With each exciting passing moment we visit each day, we cannot help but stop to worry and anticipate the future. This is especially true for our schools as they prepare people to succeed in modern society. As they look to the future they have to consider searching for methods that will give their students the biggest advantage. In doing so they must seek out the best of the best,exemplary teachers, but what makes an exemplary teacher?
First to find an exemplary teacher one must look at the state of the classroom. In this environment do the students feel safe? Do they show a sense of connection with their teacher? How well is their knowledge of the course material? Exemplary teaching is designed so that students and teachers have a feeling of being connected where teachers are open to suggestion and come up with creative lesson plans that engage their students.
Exemplary teachers follow these steps
- They create lesson plans that are inclusive and allow students to show off their learned knowledge.
- Keep an eye on all students to make sure they do not fall behind in learning the material.
- They learn what kind of people their students are and their personal interests. Then they use those interests to shape the learning in the classroom.
- Lastly, they are always open to suggestions and advice, scouring the internet for new ideas from websites, students, or other teachers.
In the future to accomplish exemplary status I will have posters on the walls of my classroom to engage students visually. Including equipment to make the classroom feel like a real working lab that they could encounter in the future. I would also include in class demonstrations to students to show how different chemicals react explosively or bond to one another when exposed to one another.
In a classroom with exemplary status the students are motivated and even excited to come to class. They feel safe to explore and fail without judgement in the learning space that an exemplary teacher provides. The support and scaffolding that exemplary teachers give allows the students to not be machines that regurgitate the information, but allows them to demonstrate the practicability in using the knowledge they have successfully obtained. With that in mind they should be able to not only solve problems through critical thinking, but also analyze for what reasons experiments or lessons end in the manner in which the students achieved.
Exemplary science teachers design the day’s lesson plans around demonstrations that draw the attention of students and makes them want to participate. The best way to do this is by relating lessons to the world around them. For example:
- The teacher may take them outside to a nearby field and have them observe the number of plant and/or animal species as an ecology project.
- Perhaps the students are taken to a local waterway and as an experiment they check for the presence of E. coli.
- The last example could be having the students take soil samples from various areas, figuring out the soil make-up, and then observing which soil helps plants grow the most.
That is how exemplary teachers demonstrate their skills of being exemplary. By getting students to connect in class knowledge to the world around them and their communities. Having them do group work during these experiments gives them interdependence which assists in teaching them practicality that they will use later to navigate their careers.
Hi Anthony!
I appreciate how you gave tangible steps in your post that help conceptualize what to do as an exemplary science teacher. I think it might be interesting to look into articles that help support why exemplary teachers use these steps. Do you have any source suggestions so that we can further learn about exemplary teaching?
Hi Anthony! I really liked your introduction section, where you kind of defined exemplary science teaching by posing questions about what a classroom looks like. I think it is so important for teachers to ask themselves these questions about their classroom to evaluate how their students are doing.
I also really liked how you included some of the things you will be doing in your future classroom, like including fun posters and doing demonstrations in class to get students engaged. You mentioned doing things actively, like going outside, collecting water samples etc., to get students to participate. Sometimes in a science classroom, lecturing is inevitable and even more efficient! How would you keep students engaged when they are inside the classroom during one of these times when a lecture is the best way to teach students the information? I’m excited for your response, great job!
Hey Anthony,
Great points about exemplary teaching! I really enjoyed your descriptions of what it means to be an exemplary teacher. I think that in order to become exemplary teachers we must use a variety of resources in order to effectively grow our students into effective learners. The scientific process is what I highlighted in my post and I feel that it’s crucial to promote in the classroom setting. What are some ways we could set up our classrooms to promote exemplary teaching?
Great Job!
Hi Anthony!
I really enjoyed reading your blog post, especially because it was very practical and included ideas I would want to incorporate into my future classroom, such as the ideas for getting kids out into the world around them. I also liked the questions that you posed at the beginning of your post, it helped me realize that the environment of the classroom plays a big role in being an exemplary and effective teacher! Were you able to find any YouTube videos or media sources that supplemented your ideas about exemplary teaching and classroom environment?