Being a positive role model 

New teachers can experience obstacles, setbacks and stress. However, learning how to act and encourage your students is paramount. Below are a few tips and tricks to help you engage your classroom, develop new teaching techniques and reinvigorate your ability to spark creativity in your students.    

Be a positive role model 

To have a positive effect on your classroom, it is best to engage your students with professionalism, respect and integrity. Here are a few things you can do to reflect your positive qualities as a role model:  

  • Maintain good eye contact. Keeping eye contact with your students lets them know you respect their opinions and have expectations for their behavior.  

  • Listen to their input. Actively listening to what your students say about a course curriculum or assignment, you gain much-needed feedback about improving your teaching processes and procedures. Being attentive when students speak also lets them know you value their ideas and are stakeholders in their success.   

  • Speak with enthusiasm. Conveying hard-to-understand topics and tedious subject matter can be difficult if you are not teaching with an enthusiastic tone. It is essential that the students feel as though the teacher is intrigued and fully engaged with the subject matter. People want to learn from someone enthusiastic about teaching them.  

  • Show understanding, compassion, and kindness. Spreading kindness encourages others to do the same. All teachers should strive to create the most accepting and safe environment for the students to express themselves healthily. 

Seek continuous improvement 

Educators must continuously improve and refine the teaching and coaching processes. By expanding understanding of how to inform students best, teachers empower each other to create new curricula and ways of approaching old topics. Here are a few tips for continually improving and redefining your teaching techniques. 

  • Learn from other scholars in your field of study. Incorporating knowledge from renowned professors in your field of study can add life and energy to your lectures. Furthermore, staying up-to-date on discoveries and relaying current events provides additional context to your audience. 

  • Throw out old ways of thinking. If a process or procedure is no longer culturally relevant in your classroom, department or school, it is time for a change. Meet students where they are. Exploring entertaining new ways of teaching curriculum is crucial to keep your content relevant to your students. 

  • Seek feedback. Ask your students how they feel about how the course curriculum is being taught. If changes need to be made, then simply make them. Being stagnant and non-responsive when seeking feedback can only damage your ability to adapt your course curriculum effectively.  

  • Be flexible. Every day, new problems, solutions, information and technology are discovered that can elicit you to change or adapt your curriculum to meet the needs of the ever-changing educational environment. Therefore, it is essential to be flexible and willing to accept new ways of thinking, planning, strategizing and executing when revising your process to adjust your course curriculum.  

Foster an environment of creativity 

Encouraging and promoting a culture of creativity allows students to become fascinated and fully engaged with the learning process. Students will be more inclined to participate and engage with the curriculum if they feel they can be creative with their approach to learning. Here are a few ways you can promote creativity in your classroom: 

  • Play music during free time or self-study time.  

  • Coordinate an opportunity for peer review. Allowing students to edit and collaborate with others can promote an environment of creativity.  

  • Incorporate times when students can brainstorm and bounce ideas off one another. Allowing time for collaboration between students can encourage one another to be creative when approaching a problem or concern.