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Focus On Basics

Volume 5, Issue B ::: October 2001

Table 2:  Learners' Constructions of Good Teachers (across all three sites)

Way of Knowing Good Teachers . . . Sample Quotations

Instrumental Knowers

Show them how to learn.

Give them their knowledge and the  rules they need to follow to get the right answers.

Good teachersÖ "give you that little push;" "make me learn." 

"Explain how do to it, ask you write it down, and you write down exactly how to do it. Then we'd do it." 

Socializing Knowers

Care about them. 

Explain things to help them understand. 

Really listen and support them. 

Know what is good for them to know, and they tell them what they should know. 

Have certain qualities: kind, patient and encouraging. 

Acknowledge when the learner has learned something.

 

 "If you don't have a good teacher, you're not going to be self-confident." 

"If [the teacher] doesn't teach you the way you learn good, that doesn't help you." 

Good teachers "keep explaining things in different ways, show you different ways to learn." 

"...help you feel important and acceptedÖ never forget you."  

Good teachers have a "kind heart." 

"...don't give up on students. You can ask her anything-she's interested in your learning. She cares so much."

Self-Authoring Knowers

Are one source of knowledge, and they see themselves and their classmates as other sources.

Listen to the feedback these learners offer to help them improve their practice.

Use a variety of teaching strategies in their practice.

Help them to meet their own internally generated goals. 

Good teachers "understand their students." 

"She learn from me, I learn from her." 

"No matter how good a teacher you have, if you don't really want to learn, you're not going to learn nothing." 

"Make learning interesting. It has to be interesting to the student." 

"What you do with knowledge after it's given to you is of your own choosing." 

"I think it's very tough for a teacher to teach and listen and explain all the time." 

Table compiled by Eleanor Drago-Severson.
Updated 7/27/07 :: Copyright © 2005 NCSALL