If you type the following question into Google:
Why do teachers need to keep learning?
The following answer appears:
Modern society demands high quality teaching and learning from teachers. Teacher learning is a continuous process that promotes teachers’ teaching skills, masters new knowledge, develops new proficiency, which in turn help improve the learning of students.
In the same way educators want learners to be curious and to explore the world around them, the educators themselves should remain curious and actively explore the world around them.
In order to be a quality educator you need to possess a great deal of knowledge and a plethora of skills with regards to teaching your subject in the classroom as well as assessment practices in order to meet the required demands and standards of teaching in the 21st century.
In a nutshell – teachers should love learning!
If they do not, how would they succeed in inspiring a passion for learning in each learner
that sits in front of them?
A love of learning is contagious, after all!
HOW CAN EDUCATORS KEEP LEARNING?
Go above and beyond your subject knowledge
- Stay updated with the latest advancements in your subject and in the current curriculum.
- Stay updated with new ways to help your learners succeed and make the subject their own.
- Incorporate concepts from other subject areas when applicable.
Improve your technological skills
- Don’t use technology for the sake of technology of because you are ‘forced’ to do so. A blackboard and chalk had its place in its time but times are (constantly) a-changing…
- Upskill yourself with 21st century skills – it will make your job easier and you will gain the respect of your learners.
- Challenge yourself to find new ways to work technological skills into the curriculum and your teaching methods.
Teachers understand other teachers
- Not only do teachers understand (the challenges of) other teachers but teachers are in a perfect position to help each other. There is no better platform than to share your experiences, the professional reading you have been doing in your subject and your personal ‘research’ with colleagues who will in turn share theirs and offer valuable input. Two – or more minds – are always better than one.
Improve the results of your learners
- Teaching and teaching methods evolve. You should take care to evolve as an educator as well. Check yourself so that you do not continue to use outdated methods and teaching strategies as well as assessment methods.
- Identify what is really working in your classroom. Build on this to the benefit of your learners.
It is worthwhile to remember the words of Peter Drucker (1909-2005), an educator and author,
who believed lifelong learning is a necessity:
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change.
And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
