Collaborativeness

Collaboration is a very important aspect of teaching. Although you may be in charge of your own specific classroom, to maximize effectiveness you need to collaborate with other teachers. This starts with communication. An example that comes to mind once again brings me to my high school music programs. For both band and choir each student had a brief, weekly lesson which was only possible through the collaboration of the teachers. (The student would have to miss about 15 minutes of class for their lesson.) My directors would make a schedule of all lessons and hand it out to to the teachers, so everyone was in the know.

Teachers also need to collaborate with extra-curricular leaders, such as coaches and theatre directors. Quite often students will need to miss school or leave early because of an extra-curricular activity. My high school activity leaders did a great job of collaborating with each other so students could be in multiple activities. For example, during Christmas break One-Act practice and sports practices were always organized in the least conflicting way. Our director would organize play practice around when certain people had sporting events. I remember one year I had an away softball double header on the same night as opening night of our musical. Arrangements were made and I was able to do both activities.

Through my experiences I have come to view the secret ingredients to successful collaboration and teamwork are communication and compromise.

Efficacy

I feel the best way to become an effective teacher is through practice. Just like anything else, you can't expect to be great at something without any practice. I also feel a certain amount of natural ability is necessary in order to be great at something. In sports, this comes in the form of natural athleticism, in music it could be a natural sense of a beat or a great ear. I feel in teaching it comes from things such as your personality, naturally being able to explain things to people, and naturally possessing leadership qualities. These natural abilities must then be trained, practiced, and improved. In my instrumental methods courses we often have to bring in outside students to practice giving lessons. I think this is very effective. The first time I gave a flute lesson to an outside student I was given comments on things that might be improved. I realized what things wouldn't work and tried to organize them in a more logical order for the next student I taught. In my double reeds method course we practiced teaching certain things in front of the class with classmates purposely making mistakes. This was a very good way of learning how to diagnose the problem and help the student fix it.

Throw in confidence and persistence to natural ability and practice and you will become unstoppable as a teacher.