Duties and Responsibilities of a Teacher

 Duties and Responsibilities of a Teacher

The duties and responsibilities of a Teacher shall include the following:

 Overall Functions 

• To teach and educate students according to guidelines provided by the National Curriculum Framework

• To teach and educate students according to the educational needs, abilities and attainment potential of individual students.

 Main Responsibilities 

• Planning, preparing and delivering lessons to all students in the class;

 • Teaching according to the educational needs, abilities and achievement of the individual students and groups of students;

• Adopting and working towards the implementation of the school development plan of the particular school they are giving service in;

• Assigning work, correcting and marking work carried out by his/her students;

• Assessing, recording and reporting on the development, progress, attainment and behaviour of one’s students;

• Providing or contributing to oral and written assessments, reports and references relating to individual students or groups of students;

 • Participating in arrangements within an agreed national framework for the appraisal of students’ performance;

• Promoting the general progress and well-being of individual students, groups of students or class

• Providing guidance and advice to students on educational and social matters and on their further education and future careers; providing information on sources of more expert advice;

 • Communicating, consulting and co-operating with other members of the school staff, including those having posts of special responsibility and parents/guardians to ensure the best interest of students;

• Reviewing and evaluating one’s own teaching and learning strategies, methodologies and programme/s in line with the National Curriculum Framework guidelines;

• Advising and co-operating with the Head of School, , Heads of Department, Education Officers, and other teachers in the preparation and development of courses of study, teaching materials, teaching programmes and methods of teaching and assessment;

 • Ensuring high standards of professional practice and quality of teaching and learning of the subject/s. through effective dialogue, participating in reciprocal peer review and observation of class teaching by other teachers;

 • Participating in In-Service education and training courses as well as in continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities, and taking part in action research exercises;

• Maintaining good order and discipline amongst students under one’s care and safeguarding their health and safety at all times;

• Participating in staff, group or other meetings related to the school curriculum, for the better organization and administration of the school;

• Contributing to the professional development of new teachers and student teachers according to arrangements agreed with the Head of School;

• Providing the necessary information and advice to the designated personnel in the school and to provide all the necessary information regarding requisitions and arrangements in connection with the teaching of the subject assigned to him/her;

• Ensuring the safe custody and optimum use of equipment normally used by oneself during lessons and sees to its regular servicing and maintenance;

 • Participating in school assemblies;

• Registering and monitoring the attendance of students under one’s care;

• Sharing in any possible and reasonable way in the effective management, organisation, order and discipline of the school;

• Nurtures a culture where teachers view themselves essentially as facilitators of learning and reflective practitioners;

• Together with the Learning Support Assistants, developing and implementing the Individual Educational Programme (IEP) of students with Individual Educational Needs and participating in IEP and Individual Transition Plan (ITP) meetings;

• Collaborating with specialist teachers/resource persons and other professionals working with students with special needs;

• Making use of audiovisual technological devices/aides (such as av aids; projectors) and other adaptations during the delivery of the lessons;

 Teacher Qualities:

Academic Qualifications: B.Sc; B.Ed/ M.Sc; B.Ed

1. Enthusiasm: A great teacher is enthusiastic about their job and lesson, and encourages students to share the same passion as they do.

2. Leadership: An effective teacher has the ability to lead and guide her classroom; she can manage a number of different personalities, including misbehaving children, and steer them into the right direction. She leads by example and is an important role model in her students’ lives.

3. Organisation: Teachers have to do a number of tasks, from lesson planning to activities and assessments. In order to succeed in their role, they are required to have organisation skills. They need to be able to keep on top of these tasks and complete their duties in a timely manner.

4. Respectful: A good teacher sets a respectful tone in her classroom. Students feel safe to share their values and opinions, and their classmates have learnt to be good listeners and respect others’ thoughts. Essentially, the educator has created a useful learning environment for her pupils.

5. Multitasking: Teaching is not only about following the curriculum and marking exams; it’s also about multitasking. A good teacher should be able to monitor all her pupils’ behaviour and keep their attention while completing her class.

