Qualities of a good teacher – with special reference to Quality Circle

First, there is no hard and fast list that tells us who is a good teacher or who is not a good teacher. However, there are traits that excellent teachers have in common. These are not the usual qualities such as being a good friend or having a nice personality. These are what researchers from around the world have found when they watched those teachers whose students excelled once they left that teacher's classroom. Of course, not every teacher is going to be a skillful teacher for every child and a child spends only about 8 percent of the year in school or college, which means that regardless of the quality of teacher, a supportive home environment is essential to excellent learning.

Quality Circles is a term used in human resources management that refers to the technique of motivating workers by allowing them input into decisions concerning the production process, thereby increasing productivity and profits. With the implementation of quality circle in an institution definitely the quality and productivity of teacher can be enhanced. Quality circles have recently been suggested as a technique for enhancing employees' quality of work life and satisfaction with his/her work.

Who is a teacher?

In the broadest sense, a teacher can be defined as someone who not only teaches or imparts knowledge, but also most importantly, someone responsible for shaping and molding the minds and hearts of all those whom they teach.  A teacher has the power to yield a strong influence on his/her pupils. When coupled with certain definite skills, a good teacher has the potential of having a lifelong impact on the students. Throughout the ages, history has shown that teachers have been known to play a dynamic role in the lives of great men and women. Teachers are best described as having the unique power to reach out and touch human lives. Their influence on young, growing minds is indeed powerful.  No wonder teaching has long been considered as one of the noblest' professions.

The Teacher’s Task:

The teacher's task is not restricted to imparting knowledge; it expands and lies far beyond the call of duty and responsibility. It is important for the teacher to foster interest and create initiative in learning as school-life is the child's first exposure in the society he/she lives in.

The Teacher’s Goals:

An ideal teacher’s goal is to nourish the mind, foster individuality and develop the child’s personality through education. Such a teacher would make his/her lessons interesting and not simply mundane; he/she would make an extra effort to teach lessons in a comprehensive manner-thereby simplifying the teaching/ learning process.  

 

Characteristics of a good teacher:-

 

• The best teachers share a unique set of qualities, such as:

• A desire to educate young people and act as a positive role model

• An ability to work with students from diverse backgrounds and abilities

• Interest in helping people learn

• Enthusiasm about a subject

• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills

• The ability to work unsupervised

• Having creativity, energy and patience

 

Qualities of A Good Teacher: At a glance

 

1.  Knowledge of the subject matter

You can’t teach what you don’t know. All teachers need not be experts in their fields, but possessing knowledge is important. Teachers must continue building their understandings of their subjects throughout their careers.

2. Patience

No teacher should be expected to have much patience with individuals whose lack of discipline, immaturity, or indolence interrupts the work of other students. Patience with students who are trying to learn, however, is part and parcel of the teaching profession. Impatience with sincere students is an indication of the teacher’s own shortcomings.

3. Intellectual curiosity

All good teachers are intellectually curious and naturally driven by their interests in keeping abreast of changes in their fields.

4. Confidence

Good teachers are confident in their abilities to sense where students are in the learning process and in their students’ abilities to learn material that is presented in a logical and graduated fashion.

5. Compassion

Talented teachers are able to work with students with varying levels of maturity and knowledge. A college professor I know once made the following statement about his experience as a teacher: “Each year teaching is more challenging for me, because I grow a year older and the students stay the same age. The widening age gap forces me to stretch in order to reach them.”

6. Achievement

Experienced teachers have clear thoughts on what their students should know at the end of the term, and they understand what they must do along the way in order to reach those goals.

7. Planning

Teachers must have plans and stick to them. This goes deeper than rigidly following a course syllabus. Effective teachers sense when students need more time to absorb the material and, within limitations, are willing to give it to them.

8. Awareness

Teachers in elementary and secondary schools must have eyes in the backs of their heads. They need to be aware of everything that happens in their classrooms and in adjacent hallways. Teachers who are awake are able to stop nonsense before it starts and keep students on track.

9. Mentorship

Teachers often serve as mentors to their students. The desire to influence students positively is a core motivation of many teachers when they enter the teaching profession.

10. Maturity

In no profession is maturity more important than in teaching. Students experience emotional ups and downs, and insightful teachers are able to sense the changes and respond to them appropriately. Teachers must be pillars, consistently encouraging students to grow as human beings and to develop academically.

11. Community involvement

Maintaining good community relations is part of being a teacher, and teachers’ contact with parents, administrators, and community leaders enhances their effectiveness in the classroom.

12. Organization

One-on-one tutoring is easy compared to leading a classroom of students in a single direction. Teachers must be able to manage students’ multiple personalities and organize their subject matters so that a maximum number of students benefits from their presentations.

13. Vision

Teaching encompasses far more than passing information from teachers to students. Teachers should be illuminators who provide their students not only with interesting and useful material, but also with visions of where they might end up if they learn well.

14. Context

Every subject has a context, and teachers are responsible for providing it to their students. Since no one learns in a vacuum, teachers must show their students how the information they are learning might be used or might lead to the development of some other useful skill.

