How do you want to be remembered?

September 7, 2017 Shay Exemplary Science Teaching 4

There is one thing all exemplary teachers have in common: their students remember them. Now, we can all name at least some of our school teachers, but can you think of anything amazing you did in the class? For some teachers you cannot. But many of the best teachers had something that really struck your interest.

I think back to my high school days and there are three projects that I distinctly remember. The first was freshman year biology. The teacher gave us the opportunity to create a new species using the process of natural selection. Now this is before I fully understood natural selection, but this was by far one of my favorite project I did in high school because it was fun and I had freedom to do what I wanted.

So what does it really mean to be an exemplary teacher?

Teacher Responsibilities

  • Foster student curiosity and wonder by being curious yourself! If they see you being really interested in something, they will want to know what makes it so special.
  • Students need 4-8 experiences with a topic before they fully understand it. These experiences can, and should, be different and interesting!
  • Help the students find something in your subject area that they love. Not all kids are going to love biology, but maybe they will learn to appreciate marine life or decomposers and have that love for the rest of their lives.
  • Help them see science in the real world. Expose them to current day scientists and minorities in science so they all can see someone like them doing science.
  • Make science fun! Middle school into high school is when students learn that science is boring and hard. Science teachers should help keep students interested by using exciting activities and lessons.

Possible Exemplary Teaching Activities 

  • Take students out in nature.
  • Take students to local zoos, aquarium or nature centers.
  • Give them guidelines for a project, but let them decide how they are going to accomplish it.
  • Give them multiple options on how to demonstrate their learning.

Teaching does not have to be all lectures and teacher led activities. As a teacher, you should be excited to engage your students with something interesting every day.

I leave you with one question: how do you want to be remembered as a teacher?

4 Comments

  1. Meghan, I was going to discuss how you can also be remembered for being a boring teacher or just making the class miserable, but I wanted to try and focus on happier things and being a great teacher!

  2. Katin, Thank you for the suggestion of including what it means to not be exemplary.
    To me, these are all activities that I feel to be ‘run of the mill’:
    -lecturing from a powerpoint every class
    -assigning readings and worksheets every night for homework
    -sitting in rows during class and not allowing any discussion about topics between students
    -“cookbook” labs where they are given the question they are supposed to answer

    While all of these do have a place in the classroom at some point or another, they cannot be exclusively used.

  3. I like the question at the end of your post; it really makes the reader stop and think. As teachers, it’s easy to get caught up in a routine, printing tests and homework, and worksheets, but these things don’t make you memorable, and certainly don’t make you stand out as exemplary.
    I like how you point out that the one aspect that connects exemplary teachers is that they are “memorable.” There isn’t one activity or lesson plan that you can follow that will make you an exemplary teacher; depending on your students and your resources, those activities may differ.
    Unfortunately, students also remember the teachers that made learning miserable for them. That’s why I think your last question is so important: HOW do you want to be remembered?

  4. I really enjoyed reading your blog post! Your introduction made me think back on my educational career and what was good and bad about it. The section about teacher responsibilities was great because it connected with our class discussions and our readings. Plus your pictures and twitter posts connected well with what you mentioned. I would suggest having a section of actives that are not exlepmary. That way the readers can get a sense of what not to do in a classroom or what not to focus on. Lastly, your final question really got me thinking. I want to be remembered as the teacher that helped my students love science and school again. I want my students to remember me as someone who made them question the world around them. How do you want to be remembered?

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