Effective Teachers
“What Great Teachers Do
Differently”
Todd Whitaker
Two Ways to Improve Schools
• Get Better Teachers
• Improve the teachers in the school
Expectations
• A teacher’s classroom management sets
the stage for student learning
• Great teachers focus on expectations and
establish them at the start of the year.
• Establish relationships so that students
want to meet these expectations
• If you expect good behavior, generally that
is what you will get.
When a Student Misbehaves
• The great teacher has one goal: to keep
the behavior from happening again.
• The least effective teacher often has a
different goal: Revenge
• Effective teachers are motivated to
prevent misbehavior, while ineffective
teachers are motivated after a student
misbehaves to punish the student.
When is it appropriate to:
• Use sarcasm in the
classroom: Never
• Yell at a student:
Never
• Never argue with a
student, because you
will not win. Maintain
your professional
composure and stay
calm.
Always treat students and
parents with respect
Respond professionally and
appropriately
Great Teachers
• The challenge is to focus on your own
performance. Strive to be a great teacher;
Set even higher expectations for yourself
Who is the Variable?
• The variable is how the teachers respond.
Good teachers consistently strive to
improve, and they focus on something
they can control- their own performance.
Focus on Self
• Success in any
profession starts with
a focus on self
The Power of Praise
• Effective teachers treat
their students with
positive regard and
understand the power of
praise.
• Effective teachers look for
opportunities to find
people doing things right
and knows how to praise
those people so they’ll
keep on doing things right
Five Things That Help Praise Work
•
•
•
•
•
Authentic
Specific
Immediate
Clean
Private
Authentic
• Praise people for something genuine and
recognize them for something true.
Specific
• Effective praise is specific. The behavior
that we acknowledge often becomes the
behavior that will be continued. Do not be
dishonest, but identify those areas that do
have merit.
Immediate Praise
• Recognize positive
efforts and
contributions in a
timely manner
• Praise must be clean.
Try not to include the
word “But.”
Private
• Most kids prefer praise in private, because
of peers teasing them.
• Send notes to parents
Our Impact is Significant
• If we have great credibility and good
relationships, students work to please us.
• If we lack credibility, students work against us.
• Students come to class expecting us to set the
tone.
• If the tone we establish is positive and
professional, they’ll match that tone.
• If our attitude is negative and confrontational,
they’ll respond in kind.
Positive Attitude
• By consistently filtering out the negative
that don’t matter and sharing positive
attitude, we create a much more
successful setting. Consciously or
unconsciously, we decide the tone of our
classrooms and of our school.
• The best teachers consistently compliment
and praise students.
Self Control
• Effective teachers model self-control; Their
classroom management is grounded in
their ability to manage their own behavior.
• The great teacher has the ability to ignore
trivial disturbances and the ability to
respond to inappropriate behavior without
escalating the situation.
Think of the teacher who punishes the
entire class for misbehaving:
The most responsible students feel
uncomfortable and upset and have much
less respect for the teacher.
Uncomfortable Feelings
• Do not argue with a hostile parent. They
are good at it, but you may begin to feel
uncomfortable and avoid the parent. The
parent will feel empowered and can’t wait
to tell the world how the teacher reacted.
• Effective teachers will focus on behaviors
that will lead to success, not the beliefs
that stand in the way of it.
Touch the Heart, Then Teach the Child
• When a teacher’s sensitivity to students
increases, so does the opportunity to
reach them.
• Until we connect with students
emotionally, we may never be able to
connect with their minds.
Every Teacher has an Impact
Great Teachers Make a Difference