Excellent teachers should strive to model excellence in all aspects of their work. This includes having strong teaching skills and strategies to promote student learning and positive outcomes. Teachers must know their content but also how to teach it through varied approaches that accommodate different learning styles and student diversity. Lessons should build upon each other through scaffolding and assessments to help students draw conclusions and see how the content applies in different contexts. The ultimate goal is for students to find personal, intellectual, and academic meaning in the subject to positively influence their perspectives.

1. As Teachers, we should offer to our students not only teaching
as a style of excellence, but also the meaning of excellence in
all that we do. This title was meant to be a pun. Take a look at
both excellence in teaching and the meaning of teaching
excellence to your students.

2. Excellent Teaching Skills:
Approach as
Performance, Proximity, &
Integrity=Dynamic Learning
 Various approaches, depending
upon content (multiple
intelligences).
 Approach organized to
accommodate diversity
(differentiated instruction).
 The show must ALWAYS go
on.
Modeling Excellence:
Methods & Strategies as
Teacher/Content Integrity=
Best Student Outcome
 Modeling, formal & informal
assessment, and re-teaching, if
needed.
 Careful planning with syllabus,
notes, study sheets, and test
preparation for comprehensive
learning.
 Constant mini exams, and final,
Comprehensive test on course
subject matter.

4. 1. Knowing Content alone is NOT ENOUGH. A Teacher has to know HOW
to TEACH:
a) Lectures are good, but that is only ONE approach.
b) Using varied approaches, (action research, associative, cognitive,
collaborative learning, etc.) makes lessons applicable to
students’ realities, cultures, and belief systems.
c) perform challenges through approach: (ex: give deadlines and stick
to them! Create debate groups on issues, or ask them to
research your stance to enhance or refute.
2. Teaching material should build upon one lesson to another by:
a) Sequing from previous lesson to the next (scaffolding or cubing), and
all finally should apply to each other,
b) Draw conclusions, at periods in course, through class discussions &
oral assessment in lecture question/answer sessions
c) Teacher should be continually assessing students, both formally and
informally.
3. Student outcome should reveal personal, intellectual, and academic
meaning, purpose, and value in the subject taught, altering student
perspective in a positive way.
1) APPROACH: TEACHER
‘PERFORMANCE’

5. LINKS:
2) PROXIMITY: TEACHER INTEGRITY
1) If you expect students to believe your subject matter,
YOU must believe your subject matter, and back it up
with your OWN research. (scholarly approach)
2) Give opportunity to each student, through their
understanding and capability, to apply what they’ve
learned, and parallel with other presentations (diversity).
3) Take sincere interest in your student individually and, as
well, as community (trust).

6. No two people are EVER alike. We teach somewhat generally, but to spur a
student’s desire to learn, we must plan lessons that “speak the language of
various intelligences,” even to get across general concepts.
3) DIVERSITY: DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION &
STUDENT OUTCOMES

7. 1) The Teacher’s goal should ALWAYS be student learning outcome first. Student
mastery should drive teacher’s lesson plans at the beginning, adjusting throughout
course, what it will take to achieve the end result.
2) For some teachers, it might be easier to work directly through the year, obviously a
syllabus will help keep the plan organized, and it is easier for the students to have a
map of the coursework that will have to be completed each week, month, quarter, or
semester.
3) While planning for the entire course, plan also for the breaks, holidays, and/or
absenteeism, and conduct safety measures and methods for those who take a lot
longer because of language barriers or class presence.
4) Finally, it must be first and foremost on the mind of the teacher, that no student will
EVER learn from someone they don’t trust. An EXCELLENT teacher will plan HOW
she/he will achieve a trusting relationship with students. I suggest this comes by the
teacher’s sincerity, tenacity and passion for the subject matter, AS WELL AS the
teacher’s sincere love and care for students. In other words, if you are teaching for the
money, get out of teaching: 1) there isn’t any money in it, and 2) you will actually be
doing a dis-service to the teaching field, because no student will ever buy what you are
selling if you don’t believe in your own product.
WHAT IS THE TEACHER’S GOAL?