Engage High-Quality Teacher Instructors

Just as student achievement depends upon educators, teacher development depends on the instructors. Thus, high-quality teacher instructors should be prioritized by validating teacher instructors’ credentials and qualifications at the beginning. Regulations should be set up to decide whether an instructor is competent. Governments should stay updated about the curriculum and methods the educators are learning, as they’ll implement these methods in the classroom.

Focus on Professional Development

From clarifying what “quality teaching” entails to setting up practical standards for teaching and professional development, staying updated on current events, and knowing about the daily ground realities the educators handle, policy- and decision-makers should do them all. They should also hold the trainers accountable and evaluate the process stringently and consistently to monitor how educators are learning, the resources they are offered, and how they are trained to use them.

Teacher training must be aligned with the student’s realities. The curriculum needs to be relevant in developing countries, where students go to school by giving up on time they could have otherwise invested to earn money for their families. For instance, there’s no point following an unproductive Westernized curriculum in countries battling extreme poverty where most students drop out during elementary school. What’s needed, instead, is a curriculum that builds real-life skills to help the students in their daily lives. For example, budgeting as part of the Math curriculum can teach students the importance of saving money and investing the sum somewhere suitable.

Additionally, teacher training must include evidence-backed and proven practices, like student-centered learning. Taking into account the situation in their schools and the type of lives their students lead, educators in developing countries should be equipped with the best tools.

Offer Adequate Support

Educators should be supported in every possible way to ensure they can access necessary resources, right from school supplies to teaching materials. Helping them forge relationships with competent administrators, who can be their mentors and validate their experiences, is another effective way of offering support.

Additionally, how much educators will be compensated financially for training should be considered. For example, governments can do this by considering teacher training location. In developing countries, just like students, some educators too have to travel a certain distance to reach school. If compensating travel expenses isn’t considered, a teacher could decide to be absent if it means saving some money for meeting other needs.

Encourage Collaboration

Encourage educators to collaborate and build a community where they can share tips, exchange notes, talk about teacher training, and discuss other things to maintain continuity in the classroom. Governments can also push educators to accept leadership roles for viewing their profession from a different angle and inspire other educators.

Focus on Long-Term Economic Benefits

With adequate teacher support, teacher quality will improve. This will boost students’ academic achievement and encourage them to pursue higher education or take up their desired professions. According to research, this progression will help build a student’s lifestyle and the country’s economy.

Recognize the Good Work

Teacher development is an enduring crisis, particularly in war- and poverty-inflicted countries, and needs resolve and consistent work. When capable and passionate educators get adequate governmental support to benefit their students, they’ll motivate their students to acquire better knowledge and skills, thus molding them into potential and effective contributors to their country.

The post Building Teacher Training in the World’s Poorest Countries appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Why does teacher education need to change?

The issue is that many educators feel very unrehearsed when they step into the classroom for the first time, despite having passed their teacher education assessment with flying colors. In a study done by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), educators who did not feel adequately prepared to teach were mainly those who had only recently completed a teacher education program or professional development in a particular topic with high levels of engagement.

The National Council on Teacher Quality, which supervises teacher preparation programs and assesses educators’ efficacy, assessed 134 teacher education programs. 10% of these programs prepared Elementary educators, while the remaining 90% prepared Secondary educators. The council found that three-fourths of those 134 programs could not scale the five basic standards of a high-quality teacher preparation program.

A large part of this issue exists simply because these programs are not well-regulated. For instance, many teacher preparation programs need learner teaching as part of the curriculum. Student teaching involves a soon-to-be-teacher observing and assisting a certified, expert teacher in an actual classroom setting. Still, the National Council on Teacher Quality found that most teacher education programs they rated did not have requirements for the learner teacher’s time to be with the students. Not just that, they also did not have quality requirements or vetting programs for the cooperating certified teacher. For one expected to act as a mentor by facilitating the learner-teacher experience, this is not an ideal situation.