15. Mission

Perhaps the most important thing teachers communicate to students and to the community is a sense of satisfaction with their choice of teaching as their life mission. Teaching at its highest level is a calling, and good teachers feel it to their cores.

16. Enthusiasm

Excellent teachers never lose enthusiasm for their profession. They might become temporarily burdened by administrative hassles or isolated problems, but their underlying engagement with their work are unwavering. Students feel this energy, and teachers who project it are much more successful than those who do not.

What is Quality Circle?

 

A quality circle is a participatory management technique that enlists the help of employees in solving problems related to their own jobs.

 

A group of employees who perform similar duties and meet at periodic intervals, often with management, to discuss work-related issues and to offer suggestions and ideas for improvements, as in productivity methods or quality control. Quality circles are established with management approval and can be important in implementing new procedures. While results can be mixed, on the whole, management has accepted quality circles as an important organizational methodology.

But successful quality circles offer a wide variety of benefits to the organization. Quality Circle serves to increase management's awareness of employee (teachers) ideas, as well as employee awareness of the need for innovation within the organization. Quality circles also serve to facilitate communication and increase commitment among both teachers and management. In enhancing employee satisfaction through participation in decision-making, such initiatives may also improve an organization ability to recruit and retain qualified employees. In addition, many companies find that quality circles further teamwork and reduce employee resistance to change. Finally, quality circles can improve organizations overall competitiveness by reducing costs, improving quality, and promoting innovation.

 

 

Objectives of Quality Circle:-

• Promote job involvement

• Create problem solving capability

• Improve communication

• Promote leadership qualities

• Promote personal development

• Develop a greater awareness for cleanliness

• Develop greater awareness for safety

• Improve morale through closer identity of employee objectives with organization's objectives

• Reduce errors.

• Enhance quality

• Inspire more effective team work

• Build an attitude of problem prevention

• Promote cost reduction

• Improve productivity

• Increase student  motivation

How Quality Circle can help to mould good teachers?

Teacher leadership is not a new concept. Yet until we begin to cultivate, support, and spread the knowledge and expertise of those who have mastered this craft, we will continue to miss the mark on achieving great gains with students.

So while the newly released Teacher Leader Model Standards may surprise some as an innovative tool for improving the profession, teacher leaders themselves have been living them for years. These standards describe the skills, knowledge, and competencies that teachers need to perform well in leadership roles, including:

Domain I: Fostering a Collaborative Culture to Support Educator Development and Student Learning

Domain II: Accessing and Using Research to Improve Practice and Student Learning

Domain III: Promoting Professional Learning for Continuous Improvement

Domain IV: Facilitating Improvements in Instruction and Student Learning

Domain V: Promoting the Use of Assessments and Data for School and District Improvement

Domain VI: Improving Outreach and Collaboration with Families and Community

Domain VII: Advocating for Student Learning and the Profession

What might be the most useful aspect of these standards are actual exemplars of what teacher leaders have been doing for decades. The first featured exemplar is the Math and Science Leadership Academy, a teacher-led school in Denver, Colorado, that embodies all seven of these domains.

 An education-reform world has been captivated in recent years by other another model of innovation: the incredible efforts of education entrepreneurs. Their accomplishments engage and inspire the public with seemingly endless possibilities for our schools.

Prioritizing their responsibilities to students, teacher is making a name for themselves by creatively packaging and delivering instruction. Some are 'flipping' their classrooms by allowing students to watch lessons online and using class time to complete work traditionally reserved for home. Others are using social media tools to develop a more modern take on classroom discussion, effective writing, and community action. 

The prevailing form of teacher occurring regularly in schools across the nation is teacher leadership. Running everything from their departments and grade levels to professional learning communities, teachers are cropping up as managers, directors, mentors, and guides. Outside their buildings, teacher leaders are transforming unions, community organizations, after-school programs, and online professional-development communities.

For developing good quality in teacher : (Evaluation Criteria)

• Teacher evaluation systems should be based on valid, accurate, and reliable measures of student learning

• An improved evaluation system should equip teachers to design and use a variety of assessment tools that capture information about students' progress

• Teacher evaluation systems should also provide opportunities for classroom practitioners to spread their teaching expertise—and consider such leadership in individuals’ evaluations.

• Teacher evaluation systems should include results-oriented professional learning communities (PLCs) in every school.

Conclusion:

Good teachers love to teach; they are enthusiastic and passionate about their work. They are kind, patient and considerate, are noted for their efficiency and dedication and are genuinely interested in improving their student’s performance. They are proud of their positive influence on their students and happy when they find fantastic results in their academics. Because of these above traits there is a desperate need of good teacher who can help to build a good nation. The implementation of Quality Circle will definitely help to enlighten more lives by producing more efficient and effective results.

 

 

References:-

a. http://www.answers.com/topic/quality-circle#ixzz1lZvBrA1e

b. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect.html

c. http://www.theteacherscorner.net/forums/

d. http://www.school-teacher-student-motivation-resources-courses.com/goodteacher.html