6. Teamwork: Part of being a teacher is the ability to work as part of a team, as well as alone. They’ll need to make their students feel like they are part of a team to enhance the learning experience. Furthermore, they must network with fellow teachers to solve problems and create plans regarding the overall teaching scheme.

7. Ability to Teach: This is a given, but being a teacher is not just about the credentials you hold to educate others. You’ll need to have instructive skills, your own style of teaching and the ability to explain and demonstrate clearly so that concepts that are not easy to understand are simplified using memorable examples or props.

8. Communication: Teachers must have remarkable communication abilities. They must be able to interact with people of all ages, including colleagues, pupils, parents and managers. Educators should effectively deliver information, understand the different points of view from other people and explain the rationale for the choices they make in regards to their teaching.

9. Adaptability: Being adaptable to unforeseen situations is key; you never know what will happen in your classroom each day and you will need to handle each circumstance appropriately and come with quick solutions. For example, if one of your pupils is really sick or injures themselves, you’ll need to remain calm and come to the rescue.

10. Interpersonal Skills: Strong people skills can turn an average teacher into a successful one. An educator that is inclined towards helping others will create warm relationships that, in turn, boost learning. A pleasant teacher who has an engaging personality creates attentive and enthusiastic students. You will also be adept at handling students that may have learning difficulties or other disabilities that need special attention.

 

Qualities of Science Teachers:

• are passionate about their subject and infuse enthusiasm in their students.

• are thorough with content and constantly update themselves.

• are keenly aware that they don't know everything.

• are willing to grow as professionals and try new and innovative pedagogical skills.

• plan engaging activities for their lessons to meet students' needs, interests and abilities.

 • navigate tricky science concepts, use active learning approaches.

• anticipate and work with students' preconceptions and misconceptions.

• reflect daily upon their teaching practices.

 • have a methodical, meticulous and logical approach.

 • evaluate and assess students' progress periodically.

• can explain concepts in the curriculum in diverse ways to students with different learning styles.

• develop critically thinking students who understand scientific processes.

• focus on hands-on and minds-on strategies and process-oriented teaching.

• have excellent communication skills to teach a diverse group of students.

 

Professional Competencies: [Refer the Professional Competencies by the British Council: Printed rating scale given in SWOT Analysis]

 New Role of a Teacher in a technology supported classroom:

The new teacher roles identified in a technology driven classroom are: instructional designer; trainer; collaborator; student; silent partner; team coordinator; advisor; and monitoring and assessment specialist, etc,.

“Instructional designer” is one of the more common new roles taken on by teachers. Like the “self-learner” role adopted by students, teachers in this role found themselves designing, planning and organising their classrooms in order to effectively use and integrate technology into their lessons. The instruction designer takes into account all of the resources available to meet the variety of needs his/her students have and implements well-designed activities to address those needs.

 “Trainers” give individual instruction to enable skilled development. This training or mentoring was accomplished through modelling the use of multimedia and technology, and helping the students see how they might use software tools to accomplish unique language learning tasks.

 “Collaborator” refers to a variety of activities teachers undertake to work with their colleagues to improve their instruction. These activities included informal sharing with colleagues and team teaching. They also included collaborating, sharing and learning with the students as equals.

“Team co-ordinator” is another teacher role. The focus of this role was on the active assignment of individual students to project or portfolio teams. In addition to opening up opportunities for collaborative and social learning activities, teachers who assumed the “team co-ordinator” role created opportunities for peer tutoring, apprenticeship modelling, and support between students with mixed ability levels.

The role of “enabling advisor” refers to those teachers who give assistance, advice, suggestions or posed questions in a way that enabled students to find the information they needed to complete particular multimedia or language-learning tasks. A common term used sometimes to describe this role is the term ‘facilitator’.”

The “mentoring and assessment specialist” refers to the new role where teachers mentored and monitored performance of students and attempted to assess and improve that performance.