Teacher education needs a structural change. Despite the dire situation of teacher unpreparedness arising from lackluster teacher education programs, educators constantly get criticized for education’s ills. Educators quit their jobs at the top rates on record, especially during the first few times of being in the classroom. Perhaps this is because most educators aren’t fully apprehensive of what they are getting into. 

Teacher education programs need to reconcile the “ideal” classroom with reality. Failure to do so is why educators are often shocked to find how difficult the profession can prove to be daily, especially regarding classroom operation. Indeed, learners in many states can complete many classroom observation requirements for Alternative Certification Programs in online classrooms.

While this is a workable idea, it can hardly provide naive learner-educators with a real picture of reality. Maybe if teacher education programs were more open about the profession’s challenges, educators would be able to meet the standard that school boards expect of them. Under the current circumstances, however, many educators are not taught how to improve. If we want our nation’s educators to be the best, we must teach them to be the best.

The post Teacher Education Needs Reforming appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Have educators always had less payment?

While the standard weekly wages of other colleagues have risen steadily over the past 20 years, the standard American teacher weekly wages have fallen when modified for inflation. The 18.7% standard American wage gap is simply an average, and the data is more revealing when each state is looked into. Wyoming, for instance, reimburses its educators well compared to similar professions, with educators in Wyoming earning only 3% less than their colleagues. However, in states like Colorado and Arizona, the wage gap has climbed to 36%, while in Michigan, for instance, the average start-off salary of educators is around $36,000 per year. These figures are significantly lower than almost every other profession which requires a Bachelor’s degree.

Public school educators across America earned a minimum of $1,137 per week in 2017, while other full-time workers with college degrees earned $1,476. Over decades, the average American teacher payment has increased by 15.2%, but teachers’ salaries have dropped by 3% when the increase is accounted for. Teaching is a stressful job. Suppose you add the huge wage gap to that. Is it surprising that at least 30 of the 50 states in America have reported significant teacher shortages?

Do educators work less than other professionals?

While affirming that these wage gaps are high, many still believe educators earn lower because less work is demanded. For instance, critics may point out that educators have the holidays off work, which means they should be paid less because they spend little time working. Regardless, just because educators aren’t in their regular classrooms during holidays doesn’t mean preceptors aren’t working. Many educators opt to teach summer school or take on an alternate job to use their “time off” to gain financial stability. Many educators also use summertime to study for and take certification exams for more subjects and grade levels or modernize expiring certifications. Educators may also plan for the forthcoming school year, including spending a minimum of $500 per school year on supplies out of their funds. Many educators also earn graduate degrees during the summer to advance their careers. This spare time working during the summer isn’t compensated for. 

Educators must be devoted professionals to stay with their current jobs under similar financial rigors. Still, many devoted educators simply cannot go on to continue with their current careers, given the financial circumstances. They have people to take care of and bills to pay. Can we blame them for wanting their sweats to be recognized?

The post Comparing Teacher Compensation to Other Professions appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

There are two major paths taken by individuals aspiring to be an educator. The first and the most taken path is earning a degree in Education from a four-year University. The second option is for people who did not earn a university degree in Education. Rather these people will go through Alternative Certificate Programs.

Who participates in teacher preparation programs? 

Alternative Certification Programs have become more renowned in the past years. Many states are short of teachers and have since introduced the teaching profession to those without a degree in Education to become educators. Those who chose the alternative certification path did not have such desires to be teachers but later became one. Those in these teachers’ preparation programs can be:

Workers in this industry want to use their practical knowledge in the classroom. 

College students who desire to teach do not want to change their majors to Education.

Most elementary educators prefer the traditional certification path, but many secondary educators choose an Alternative Certification Program. 

What is required in a teacher preparation program?

For the alternative certification route, having a degree in Education is not a requirement. Still, a college degree is required, usually in a major related to the subject you want to teach. For example, an individual with a B.A. in History could join a teacher preparation program to become a Social Studies teacher.

