How to be a good teacher or coach? This is a question whose answer you might be interested in anyone. It doesn't matter what you do in life: to everyone - sooner or later - it can happen to play the role of teacher, coach or mentor in the family, in friendships, at work or on the pitch. When this happens it is important to be prepared.
What the teacher is is more important than what he teaches.
Karl Menninger
How to be a good teacher or coach: here are 6 tips
be a good teacher or coach you must have core skills. Let's see what they are.
# 1. Use the first few seconds to connect on an emotional level
Stop for a moment and try to remember the best teacher, coach or mentor you have known (if you have not yet found a reference educational figure, I have already explained to you in another article how can you find yourself a mentor). I'm sure your memories are not so much about what that person did or their skills, but how they made you feel. Somehow you knew that believed in you and that you he understood by being able to grasp your potential. I'll never forget my high school teacher, and do you know why? It supported me and made me feel special by displaying unconditional confidence in my abilities. In short, he was capable of connect emotionally with those around her.
Effective teaching is based on trust, and when it comes to trust, humans usually all behave the same way: we decide to trust a person or not from the very first moments of interaction. We rely on our intuition and the feelings that the other transmits to us. Here because to be a good teacher or coach you should use the first few seconds of the first meeting to connect emotionally with your students. There are several ways to create such a connection - eye contact, body language, empathy or a sense of humor - but whichever one you intend to use, make sure you prioritize this above all else. Before being a teacher, show that you are really interested in teaching.
#2. Avoid long, verbose speeches
Due to some movies, many believe that great teachers or coaches stand up in front of their students and indulge in inspired sermons. But real life is very different from cinematic fiction. First of all a good teacher or coach does not put himself on a pedestal or in front of the group, but next to those who are helping. He does not give long and boring speeches, but only lively snippets loaded with useful information. If you want to be a good teacher or coach, you need to be able to deliver short, concise and direct messages, addressing individual members of your group. Speaking indiscriminately to everyone is less effective than speaking individually. Targeted and personalized communication - aimed at the individual - also creates a greater emotional connection. What matters, therefore, is not the depth, magnitude or wisdom of what is said, but being appropriate to the context, in order to get the most out of the other by lighting a spark in his soul.
# 3. Stay away from cheesy and vague language
One of the most common mistakes that teachers and coaches make is the use of too sweet and imprecise language. Often those who use this approach are not effective because they end up communicating in a bland and vague way. Instead, the ideal is to speak directly and concretely, specifying what you want from the other. To be a good teacher or a good coach always try to give precise indications that are measurable or observable, avoiding words that do not describe precisely what needs to be done. For example, saying “please work more closely with the sales team” is vague; instead saying “please have a meeting for ten minutes every morning with the sales team” is specific and concrete.
# 4. Use scorecards for learning
Life is full of scoreboards: sales data, performance evaluations, test results, rankings, statistics, etc. The problem with scorers is that they can take us away from priority: instead of giving importance to learning, we end up pursuing short-term goals. This happens in business as well as in sports. When you focus only on "winning" you neglect the larger goal: learning to develop skills for the long haul. If you want to be a good teacher or coach, make your own scorecard. Choose a unit of measurement that fits the skill you intend to develop and start tracking progress. Uses this unit of measurement to motivate and guide your students. For example, great soccer coaches keep track of the number of good passes their teams make during a match and use this number - more than the result - as a yardstick to define their team's success. The players like it as a parameter and strive in every game to beat the score, thus achieving excellent results.
5 #. Maximize your efforts
Efforts are the essence of learning: no student of yours will be able to learn without sacrifices and struggles. This is the only way to improve! The challenge to be a good teacher or coach is to be able to create an environment that distracts people from passivity and directs them towards stimulating and interesting modes of action. That's why the great coaches they avoid exercises in which their players have to queue and wait their turn, turning to small intensive activities. This idea can also be applied in areas other than sport. Eg, in some school systems a technique called "inverting the class" has been very successful. The standard model foresees that at school you follow the lessons and at home you study by consolidating what you have learned during the lessons. In an inverted model, on the other hand, students do the exact opposite: they listen to online lessons from home and spend time in class actively tackling work, solving problems and memorizing topics, while the teacher walks by the desks offering support for each individual pupil. According to some studies, inverted classes perform better than classic ones.
If you want to be a good teacher or coach, you have to be a bit like a designer: rely on your creativity trying to create an environment that is as fruitful as possible. Ask yourself: how can I transforming passive learning moments into active learning situations?
# 6. Try to create independent students
Your long-term goal is to help your students improve so much that they no longer need you. Basically, you have to aim to become superfluous! To do this you must avoid playing too central a role: if the students rely too much on you, you risk not making them mature. It aims to create an environment where people can improve on their own. Whenever you get the chance, take a step back and stimulate a moment of independence. Your job should consist in the creation of a “miniature” teacher - a sort of copy of yourself - who will establish himself in each of your pupils guiding them on a path of progressive improvement.
Conclusions
In this article I have reported a series of practical tips and advice for being a good teacher or coach. Obviously it is a a difficult job, full of obstacles and responsibilities, but perhaps also for this reason it is particularly stimulating. It is not a case that let great teachers make teaching their life mission. I'd like you to tell me - in the comments below - about your experiences as a teacher or educator and the strategies you have used to improve yourself. Thanks, Francisco.
