Teacher Training Development

Every new lesson is a learning experience for improving a new teacher's classroom management skills. Most teachers however just want to teach without the burden of classroom management deterring them from becoming a good teacher.but the truth is good teaching is largely a process of experimentation and finding out which teaching approaches and teaching styles primarily speak to you.

As a new teacher, you will want to prepare yourself for classroom management by learning first your own strengths and weaknesses as you build expectations and relationships in the classroom while activating students in a variety of learning activities.

What is the best possible way to prepare yourself for a classroom management and teaching experience?

By now, you have probably already elicited feedback from other teachers and professionals. You can also learn more about them as you try out new ideas and activities. The main trend of learning to teach is through experience. A teacher trainer can only act as a model.

There are other kinds of input which are equally important:

• Take advantage of year round and summer pre-service and in-service seminars and teacher training workshops. Not only are these informative and informal ways to keep on top of teaching trends, but you will also identify with particular ideas more than others.
• Read, read, and read about different classroom teaching trends and what is happening in the research world of education. Read about the newer textbooks online if you can.

Be sensitive to the teacher training element and aim to become your own model. Kolbo (1984) provides teachers with a model that is still very much applicable to the new first year teachers during their early work.

• Reflective observation: observe other teachers as you learn and place areas of effective teaching instruction.
• Abstraction conceptualization: learn about abstract concepts based on reading research literature, manuals, textbooks, etc.
• Active experimentation: implement a variety of ideas and concepts you identify with the most.
• Concrete experience; learn from the actual teaching experience. Since some ideas work better than others, you can only find and evaluate the quality of your instruction when you experiment.

New teachers still need to find their own way as classroom managers, and by developing your own insights on teaching, you will become your own teacher trainer. the greatest gift you gave give yourself as a new teacher is the gift of time as teachers need to absorb learning experiences for improving classroom management skills and strategies.

References

Kolbo, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice-Hall.