assistance, the students will respond appropriately. When a teacher is not concerned about student expectations, then the students will not be either. Teaching is a process whereby a teacher provides experiences for students so that they can achieve or exceed the high expectations that have been set for them. Successful teachers are aware of the capabilities of their students and set realistically high expectations for all students. They then construct lesson plans that will allow every child to be successful.