The criteria for teacher preparation programs vary in each state. Still, the general criteria are that you’ll be required to complete some processes, which are: 

• Classroom observations
• Brief coursework preparation
• Pass at least one teaching certification exam

How can I survive and thrive in a teacher preparation program?

The criteria of a teacher preparation program can seem tasking, but certain best practices can help ease unnecessary stress:

• Finish your teacher observations before summer. Many schools are keen on their observation hours.
• Ensure you pass all your certification exams as early as possible. Not passing it disqualifies you.
• Attend lots of job fairs. Many teacher preparation programs grant exclusive access to teacher job fairs. Almost all new educators are hired from teacher job fairs, so take the job fairs extremely seriously. Be professional in your appearance, and bring your resume and certification exam scores to the fair. Landing your first teaching job can be stressful, but the more teacher job fairs you attend, the better your chances of employment. 
• Your certification requirements are serious business. If you are not serious about completing your certification coursework and everything else you require, you could be without a teaching job when the school year begins. 
• Overall, the key to surviving and thriving in a teacher preparation program is your level of dedication to completing the requirements and learning more about the profession in the time you’ve got.

The post Succeeding in a Teacher Education Program appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

An LMS has three major components: it delivers information, it keeps records, and it facilitates communication.

Let us walk through the day of a student at an ordinary pre-Covid-19 school where an LMS is in use. It could be one of several K-12 management systems. Let us call our student Mike.

Because Mike lives across the railroad tracks from the school, he rides a bus to school. When he boards the bus, the driver’s assistant checks him off on her Bluetooth tablet. At school, Mike goes to breakfast, where the lunchroom attendant notes that he has three days left on his meal plan. An alert is sent to central operations. Mike meets with his pod for home room notes, then goes to math, language grammar instruction, then to history. Grades for completed work go into the central system. Mike’s mother logs into the online access during her lunch hour, sees the meal ticket note, and sends money from her checking account to cover another month. She sees that he has a perfect score in math, took a book quiz in language class, but had a low score on his history quiz. She ticks a box that will alert the instructor that she is aware that there might be a problem. After lunch, Mike has a physical education class, music, and finally art. He gets sent to the office for painting his face instead of paper. A note is made in his disciplinary file, which has extra security. A request goes to his mother and father for a parent to pick Mike up after school. His father responds, and will meet with the art teacher.

Now, let us walk through a day with students who are learning at home. This describes many children in 2020, as parents scrambled for safe, effective situations for their children, and the platform could easily be a one similar to Pedagogue. At 7:30, Jenny’s mom and dad leave for work. Jenny is sixteen, and is providing childcare for her niece, who is nine. Jenny makes breakfast for herself and Emmy, her niece. Then she helps Emmy log into her interactive reading class before booting up her own instruction on a different laptop. Jenny and Emmy have the same instructional supervisor, and their work goes to her. The instructor also has contact information for both Jenny’s parents and for Emmy’s mom. Jenny helps Emmy with math problems, then messages her instructor that they are  having trouble with a science experiment. The household does not have all the equipment necessary. The instructor suggests an alternative project that involves items easily found in the kitchen and can be eaten for lunch. The instructor then uses the virtual classrooms online white board to help Jenny check her math homework, and to set up a household survey to use later in the evening. Then Emmy has free playtime, and accesses an edutainment game. Jenny uses the LMS to meet with her after schoolbooks discussion group.

These two models of learning management systems are by no means exhaustive. A good LMS can encompass most of the software requirements of a school, help homeschool parents with enrichment lessons and tracking software, or even be incorporated into a business’s online assets to educate employees or customers.

The post Learning Management Systems 101 appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

A pandemic is not the only reason to move toward online learning, especially at the high school and college levels. Onsite classrooms might be crowded. Administrators might be struggling to deliver the same number of classes with a smaller budget. More importantly, online learning can deliver the same information consistently to a greater number of students.

