What We Know About Effective Teachers #1

Your experience with teachers and learning has been unique to you. The strategies your teachers used and the approaches you brought to your learning worked for you; you would not be in the position of teachers otherwise. Do not be fooled into thinking your path to becoming educated is the path that will work for others. Some who shared your path are elsewhere; some arrived at a similar place by vastly different paths. We know this to be true of careers, and it also scales down to lessons you teach.

What is clear to you and some students will be confusing to others. Some students will even find the methods and explanations that have worked for all other previous students to be ineffective. Your task is to continue working so all students are as successful as their capacity allows. This leads to a conclusion about effective teachers:

Even when they “know” the best approach, effective teachers develop, use, and refine many strategies.