There’s a popular saying that goes, ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.’
But anyone who has stepped foot in a classroom knows that teaching is far for easy; it is a profession that demands patience, creativity and an unwavering commitment to making a difference. In today’s climate, teachers face a whole new level of challenges from technology to politics, that would make even the most seasoned educator break a sweat.
Overcoming Challenges Faced by Teachers
Over the course of running our StrengthsFinder workshops for teachers and schools, we’ve understood that teachers are facing a wide range of challenges in today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape.
Enhancing Learning Outcomes
It is a huge challenge for most teachers today to design and develop learning outcomes that mean something and is an efficient way to measure the potential and success of students. Meeting such learning outcomes and having strong indicators to prove this is another task that has become even more unthinkable. Even if these are performed well, most teachers still do not acquire a 360° view of how excellent or lacking their students are as a whole.
There are numerous ways to improve your students’ learning outcomes in this age of digitalisation. For one, you can restructure your teaching methods to align with the evolving world. Some of the most trending learning methods used by schools nowadays are microlearning and blended learning. As a teacher, you should also embrace technology rather than condemn it. Instead of banning tablets and smartphones in class, maximise their uses by incorporating them into school activities.
Personalising and Differentiating Teaching
Usually, in teaching, what works for one student may not work for another. Teachers have long realised this, but there are still very few means to test and ensure that different skill levels are being assessed. Coming up with a new wave of evaluations and the way teaching is conducted is necessary. Media-enhanced tests, newer types of questions, and the like are what teachers are searching for. However, simplifying and diversifying teaching at the same time is something that seems so hard to find.
Fortunately, developing personalised and diversified teaching methods is usually a subject of focus in many workshops for teachers in Singapore. These workshops recognise that different students learn differently, and as such, they help teachers diversify their teaching methods, streamline their lesson plans, and become more well-rounded educators. If you want your teaching strategy to cater to a variety of students, it is highly recommended that you undergo further training for teachers.
Inspiring Students to be More Proactive and Self-Directed
The things that students do at school are only a fraction of the effort that they need to put in to succeed academically. However, getting students to be proactive and self-directed enough to do their work outside the classroom is often a big challenge for teachers. Most of the time, the reason behind students’ lack of interest in learning beyond class hours is that they do not find any proper incentive to do so.
Hence, if you want to inspire your students to develop the right attitude towards learning and have a growth mindset, you need to look for a way to ease their pressure by keeping them interested and ensuring that their lesson practices and assignments are accessible anywhere, engaging, and aimed at enhancing their weaknesses and maximising their strengths. Ultimately, it is your responsibility as a teacher to make sure that your students’ learning occurs in a more conducive, motivated, and less-tense environment.
Conclusion
As the world becomes increasingly digitised, it has likewise become harder for teachers to keep their students focused and interested and ensure their academic success using the old methods of teaching. For this reason, it is important for every educator today to find new ways to reach out to their students and align their teaching methods with the evolving times. Ultimately, all teachers must have a profound understanding of their current roles and problems to become better educators of the future.
Learn how to improve the way you teach with the aid of StrengthsAsia’s CliftonStrengths tool, which helps us conduct comprehensive and excellent leadership training workshops in Singapore and corporate team building workshops across Asia. Our courses have already assisted numerous teachers in discovering and developing their unique skills and talents and using them to facilitate more effective classroom learning and better learning outcomes for students. To learn more about CliftonStrengths and our other services, get in touch with us here.
