Summary: What Great Teachers Do Differently

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Summary: What Great Teachers Do Differently What Great Teachers Do Differently What makes a great teacher? All teachers have an idea of the best teacher they encountered and aspire to be like that person. Great teachers are not developed over night. Becoming a great teacher takes time, patience, and perseverance. In the book What Great Teachers Do Differently, Todd Whitaker chronicles things that great teachers do. By adopting many of the practices in the book, a new teacher can be well on their way to becoming a great teacher. High expectations, creating a climate of caring, decision making, and learning to ignore things are just a few of the things that great teachers do. Great teachers have high expectations not just for their students, but also for themselves. The expectations a teacher places on his or herself are directly related to those placed on their students. In order to ask students to meet our expectations, we must rise to the challenge of creating our own expectations that are high and attainable. Often times, teachers will not have any expectations of themselves, but place ridiculously high and unattainable expectations on their students. When students do not have any background knowledge of meeting expectations or a good example of what meeting expectations looks like, they will struggle with rising to the challenge. A teacher with high expectations for his or herself will ultimately pass that quality on to their students. Caring comes naturally for great teachers. When a teacher genuinely cares for the students entrusted to them, they are able to reach them with greater ease. Great teachers make their classroom a place where caring is the norm. In a climate of care, students are more inclined to take up for each other, protect each other, and teach others how to care. In addition to teaching students to care for themselves
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