Saturday, January 03, 2009

Tips How To Be A Good Teacher

First of all you need to have a good command of your subject, and be able to know it inside and out. Being able to teach something to someone is hard enough, but if you have to think about what is being taught while you teach it, you will not be teaching it effectively. A teacher that can go on and on for hours without interruption is the one that is going to be the most effective. This is because the material will be taught more dynamically, and with more enthusiasm. You need to have a passion for teaching. Teaching kids is not going to be an easy task, and getting through to those who don't understand, or don't care can be a problem. How are you going to react when you feel like the entire room just wants to fall asleep?

Are you going to just keep droning on, or are you going to liven up the lesson so that your kids can really feel what it is that you are teaching them? Also, if you are going to teaching the same material every single year, you are going to need to be able to teach it like it is the first time you have ever taught it each year. It could get old, but to the kids it is the first time they have heard of what you are saying. Along with a passion for teaching, you need to care about each of your students. Nobody is too dumb to be left behind, or not taught all the material.

A teacher has to be able to get in there and make sure that everyone learns the material, and not just leave it to the smart ones to learn, and the rest to just fail all the tests, and not get the material. To be a good teacher you need to be able to connect to your students, and be able to instill the same passion in them that you have for the material. You need to be able to convey what it is that you are saying, so that they will understand. Teaching is sort of like writing, where you have to take material that you know a lot about, and break it down into pieces that everyone can understand. If you can do that, you will make a great teacher.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Mind Map

Mind Mapping is a useful technique that improves the way you take notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. Spacer Spacer. By using Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of a subject, and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes.

More than this, Mind Maps encourage creative problem solving, and they hold information in a format that your mind finds easy to remember and quick to review. Popularized by Tony Buzan, Mind Maps abandon the list format of conventional note taking. They do this in favor of a two-dimensional structure. As such, a good Mind Map shows the 'shape' of the subject, the relative importance of individual points, and the way in which facts relate to one another.

Mind Maps are more compact than conventional notes, often taking up one side of paper. This helps you to make associations easily. And if you find out more information after you have drawn the main Mind Map, then you can easily add it in. Mind Maps are also useful for:

* Summarizing information.
* Consolidating information from different research sources.
* Thinking through complex problems.
* Presenting information in a format that shows the overall structure of your subject.

What's more, they are very quick to review as you can often refresh information in your mind just by glancing at one. In the same way, they can be effective mnemonics: Remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can give you the cues you need to remember the information within it. As such, they engage much more of your brain in the process of assimilating and connecting facts, compared with conventional notes.