1) Teacher knowledge and skills are key factors in student achievement. Effective teachers are supportive, caring, knowledgeable and able to engage students. 2) Students perform better when taught by teachers who have a strong grasp of their subject matter and can accommodate different learning needs. Professional development helps teachers strengthen their skills. 3) Early childhood teachers require special training to effectively support young children's learning and development through responsive interactions and scaffolding. A teacher's level of expertise impacts students' opportunities to achieve.

1. Knowledgeable and Skillful Teachers
SOE 115 The Psychology of Teaching and Learning
Kendall College

2. Abstract
• Teacher preparation is a key element in student achievement. A
knowledgeable and skillful teacher can make a boring class into an exiting
time for students. A teacher with such skills are hard to find now days, but
not impossible. There have been certain traits that identify a teacher as an
exceptional teacher. Exceptional teachers are portrayed as being
supportive, ethical, caring and knowledgeable. These are only a few of the
traits that will be discussed in this inquiry paper as we dig deeper into the
findings.

3. Credible Source 1
• It is no secret that teachers that truly have a passion for teaching and learning, have the
knowledge required to teach and learn. According to Cohen, A. a., Porath, M., & Heesoon, B.
(2010), “The proposed conception of the exceptional educator is that he or she is an exemplary human
being with strong qualities of warmth, ethical integrity, caring, supportiveness, educational vision, verve,
experience, discernment in the domain of teaching, and insight into who the student is as a developing
human being; he/she also possesses strong abilities to facilitate classroom contact.” In other words, a
skillful teacher must have a strong content knowledge, they need to know how to
accommodate their teachings to properly address students needs and have the experience
required to achieve student achievement. As times change, education must change as well
and shifting our teachers to a view of a different kind of teaching is imperative to achieve
desirable results in growth and performance in education.
• On the other hand, you also have to look at a knowledgeable and skillful teacher from the
students perspective. As stated in Cohen, A. a., Porath, M., & Heesoon, B. (2010), “Students in
the presence of exceptional educators feel that they are truly recognized.” Students are capable of
recognizing when their teacher is “good material” to teach and when not. The case being that
a student in the presence of an exceptional teacher knows that he/she will be challenged to
achieve his/her full potential possible.

4. Credible Source 2
• Professional development trainings are a great way to start creating the knowledgeable and
skillful teacher our students need. A teacher can be anyone who completes a degree program
and graduates in the field of education. However, a skillful teacher is made by practice in the
classroom and by long training hours. In his article Gottlieb, D. (2012), argues that “teaching is
no more a series of bite-sized moves.” This simply means that the profession of teaching requires
much more than it probably did 10, 15 or even 20 years ago. Teaching requires dedication,
commitment, love and passion for the profession. But everything has to run thru its course
like the old saying says “practice makes perfect.”
• In some cases, skillful teaching can be misinterpreted and be seen as a mimic to teaching. In
these cases, you can probably see into a classroom that a teacher can be lecturing while
students are playing, talking, or doing other things that do not pertain to the class. Simon
Glendinning, (as cited in Gottlieb, D. (2012), mentions this issue as a “phenomenon-splitting.”
This phenomenon “separates the teacher from the classroom context. “ In order for teachers
to avoid falling into this kind of phenomenon, they need to keep themselves educated and
active in the field, because if their education is based on what was required 20 years ago,
then their teachings will not be effective and thus student achievement will not be acquired.

5. Credible Source 3
• Children of early ages require more attention and scaffolding than older children. That is why
its important for teachers in the field of Early Childhood Education (ECE), to be well prepared
and trained. Having the knowledge to work with youngsters requires dedication. As stated in
Downer, J., Sabol, T. J., & Hamre, B. (2010), “Effective teaching in early childhood (EC) care and
education settings requires skillful combinations of explicit instruction, sensitive and warm interactions,
responsive feedback, and verbal engagement/ stimulation intentionally directed to ensure children’s
learning while embedding these interactions in a classroom environment that is not overly structured or
regimented.” As highlighted above, knowledge and skills are needed in order to work with
children and deliver the type of education you wish for. A teacher that portrays these
qualities will definitely promote student achievement and success.
• A skillful teacher promotes confidence and knowledge in pedagogy in the area of
interactions. Many studies have shown that “children learn and develop in large part as a function of
their interactions with adults and peers.” (Brophy, 1999; Brophy & Good, 1986; Eccles & Roeser,
1999; Gage, 1978; Pressley et al., 2003; Soar & Soar, 1979), As cited in Downer, J., Sabol, T. J.,
& Hamre, B. (2010). There is evidence that a teachers level of education and training
ultimately leads to greater opportunity of student achievement.

