Journal #1 - Availability

What it means to be an effective teacher.

One of the reasons that I think this is such a difficult statement to define is because it is so fluid; the answer is constantly changing. Not only does the definition of an "effective teacher" vary from person to person, but it may also change for an individual over the course of their teaching career. I'm hoping that this journal will help me to discover what being an effective teacher means to me at this point in my schooling/teaching career, although I'm sure it will continue to change throughout my career as an educator.

I've chosen to write my first journal entry about something that I found, as a student, was one of the most important things I noticed about the effectiveness of my teachers growing up; this was the availability of the teacher.  I've examined a number of different academic articles to try and come up with some sort of definition of what an effective teacher is that includes the notion of the teachers being readily available to the students when they need them, both for academic reasons and other. The closest definition that I found was written by Devlin and Samarawickrema (2010) who defined effective teaching as teaching that is oriented to and focused on students and their learning. It's a fairly broad definition of effective teaching, but because it states that it is focused on students as individuals as well as their learning it was the best one I could find to fit into my idea of availability as being a part of being an effective teacher.

I think back into my own career as a student and one of the ways that I separated the teachers I thought of as "effective" and the ones who weren't, was their willingness to speak to students and be available to their students outside of the classroom. It was the teachers that made the effort to let students know that they were free to chat outside of class time; regardless of what it was about, they were there as a resource to their students.  If a student was struggling with homework or having difficulty understanding a concept, it was the teachers that were willing to stay late after school to help them that really had an impact on that student's learning experience.

 

I remember having talks with some of my teachers about jobs and family, trouble with boyfriends or friends... it was meaningful to me to be able to have that sort of relationship and support system with some of my teachers. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a strong family support system at home and I think that sometimes it was those teachers, the ones willing to take the time to have a one-on-one talk with those students who were struggling, that really made a difference in their lives.  By being available to students you are helping to create meaningful relationships and becoming a stable system of support for your students both in and out of the classroom.

 

Being an effective teacher is more than simply knowing your subject area and keeping students engaged in the classroom; I believe that it’s also about helping to become a support system for students outside of the classroom as well.  By being available to your students outside of the class time, whether it is for help with homework or just to talk, you are creating meaningful relationships and I think that that is a major part of what I would consider to be an effective teacher.

References:


Devlin, M., & Samarawickrema, G. (2010). The criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context. Higher Education Research & Development, 29(2), 111-124.