Online learning is a huge boon for students who are working and going to school. The hours, especially if the class is taught asynchronously, are more flexible. With so many reasons to move toward online learning, there is an exceptionally good chance that if you are a teacher, you could easily find yourself teaching an online class. The question becomes, what can you do to prepare yourself?

1. Take an online class. This might be from your local university or it might be through a large service such as Coursera. It need not be in your field; just a class in something of interest to you. Notice how the instructor has set up the class. If you have time, take more than one online class from different platforms.
2. Simplify your usual course material without leaving out essential information.
3. Make a clear, easy to follow outline of the material in question.
4. Associate the main outline points with dates when a quiz, paper, or activity might be due.
5. Enter feedback on assignments ASAP. If schedule or volume precludes 24-hour turnaround, schedule a posting time/date.
6. Plan ways to keep your grading easy. Students like fast turnaround on grades, and they are used to the immediate feedback available through the Internet. If the assignments are complex and time consuming for you, your response time is slowed.
7. For advanced learning, discover ways for your students to comment on each other’s work. Set up rules, and reminders to be polite and supportive while critiquing.  
8. Look for interesting, exciting enrichment materials, such as videos, games, articles and more.
9. Familiarize yourself with the platform you will be using. Two commonly used platforms are Moodle and Blackboard, but there are many others, such as Pedagogue.app. The more you know about how your platform works, the easier it will be to help students navigate it.
10. Do not be afraid to ask tech support or even your students for help. Not everyone is a digital native (cutting teeth on mom or dad’s cell phone, and being amused by online games while still learning to talk), but you can learn to be a traveler in the world of the Internet all the same.

In fact, you should not be afraid to learn all you can about manipulating your teaching platform. Most modern programs are built to be novice-proof, so you are unlikely to make any irreversible errors.

The post Actionable Advice for Educators to Move to Online Learning appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.

Having rapport with your students has a great impact on their learning outcomes. Here are seven tips on how you can adapt teacher-student rapport while teaching online:

1. Smile

Nothing is more encouraging than seeing a teacher smile at the beginning of the class. Smiling motivates students, and it’s one way of showing your students that you’re friendly, approachable, and trustworthy. 

2. Praise frequently

Praising is also an excellent way to have a rapport with students online. They want to be appreciated for their efforts, and showering them with praises is one way to show your approval and, at the same time, encourage active participation. However, be genuine in your praise and be specific. You have to let them know what they have done right.

3. Use eye contact

It may seem impossible to maintain eye contact with every student in a group online class. The technique here is to talk to the camera instead of the front of your computer screen. This way, you’ll look as if you’re looking directly at their eyes.

4. Address students individually

Take time to address each student during the lecture. It is an effective way to catch their attention and for you to determine if they’re listening or not. Try to memorize their names. It will make them realize that even if you’re in front of your computer, you’re also paying attention to each of them.

5. Have casual talk

You don’t need to spend the whole time lecturing; otherwise, you’ll never have a rapport with your student. Instead, have a casual talk with your students, especially before diving into the more serious stuff. You can ask them what they did over the weekend or what they want for Christmas. You’ll be learning so much about each other.

6. Include games

Establish rapport and motivate students at the beginning of the class by playing a game. You can have a teacher-made game that’s related to your previous or new lesson. Another is to find an online game that encourages maximum participation of your students.

7. Remind students that it’s okay to make mistakes

One of the main reasons many students are afraid to speak up during class is because they’re afraid of making mistakes. They’re scared that they’ll give the wrong answer and their classmates will laugh at them or worse, their teacher will scold them. But once you make them understand that making mistakes is part of learning and it’s okay, they’ll be more active in your class.

Remember these 7 tips while teaching online. They’ll make your students feel right at home with you, and in return, you’ll be rewarded by their undivided attention and respect.

The post 7 Tips on How to Adapt Teacher-Student Rapport While Teaching Online appeared first on The Tech Edvocate.