Key Methods That New Teachers Must Master

The TOP 3 methods that new teachers must learn quickly to survive and thrive. This monthly post is provided to provoke a little conversation. And, remember, the thoughts presented here are offered up as indisputable talk-to-the-hand facts, not just opinions…😁 So here we go….Our sure-fire, without-a doubt key methods that new teachers must master.

Do you agree? Seriously, you don’t want to dare question the indisputable and irrefutable monthly Top 3. 😁 Just saying.

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There is probably no technique that is more important to explicit instruction than teacher modeling. And, the truth is, modeling is not that hard for new teachers to perfect. Children have always learned by imitating or mimicking the actions of adults. If we read books at home, our children are more likely to read as well. If we cuss out the driver in front of us on the highway, our kids will as well. The same is true in school. New teachers can impact learning dramatically by modeling their skills (like reading fluently for kids) and their thinking (this is how I attacked this math equation). We refer to this as “think aloud,” verbalizing our reasoning so students can think better by mimicking us. Yes, this is teacher-directed learning so remember that we can lose their attention quickly. Brief moments of modeling followed by student reflection-discussion and good pacing are key steps in making this technique effective.

Students will always rise to the level of cognition that we require of them. If we make learning easy for them, they will learn less. If we accelerate learning, they will learn more. New teachers sometimes struggle to make the connection between their expectations of students and student performance. Worse than that, new teachers can sometimes make things easy for kids to avoid conflict and pushback from students who don’t want to work that hard. Questioning skills are not typically a focus area for new teachers, in large part because other matters are more critical to their survival (like how to hand out materials). Still, questioning is a very nuanced but accessible skill that new teachers can learn quickly. Some suggestions to help them are 1. To know the difference between simple and complex questions and 2. To pre-plan each lessons with a sequence of questions (sometimes called climb and combine) that takes a task from easy to hard and provides the right scaffolds so students can struggle appropriately and still learn in making them more confident going forward.

There is nothing more detrimental to the learning process than lost instructional time. This has been observed and validated by research many, many times and it is one of the most obvious differences when comparing top-notch veteran teachers to struggling new teachers. Our best teachers simply do not waste time because every minute matters (literally). A helpful feedback loop among instructional coaches and new teachers is how to maximize and not waste instructional time. Yes, timers and other tools are helpful, but the internal clock inside our heads is the most important. This is the art of teaching. The metacognition part. We can help new teachers by simply pointing this out: “This activity is taking too much time. “This discussion has gone on too long.” “The students are tuning me out.” “They already know this stuff, etc.” A trick that new teachers must master is planning for something to take less time and then adding time if needed, not the other way around. When it is done right, brisk pacing sends a lot of key messages about learning (what we are doing here is important) and keeps students engaged (there is no time to waste in this class).