6. Summary
• As we I have covered in the previous information, teacher knowledge and skills are needed in
order to achieve the ultimate goal in education, and that is that students learn and master
skills in content knowledge areas. I discussed the importance of looking at a teacher from the
point of view of the students. Students can tell when teachers are good teachers and when
not. Besides students grades on exams and quizzes and standardized test scores, teacher
performance in the classroom can be measure by the way in which he/she conducts the
class, prepares and challenges students to their fullest potential possible. I also cover the
importance of a skillful teacher in ECE. Scaffolding is necessary in this particular field of
education because this is the time when a student is molded to be a long life learner.
Interactions during this time will ultimately define the students level of development.

7. Analysis
• While doing research I found some similarities and differences between the articles that I
would like to highlight. First, the information contained in the articles argues the fact that a
more knowledgeable and skillful teacher in the classroom is definitely a key factor in student
achievement. In Cohen, A. a., Porath, M., & Heesoon, B. (2010), exceptional teachers are
viewed thru the lens of being a human being, that has feeling and passion for the profession.
In Gottlieb, D. (2012), teachers knowledge is viewed as a work in progress which needs to be
molded in a certain way to obtain the desired results, but it also considers human behavior as
a pathway to achieving such goals. The same can be appreciated in Downer, J., Sabol, T. J., &
Hamre, B. (2010), where the view is geared towards the early years of development, but that
it insist in that the type of person a teacher is ultimately results in the type of practice he/she
will demonstrate in the classroom. As a final thought, we can not forget that students are the
other factor that determines how skillful a teacher is or is not.

8. Connections
• The information gathered from the review can definitely be traced back to the readings
where behavior, which is the underlying factor talked about in regards to student
achievement, can and needs to be molded to fit in with the requirements needed for
effective teaching. In Woolfolk, A. (2016), “students set goals, observe their own work, keep a record
and evaluate their performance.” I mention this because teachers are also students. They must
maintain themselves learning all the time in order to teach the most up to date information
to the students. The delivery of an effective instruction or teaching highly depends on the
fact that teachers need to reflect. Reflection is vital for improvement.

9. Conclusion
• Exceptional teachers strive in motivating and engaging their students in all areas of learning
rather than just letting students fail. A knowledgeable and skillful teacher believes that all
students have the ability to excel and thus they are capable of success not only in school
work or school related activities, but in everything the students put their minds into. A skillful
teacher is not born skillful, its made skillful through self-education, trainings and active
practice in the classroom. A teacher must also possess the qualities that make up a good
teacher; passionate, caring, knowledgeable, educated, supportive, warm, and before all
teachers must be viewed as human beings that have feelings and has a passion for teaching
and education.

10. References
• Cohen, A. a., Porath, M., & Heesoon, B. (2010). Exceptional Educators: Investigating
Dimensions of their Practice. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal, 4(2), 1-
13.
• Downer, J., Sabol, T. J., & Hamre, B. (2010). Teacher-Child Interactions in the Classroom:
Toward a Theory of Within- and Cross-Domain Links to Children's Developmental Outcomes.
Early Education & Development, 21(5), 699-723. doi:10.1080/10409289.2010.497453
• Gottlieb, D. (2012). Beyond a Rule-Following Model of Skillful Practice in Teacher
Development. Educational Theory, 62(5), 501-516. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.2012.00459.x
• Woolfolk, A. (2016). Educational psychology (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
• ISBN-10: 0-13-354992-5, ISBN-13: 978-0-13-354992-8