Today we explore more teaching resources, with a focus on Senior Tech Tutorials. Successful teachers give their students emotional support: There are days when your students will need your emotional support more than a piece of information. Connecting to your students on an emotional level makes it more likely that they will listen to your counsel and take your advice to heart. Students need mentors as much as they need teachers. Successful teachers are comfortable with the unknown: It’s difficult to teach in an environment where you don’t know the future of your classroom budget, the involvement of your student’s parents, or the outcome of all your hard work. On a more philosophical level, educators who teach the higher grades are tasked with teaching students principles that have a lot of unknowns (i.e. physics). How comfortable are you with not having all the answers? Good teachers are able to function without everything tied up neatly in a bow. Successful teachers are not threatened by parent advocacy: Unfortunately, parents and teachers are sometimes threatened by one another. A teacher who is insecure will see parent advocacy as a threat. While there are plenty of over-involved helicopter parents waiting to point out a teacher’s mistakes, most parents just want what’s best for their child. Successful educators are confident in their abilities and not threatened when parents want to get into the classroom and make their opinions known. Good teachers also know they don’t have to follow what the parent recommends!
Use visuals or gestures. Know your students and choose age-appropriate visuals and gestures. Including students in the development classroom signals can increase buy-in, particularly for older learners. Provide directions versus asking questions. This recommendation can lead to the quickest change. It may not be all that you need to do, but it’s definitely one of the first 10 things you should try! Remember, if we ask a question, we have to be willing to accept yes or no as an answer. See more info at http://rookieteacher.org/.
Learning is not only for young people. Technology is used in every facet of life because it can provide the speed, connectivity, and efficiency to make tasks easier. We all want things to be easier and faster and as an older adult, it’s important not to underestimate how technology can help you in your golden years. This is the information age where questions can be answered in an instant, and when we take advantage of being informed and connected then we can gain the knowledge and know-how necessary to helping ourselves and improving our lives. Getting digital literacy training can give older adults the skills and confidence to access information and services online.
Be mindful of the word choice you’re using. The new words the Internet has created in our dictionary might not make sense to someone who barely uses a computer. Instead, ask them what they already know about technology so you can use analogies to what they’re already familiar with. A very good website for senior learning is Tech for Seniors tutorials.
Music teaching is hot this days, many people try to learn music, for various reasons. There are a few podcasts that focuses on teaching people about music and one of them is The Music Educator by Bill Stevens. If you’ve spent time on your lesson plan and feel well-prepared then I’m sure you are excited about teaching the class. As teachers, we feel happy when we can see our carefully thought-out plans coming into fruition. Let your positive attitude and excited feeling show. Your students will pick up on your mood and learn even more than usual. Having your own plan means you can connect with students. You can meet them on the learning journey, spreading the positivity of having direction and goals. Careful planning means you can develop a positive attitude towards your teaching career. This will be automatically passed on to students in class.
Tip of the day for music teachers : Find a Reliable Instrument Dealer: As a music teacher, you’ll need to be able to provide students with reliable and affordable instruments, so it will be important to find a reliable instrument dealer in the area. Young teachers will want to establish a relationship with an instrument dealer far before the school year starts. To help with this feel free to ask local music teachers for ideas, but don’t be afraid to do some exploring yourself.
You can listen to the The Music Educator podcast by using the app from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.themusiceducatorpodcast.android.music. You can learn more about Bill Steven by checking his website at https://www.4themusiceducator.com/.