Instruction is the basis of what we think of when we think of what a teacher does. Each component in this domain is extremely important to being a teacher of impact. Communicating with students on both an educational and personal level is important to establishing a relationship with them. Learning how to best communicate with them can help you to understand how to best teach them new information. Using questions and discussion techniques helps students to interact with peers and hear from their peers' points of view how they are understanding something. Listening to someone of their age explain something can be what helps them to understand it. Engaging students in learning is how students are going to be able to learn. They learn best when they are interested and actively engaged in the material being presented to them. Using assessment in instruction helps teachers gauge where the students are throughout the lesson so they are informed if they need to reteach something or if they can move on. Demonstrating flexibility and responsiveness is important for teachers to do because they are dealing with human beings, and human beings are not predictable. Teachers can have a lesson planned out down to the minute, but odds are something will not go exactly as planned because students are not predictable. Being able to demonstrate flexibility in these situations and adapt to the situation at hand is essential. Responsiveness to questions and grading is important as well so students are well-informed of their grades and what they need to do to maintain or better their grade.
My virtual co-op, Mrs. Woller, explained to me how important it is for her to grade tests and homework as quickly as possible. She feels that students will want to do well when they are informed of their grades if they are low, rather than keeping the grades from them until the end of the nine weeks. If students are informed throughout, she finds that they are more motivated to do well if they can see their grade slipping. They also are more on top of the due dates and deadlines because they know how she grades quickly, and feel as though they should respect her deadlines because she respects them. Mrs. Woller also tries to engage students in the lesson as much as possible because students learn best when they are active in the learning. She is a middle school science teacher who primarily teaches 7th grade students and has one 6th grade class this year. Engaging students in the lesson is extremely important to her and her students. Throughout instruction, she uses tools like Kahoot or think-pair-share to assess where the students are.
The Framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2017, from http://static.pdesas.org/content/documents/danielson_rubric_32.pdf (2017). Media.beam.usnews.com. Retrieved 28 November 2017, from http://media.beam.usnews.com/51/4a/ed8926e6437f838e7a6d66c7cba9/150929-students-editorial.jpg