It is a personal question, I want some examples and suggestions, please.
I can suggest a three part answer based on my own professional development as an educator.
First, take advantage of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Whatever your student demographic or content area there is a vast body of literature on how to teach. If you can tell me what kind of teaching you do I can find something specific, but if you teach at university Chickering and Gamson's 'Seven Prinicipals' (see attached) or Biggs and Tang's 'Teaching for Quality Learning in Higher Education' are good places to start.
Second, plan lessons. This can seem like a waste of time but sitting down and thinking about where I want the students to go and how I will get them there, and writing it down, has been very helpful for me. I've attached a link which is only one of many resources available to help with lesson planning. A huge advantage of lesson planning is that you can reflect on the documented plan after teaching, working towards continuous improvement.
Reflective practice is a powerful tool for improving teaching.
Some other options are to visit your university's teaching and learning centre, if you have one, and see what they offer. There are also free MOOCs about teaching, and I took one with Coursera which wasn't bad.
http://www.algonquincollege.com/profres/files/2013/11/Preparing-Lesson-Plans.pdf
Well, there are no recipes for learning how to teach, but I can share three of my own principles; - Be strongly committed to your goal which is the formation of better human beings. A teacher is a person that is supposed to form and so you need to be an example for your students, inside and outside the classrom.
- Prepare yourself for teaching and master the content. A good teacher need to acomplish his/ her task seriously, that's why organizing your work , planning your lessons, and getting ready to deliver lessons is so important.
- Focus your attentión on your students needs , be flexible , available, and humble. Your seeds are the most delicate ones , they need attention, respect and support , if you fail your harvest is going to be very poor.
I could continue telling you about my own experiences but I believe that i summarize the most important ones.
My regards,
gracielagp
I use educational games. When I teach philosophy of law, I have four mock trials spaced evenly throughout the course of the semester, such that each student in the seminar gets to be either a prosecutor or a defense attorney once in the term. When I teach the history of Christianity, I have a mock "Second Diet of Worms" fictionally held in 1540 where I play Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and each student plays a different reformer and has to convince me that their religious convictions should be the official position of the Holy Roman Empire. These games cause students to take part in the learning process and to permanently absorb knowledge.
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