What Does It Mean To Be A Good Teacher?

We’ve all been students at some point in our lives. And, during this stage, we found several types of teachers, and among them some who stood out for their ability. What are the qualities that make someone a good teacher? Psychopedagogists have long intended to answer this question, and in this article we will talk about the conclusions they reached.

Before starting to talk about the qualities to be a good teacher, it is necessary to comment that we are facing one of the most complex professions that exist.  The education and instruction processes require intelligence and precision, the simple fact of knowing and knowing how to act with them is already a difficult task. And a teacher not only has this problem, he also needs to know how to deal with students and their individual conditions.

Qualities to be a good teacher

Studies have shown that educational quality increases when the teacher fulfills the following aspects:

• Competence in the subject : it is essential that the teacher has a good command of the subject he will teach. Of course, this knowledge means knowing more than terms, facts and concepts. It is also necessary to have a good organization and interrelation of ideas. And it is essential that the teacher is able to debate all aspects of the subject and extrapolate knowledge to other areas.
• Instructional Strategies: In order  to have a good instruction, it is necessary to apply appropriate strategies. Nowadays it is considered that the ideal strategies are those of a constructivist nature. In them, the student is seen as a small theorist who builds his world, therefore, the strategy to follow is to encourage the student to explore, discover knowledge and think critically.

• Goal setting and educational planning:  Effective teachers don’t improvise their classes. They set complex teaching goals and create plans to achieve them. Good planning takes a lot of work and a lot of time. But thanks to this he manages to turn learning into a challenge and an interesting activity.
• Development-adapted practices:  as they grow, students change their way of learning and coping with difficulties. Therefore, it is necessary that teachers know the different stages of child development, so that they are in a position to prepare instructional materials according to the level of development.

• Classroom Control Skills:  An important characteristic of the effective teacher is that he or she looks at the classroom as a whole, working as a team and oriented towards tasks. To achieve this, it is good that the teacher has a series of skills, such as defining rules, organizing groups, supervising tasks, controlling bad behavior, etc. Too much disciplinary or too loose control has very negative consequences for teaching; it is necessary to achieve a democratic and cohesive environment.
• Motivation skills:  if students do not have the necessary motivation, the quality of learning will be greatly reduced. Therefore, it is positive that the master has strategies to stimulate interest in the subject. In this sense, effective teachers transform educational tasks into creative and stimulating activities that improve the quality of education.

• Communication Skills:  Being a teacher is all about engaging in debates and presentations, so you need to have good public speaking skills. A good teacher has no problem adapting his level of expression to the characteristics of the recipient. We are talking about a communication that is aimed not only at students, but also at the rest of the school community.
• Recognition of individual differences:  no student is identical to another, each one has its own qualities and learning profile. Being a good teacher implies having the skills to recognize these individual differences. And not only that, you also need to tailor your instruction individually to each student.
• Effective work with diverse cultural contexts:  nowadays, due to globalization, it is normal to find a very diverse classroom in terms of culture. Therefore, among the skills required for the position of teacher, is recognizing the cultural peculiarities of their students, so that they interact only in a positive sense in the instruction process. Your role will be to encourage students to relate positively and avoid cultural stigmatization.

• Assessment skills:  An effective teacher is aware of each student’s level of learning. For this, he knows how to properly use the assessment tools and, thus, know the strengths and weaknesses of his students. The assessment, despite being a system of proof nowadays, should not be like that. The ideal function of the assessment is to know the student’s status to guide their instruction.
• Technological skills: Technological  tools, if used correctly, are related to an increase in educational quality. Therefore, good teachers have knowledge and are up to date with the new technologies that foster the educational environment. It is also important that the teacher takes charge of familiarizing students with these technologies.

Conclusions

Now that we know the qualities, we see that there are a lot of requirements for being a good teacher. It seems almost impossible for one person to be able to meet all these requirements, but being a teacher is a very responsible profession, and we cannot afford not to measure up.

The teacher is a central figure in the development of student instruction and education. The consequence of a bad teacher, even one who is not so good, implies that some of your students will not develop to their full potential.

On the other hand, we cannot ignore that, if we want quality professionals, we need training for teachers that is also of quality. It is true that attitude is very important, but the knowledge and skills acquired are no less important, which is why  investing in education is one of the best future investments that a society can make.