The 4 "P's" of Powerful Teaching

Great teaching does not happen just because you show up to school. In order to be a great teacher, you must be willing to work and work hard.

You must continually work at improving your skills, obtaining more knowledge and furthering your development if you are to become a great teacher.

Let's face it, on every campus from elementary to the university if you ask students who their favorite teacher is the same few names will continually come up.

Would you like to be one of these teachers? If your answer is "Yes" then you need to read the following principles, learn these principles and put these principles into action.

The 4 "P's" of Powerful Teaching

Planning

If you are going to be an effective teacher you must be prepared, and preparation comes from careful planning. You must know what you are going to present and how you are going to present it. Then you must practice, practice, practice. You must become comfortable with the material and be ready to answer any questions the students might ask. Planning ahead will make you look knowledgeable, professional and polished.

Persistence

In order to be a great teacher you must be persistent. You cannot give up or quit at the first sign of trouble. You must be willing to help solve problems, give a little extra and go the extra mile. Great teaching seldom happens overnight, it comes from consistently applying yourself to problems and overcoming the problems.

Patience

The teacher who desires to impact the lives of her students will have an abundance of patience. Patience is necessary to show your students that you care and are willing to wait till they get it. It's not important that you cover every topic in the book, what counts is that your students learn what you covered. Always remember, if you didn't create a memory then you didn't teach anything.

Passion

"Anyone can dabble, but once you've made that commitment, your blood has that particular thing in it, and it's very hard for people to stop you." - Bill Cosby

Great teaching comes from a teacher with passion. If you aren't passionate about teaching please stop teaching. If you teach because you need a job do something else but don't teach. In order to be a great teacher you must have a fire burning inside you. And it is your responsibility to keep the fire burning.

Your students will know if you truely love what you're doing. Great teaching is about the passion.