As a teacher, what ability or skill has helped your students reach high academic achievement?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you are asking about the abilities of the students who are successful or about my abilities that help students to be successful, so I'll answer both.

In my experience, the students who are academically successful share two common traits: willingness to be wrong, and diligence.

So many students are paralyzed by the fear of being wrong. The fear of social stigma, fear of disapproval from authority, fear of damage to their self-image. Students must overcome this fear to make progress. You gotta try something, and quite often you will be wrong. Successful students are willing to be wrong.

Learning requires much time and effort. Repeated practice. Thinking. Trying. Failing. Thinking some more. Trying again. It takes effort to keep on keepin' on. Successful students have the tenacity and diligence to consistently pursue excellence.

As I think about what abilities I have as a teacher that helps students achieve, I realize that they are the same qualities that successful students have: willingness to be wrong and diligence. Since becoming an effective teacher is a learning process, just as the path to high academic achievement is, I guess that makes sense.

Answer 2

There are a couple of things that I like to believe make my students stay with their studies and strive to excel: first, I always try to remember how it felt to be a student, and I try to treat my students accordingly. Second, I teach to everyone at the beginning--I "review" to bring the slower students up to the level I need them to be. Finally, I do not underestimate what the students can do--I push them to work on skills that are of a higher degree of difficulty, and I grade critically, but I give many many chances for revisions and practice grades. I accept late papers, but not if a student is absent on the day the paper is due (come to class!). I do not look for the negative, but the positive: no matter how bad a student's work may be, I always find something he/she did properly and I praise it. I do point out the big errors and I am straightforward without being rude or hurtful. I offer office meetings and try to find tutoring for those who are willing to go, and I make my office a safe and friendly place for the students to enter. I make time to answer questions or just to listen. Toward the semester's end, I relax the workload and review again and again. We do group work and ungraded practice exams in class. My drop rate has been very low, the grades have been relatively high, and my students have good stats on passing the next level of the class. In fact, I have not only taught them on my level, but prepared them for the next. You will find that students will give you exactly what you ask for. If you give the basics and make it too simple, they will never challenge themselves. And, even if you think the challenge will be too difficult, you will usually find that they will go all out to attempt it. It is at that point, you praise and reward the attempts and take a small step back... But, remember, no one can do the big tasks without the baby steps that lead them there. You must be clear, do many reviews, and remind the students what they have learned, why they have learned it, and how it will benefit them in the future.

Answer 3

Mixing humor and learning is always a good way to learn that will keep them awake. Regardless of age and subject, colors or body movements usually get stuck in memory. I have taught algebra through body movement, like when you are trying to teach how a perpendicular slope should be and you know is opposite and reciprocal, then with your hands you put one on the top of the other and then switch (opposite). Or when adding or substracting you can represent positive as red and negative as blue so then you can eliminate or put together.
What gets students more far away in their learning nevertheless is knowing that someone believes in them. That you actually think they are capable of doing more than they are expected to do. The feeling of believing in them really gives them the boost they need to succed and more when you tryto imagine their future with/without a career (bettle-ferrari)

Answer 4

My ability to awaken curiosity and to impart a great deal of knowledge with humor and discipline...Tough Love.