Talk Teacher

3. Know Your Curriculum

* Know how to teach and assess the subjects you are teaching.

* Know how much time to spend on your topics and what methodologies would be the most effective for each topic.

* Know what prior knowledge is necessary for each lesson.

* Know the different cognitive levels and how to develop activities, classroom questions and assessments accordingly.

* Know what strategies to use to teach your learners to become critical thinkers and problem solvers.

* Know how to adapt the curriculum to support your learners.

* Know how to optimise your classroom with regards to its size, furniture and number of learners.

* Know how to provide security and support.

* Know how to manage your classroom so that all the learners are productively involved and learning.

* Know how to apply positive discipline strategies.

* Realise that ‘you cannot teach what you do not know; you cannot give energy if you are not on fire inside’. (Jesse Jackson)

* Come together in professional learning communities to share challenges and best practices with colleagues.

* Raise the level of your teaching through your own professional development.

* Know you can only become a star teacher if you have the desire to be one.