Teacher’s quality is one of the key elements to improving education. In my country, Kosovo, teaching is not a respected profession and unfortunately, our system accommodates teachers who lack enthusiasm and passion.
There are many initiatives to improve the quality of education by training teachers who then, train other teachers in different parts of the country. In the instrument that is used for monitoring teacher’s performance, there is nothing that measures enthusiasm. Being involved in teaching, I strongly believe that enthusiasm is one of the most important qualities that impacts teacher’s performance. Nevertheless, it is difficult to measure it and quantify it.
Is enthusiasm measurable? I would be very grateful if you can share your experiences/thoughts or studies to shed some light on this concept.
Blerta, maybe the work of Kunter et al., (2011) might be interesting for you.
Teacher enthusiasm: Dimensionality and context specificity
Mareike Kunter, Anne Frenzel, Gabriel Nagy, Jürgen Baumert, Reinhard Pekrun
Contemporary Educational Psychology 36 (2011) 289–301
Thank you so much Marjon. The distinction between enthusiasm for teaching and enthusiasm for the subject is particularly interesting.
Thank you Palerta for your interesting question:
A statements of judgment regarding which behaviors and practices reflect desired values, attitudes, styles of thinking, problem-solving and decision-making abilities. These standards are considered to be guidelines that indicate the quality of performance and enthusiasm for teaching.”
These may be measured by interviews and observations for the teachers in the following categories:
•Facilitating student-centered teaching and learning
• Building up partnership within and outside the school
• Monitoring and evaluating the teaching and learning process and its outcomes
• Seeking for Continuous Professional development
• Sharing in Designing Beauty Learning Environment
• Designing teaching learning materials and resources and utilizing them
• Counseling and guiding for learners.
Hello Blerta - that's a very interesting and pertinent question.
In terms of measuring teacher enthusiasm I guess there are two general approaches.
Firstly we might measure the level of enthusiasm of individual teachers through asking them about their views on a range of measures e.g.
1. I wish to remain in teaching as a career - Strongly agree etc. etc. etc.
Secondly we might look at proxy measures such as teacher turnover in schools, application for teacher training, teachers leaving the profession.
Probably before designing an instrument it would be necessary to differentiate between notions of teacher enthusiasm and teacher moral.
I think that teacher burnout is a closely related construct. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (http://www.mindgarden.com/products/mbi.htm) was designed to measure burnout. I may be making a leap to enthusiasm as the opposite of burnout though.
The teacher who transcends the mind of the student, is not treating the student as a container to put a funnel to empty any information, but as Benjamin Franklin said: give me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I learn.
The enthusiasm, not only takes discipline, perseverance and determination, is to define objectives with lasting values that affirm to take ownership in the mind and develop knowledge is gained. The teacher must attend classes with the clear purpose of provoking changes, break paradigms, motivate and arouse interest in their subjects.
@Gonzalo I would disagree with this as a means of identifying enthusiasm. Enthusiasm , to my understanding, is more akin to force, the effort yielded in response to motivation. Enthusiasm isn't necessarily positive, a teacher who is enthusiastic, yet misguided, ill prepared, or devious can actually be a negative influence on student ability.
I agree with Rinker.
Sometimes, enthusiasm may be measured by:
a) His body language,
b) How is he/she able to excite students,
c) How he/she is able to sustain interest of students in a complex subject/theme.
Enthusiasm can be measured very easily in terms of high achievements and gaining good skills atleast in fields of expertise, hobbies, professional accomplishments and personal satisfactions. Even if administrators outlooks you - you must not deviate your enthusiasms of life / official matters, try to develop any 1-2 skills of yours with full enthusiasm and implement it practically for good outputs. Enthusiasm is the key to make one filled in for doing all hard-works, be update in knowledge and various aspects of teaching, added to this boosting atmosphere and reward / honors in achieving meritorious goals / targets / accomplishments by the Univ/Institutes can motivate anyone to perform to excellency. However with all odds in one can perform and achieve best with his / her enthusiastic spirit. Training and brain storming sessions, interactions at various platforms with experienced and knowledgeable persons would definitely help you in maintaining and keeping your enthusiasm. I suggest to keep this spirit high in any circumstances / atmosphere and one day results would be wonderful and beyond dreams. Good luck and best wishes. .
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