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Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#11

Post by GeneralMaximus »

I'm a student, and most of the teachers I deal with at college are horrible. I won't go into things like passion and knowledge, just plain hard facts about what I want in most teachers.

1. Don't tell. Anyone can stand in front of a class and tell students stuff they don't know. A good teacher will always start with a problem, encourage students to suggest their own solutions and then proceed to tell the class the actual solution. Most good teachers I have encountered use a variation of this method to teach. It not only works well, it gives students a sense of accomplishment.

2. Let students come to their own conclusions about the subject material before you correct them. College students are not stupid. I've seen that the worst teacher will always tell students to "slow down for a moment" just so he can meticulously read through his shrink-wrapped bullet points. Boredom ensues.

3. Ask. Ask many questions. Heck, teach entire chapters as a series of questions.

EDIT: spelling, grammar, lameness.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#13

Post by brianto2010 »

I believe that a good teacher, first and foremost, should be very disciplined. In other words, authoritative and able, but not strict and overbearing. The teacher must disciplined enough to be able to keep students under control/on task and not let a class degenerate into a mob of individuals dallying on irrelevant topics. The teacher must be disciplined enough to be interesting in order to keep students' attention and keep them happy. The teacher must be disciplined enough to keep each student enjoyably 'actively participating' in the class.

Most importantly, the teacher should be disciplined enough to 'sharpen his/her saw', to be constantly, incessantly learning more of his/her art.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#14

Post by mrtron »

I like a teacher that understands a huge amount about the subject and has enough control of the subject matter that they can tie in other material.

The teachers I learned the most from knew so much about the subject that they could explain things very simply. An example being in high school calculus - the teacher had a masters in pure math and was able to explain things in such a way that made everything seem simple.

Recently I started watching http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/geb/VideoLectures/ after seeing it linked here on HN. During the first lecture the instructor takes several tangents, and those tangents help clarify the subject matter to such an extent that I would say that is what makes him a good teacher.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#16

Post by sebg »

I've always found that you can draw a box with four squares. On the top are "can explain material to moms" "can't explain material to moms". On the side are "clear communicator" and "unclear communicator".

The intersection of "can explain to moms" and "clear communicator" is what makes a good teacher for me.

In school some TA's could explain to moms but were unclear communicators so they didn't make good teachers.

In my work there are fantastic communicators in the sales team, but their grasp of the subject matter is such that they throw around lots of industry vocabulary but wouldn't be able to explain it to moms. This makes them bad teachers.

Great teachers/professors always had both great communication and a mastery of the subject. From my time at MIT the perfect example of this type of teacher/professors was Walter Lewin for 8.01 classical physics.

I highly recommend watching his lectures at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/Cour... (the picture of him on the website says it all.)

edit: grammar.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#17

Post by hackinthebochs »

mmj wrote: post #10

Being able to relate with the student. For instance after I learn a language and am trying to teach someone else the language I just can't see why the person is having trouble learning a certain concept of the language. It all seems so simple to me since I've already learned this language and it's hard for me to be able to empathize with the learner.

This is the key in my opinion. Just to elaborate a bit: you can think of knowledge as a mental structure. The good/great teachers are able to empathize with the students position of not having any of that knowledge, and can effectively build up the entire structure to make what they learned meaningful. The poor teachers just teach the final layer and wonder why people aren't getting it.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#18

Post by sethg »

A good teacher is one who can perceive where the student already is (what skills or interests he or she is bringing into the classroom) and can then lay out paths from that point to whatever the goal of the class is.

A mediocre teacher knows what he or she wants to teach but doesn't make that connection with the individual students. The result is someone who teaches a curriculum, not a person.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#19

Post by sethg »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #11

I'm a student, and most of the teachers I deal with at college are horrible . I won't go into things like passion and knowledge, just plain hard facts about what I want in most teachers. 1. Don't tell. Anyone can stand in front of a class and tell students stuff they don't know. A good teacher will always start with a problem, encourage students to suggest their own solutions and then proceed to tell the class the ac…

Judah Schwartz, my physics professor at MIT, used to end each lecture by saying "Comments? Questions? Puzzles?"

Usually there would be dead silence from the class.

And then he would say "I don't believe you." And he waited for someone to ask a question.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think makes a good teacher?

#20

Post by run4yourlives »

A good teacher betters the student's ability to learn by themselves.

This involves a great many things, and sadly is contrary to the way 90% of teachers - not just the pros - are taught to imply knowledge.

That's it, and it's applicable to every situation, from Kindergarten to a personal mentor. Almost all the other comments here voice preferred methods of achieving that objective, but the objective remains.

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