How to be a Successful Teacher

Strategies for Personal and Professional Development

Paul Castle, Scott Buckler

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781446242971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Teaching is a rewarding, yet demanding profession, one in which a person needs to be fully prepared. This book focuses on the applied psychological skills, strategies and resources, which will help to ensure you are equipped with personal and professional expertise to survive in the classroom. In the book you will find:

-An overview of important psychological themes within teaching such as confidence, motivation and self esteem

-Explorations of physical issues related to successful psychological functioning, such as fitness and nutrition

-Advice and activities which will show you how to learn and use psychological skills and techniques directly

Readily accessible to a wide audience, including internationally, the book assumes no prior knowledge of psychology. The authors give specific examples taken from a diverse range of professional situations, always with relevant theoretical underpinning, and the structure allows you to dip in and out of chapters and sections.

The text provides support to students on teacher training courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. It will also help teachers in their formative professional years.

Section 1

Psychological aspects

The first section of the book introduces a range of the most commonly occurring psychological aspects relating to performance in the classroom. Chapter 1 introduces applied psychology and encourages you to think of the issues you may have previously covered in your training and development, while also introducing you to the structure of the book. It develops by encouraging you to think of the strengths and challenges within your professional practice while also asking you to consider what the ‘ideal’ teacher is.

Chapter 2 explores concentration and attention. Keeping your mind focused on the task at hand is crucial within teaching, not only to maximize your time but also to minimize disruption from other sources. This chapter makes reference to other chapters within the book to equip you to ensure that the time you spend on your planning, preparation and assessment is of high quality yet limited in quantity.

Chapter 3 discusses motivation, a key aspect responsible for a teacher’s performance in the classroom. Although motivation is a complex subject, we have identified some key areas demonstrating how motivation can be influenced negatively while providing strategies to develop motivation levels should they start to suffer.

Chapter 4 highlights the importance of confidence and self-esteem, two fundamental areas that teachers need to exhibit on a daily basis. Again we look at factors that may affect confidence and self-esteem, how to recognize if this is happening and how to resolve any issues through the strategies included.

Chapter 5 examines the way in which emotion, mood and stress influence performance, furthermore examining how they relate. Stress is a worrying trend that is increasing within education according to recent research, so being able to recognize where stress can come from, how stress can have an impact, and ways in which stress can be negated are discussed within this chapter.

The final chapter of this section, Chapter 6, deals with the one thing we can be sure of within education … continual change. It is flippantly noted that ‘there are no new ideas in education’ or that ‘education evolves on a 20-year cycle’. What was ‘fashionable’ a decade or so back may have become equally fashionable now. Furthermore, given that the National Curriculum appears to be changed every three years or so, and it appears a new government initiative needs introducing on a weekly basis, and so on, being able to adapt to change is a key component of a teacher’s ability.

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The Morning Bell: Another Day Begins! Introduction

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Chapter contents

Introduction to psychology

Chapter objectives

Psychology of education

The carrot and the stick

How can psychology help you succeed in the classroom?

Acknowledging ‘weaknesses’

Openness and honesty

Ethical principles

The ‘ideal’ teacher

One-minute summary

Short-term strategies for the here and now

Mentoring issues

Further reading

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Introduction to psychology

Psychology impacts on every minute of every day of our lives. The decisions we make are founded upon our thoughts, beliefs, principles and morals. Our decisions are influenced by a range of emotional states. If we feel frustrated, we are more likely to be frustrated with every minor annoyance which in turn is likely to be detrimental to our performance. Loss of concentration, fatigue or a lack of self-confidence can occur at the most inopportune times, resulting in a similar poor performance. There are days when we may lack passion, drive and motivation. Thankfully, for each of these states, there seems to be an opposite – where we have an unshakeable confidence, where we operate in a clear, focused and energized state. Yet day after day we are expected to perform to the best of our abilities where it counts … in the classroom. Psychology thus informs (or misinforms) what we think and how we act or react in the various situations that arise in the classroom (and of course outside).

The key is to ensure we can maximize our psychological resources, to ensure that we are operating at our optimum level to enable ourselves, and in turn our students, to get the most from the wondrous experience of teaching and learning. Yet how can this be achieved?

In order to thrive within the classroom, the secret is to ensure consistency: to embrace all of your psychological resources (both positive and negative) which in turn will allow you to acknowledge the elements that you need to succeed as a teacher. Furthermore, it is necessary to develop the required skills to become psychologically strong when it matters. This is what the chapters in this book will help to facilitate.

Chapter objectives

• Consider how psychology is included in education.
• Reflect on how you reward and punish yourself professionally.
• Understand the basics of Psychological Skills Training.
• Identify professional ‘challenges’.
• Develop a picture of the ‘ideal’ teacher.

Psychology of education

For a number of years, there have been developing areas of research within the psychology of education. To the greater extent this research has focused on using psychology to ‘enable’ learners, for example through principles of effective teaching and learning, behaviour management, supporting individual needs, and so on. Yet in relation, little research exists specifically for the teacher in developing their personal ‘toolbox’. To some extent, this is expected to be ‘picked up’ during your lengthy apprenticeship to the classroom with little guidance provided by tutors, mentors or colleagues as to how to strive and survive the profession.

We do appreciate that in your training there are so many elements to cover that you may not have had much input into developing your personal skills and strategies. However, you have got this far in your chosen career, so we would like to think you have a number of skills and strategies in place – indeed this book is written on the assumption that you have!

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Reflection

• Consider your time either training to be a teacher or your professional development since becoming a teacher.
• Draw a set of scales (or a see-saw). What ‘weighting’ would you give to the amount of psychology discussed in your course for:
  • theories and principles of teaching and learning;
  • personal skills and strategies development.
• Provide examples under each as to what you covered.

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The carrot and the stick – do you have vision or do you ‘beat yourself up’?

Teaching is a rewarding career. We make this statement from our personal experience and the experience we have heard time and time again from colleagues and students. Whatever age range you are working with, you will experience the joy of enabling others. Yet counter to this, teaching can cause worries, worries we can punish ourselves with continuously, whether it is a session that didn’t quite fit together, to inspectors coming in, or not having enough hours in the day! It is hard to think of any other career where the rewards and punishments are meted out by our very selves, day in, day out. Yet this is what makes teaching the ultimate profession, one where we continue to challenge ourselves, to become the best we can, to continually question what we are doing, how we are doing it and why we are doing it.

This continual change certainly prevents stagnation; however, it can also be a cause of duress where we are continually thinking what could go wrong, what has gone wrong, what has worked well, what could work better. It is the focusing on WHAT you are doing that is important – this is what is within your control and is far more likely to lead to a successful result. This is such an important message to keep in mind from this chapter onwards, a message we will return to through out this book.

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Keep focused on the here and now. This is what is known as ‘mindfulness’ – the ‘mind’ being ‘full’ of the present moment. This will be discussed further in Chapter 2.

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Keeping your mind focused on the present, what you are actually doing, helps limit the worry about tomorrow or the next lesson, or an incident that happened last week. Focusing on things other than the present can drain your resources and prevent you from engaging with th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Foreword
• How to use this book
• Section 1 Psychological Aspects
• Section 2 Physical Issues
• Section 3 Psychological Skills Training
• Section 4 Epilogue
• References
• Index