 Teacher as a Professional

Teachers, who enable interaction among the main elements of educational system such as student, educational programme, teachers and environment (Posner, 1995) and who take on the task of educating young individuals that the society needs, have a distinctive place and importance within the scope of these main elements. Teaching profession began to develop with the emergence of education as a field of profession and vocation. It has been argued for a long time whether teaching is a profession or not. In the end, it was agreed that teaching is a distinctive profession and that it possesses all of the qualities that a profession should possess (Tezcan, 1996).

Teaching profession could be described as “a professional occupational group of education sector possessing social, cultural, economical, scientific and technological dimensions”. For an occupational group to be classified as a professional occupation, it is necessary that it provides services in a determined field, goes through formal training which offers expert knowledge, possesses professional culture, has admission control, possesses professional ethics, owns professional establishments and is considered as a profession by the society (Erden, 2007;Tezcan, 1996). For a vocational field to be classified as a professional career field, it is necessary that the people who perform the vocation possess specific knowledge and skills. 

Teachers who have comprehensive knowledge of their subject matters let their students actively participate in the lessons. These teachers are aware of the problems the students encounter while learning and are ready for any questions put by the students and the answers these teachers provideare very accurate and clear. It requires a formal training period for an individual to specialize ina subject matter. The information the teacher conveys to his students should be up-to-date and should reflect the latest scientific facts of the field. The fact that information is produced rapidly demands that it is updated.

  Teaching skills of the teacher

 A teacher cannot succeed if he cannot convey his knowledge to his students no matter how competent he is in the subject matter. Therefore, the teacher needs to have teaching skills. Teachers control the learning and teaching process by way of planning and carrying out the lessons, evaluating students, maintaining the order in the classroom and ensuring that their students participate in activities which could be beneficial for them to reach the goals of the lesson. Teachers acquire this skill through vocational courses and practices included in teacher education programmes.

 A teacher should possess basic qualities such as “expertise on the subject matter, motivating for learning, awareness of student differences, planning the teaching process, knowing and using teaching-learning strategies, designing learning environment, effective communication and objective evaluation”

1. Planning the teaching process: Planning includes creating learning experiences for reaching prespecified goals, determining teaching methods and techniques, and practices and evaluation activities. Prepare learning activities considering the fact that each and every student has a unique way of thinking and different interests. While planning, it is necessary to determine how much time it will take the student to acquire the required knowledge, where the teaching process will take place and how the students’ learning achievement will be evaluated. Planning, which occupy a dominant place in teaching process, is the teachers’ most significant responsibility. According to Moyles (1992) the majority of the disciplinary problems emerge when the teachers cannot begin their lesson in the way they planned. Therefore, the success of the teaching process depends greatly upon the fact that its plans are of high quality.

2. Teacher as a learner

With the speed of knowledge dynamics, the teacher is required to be an eternal learner. Emerging systems of knowledge, skills, applications impact life styles and skills so much, that the learners are in constant touch with these changes and absorb them more easily than their elders. The teacher has, therefore, to be well-aware of the emerging knowledge and participate in the learning process along with their students. The role of a teacher is becoming a “co-learner.”

3. Technology relevance

The emerging tools and appliances in technology and their integration with the content and the methods of learning has taken away the formal learning methods to an ‘informal learning’ platform. The ‘search’ for knowledge is leading to ‘research’ about their validity, use and contextuality to life. The teacher has to be not only ‘technology literate’ but ‘technology competent’.

4. Pedagogical skills

Neuro-cognitive researches claim that it is only ‘learning’ that happens in the brain and hence the approach to pedagogy to enable and empower learning must be more focused, appropriate and learner-friendly. The understanding of differentiated learning skills calls for application of a wide-variety of delivery modes and better use of space and time in a classroom environment. The understanding of ‘multiple intelligences’ and the need to enlarge the spectrum of learning experiences in formal and informal spaces in learning calls for more creative and diverse approach to methods of classroom transactions. The success of a professional teacher is related to the ‘pedagogical intelligence’ of the individual.

5. Offering variety: Monotony is one of the most important factors that lead the teaching process to be boring and disciplinary problems to arise in the classroom. Monotony arises in the classroom if the teacher lectures in the same way every day, asks similar questions, rewards students in the same way or make use of the same gestures, facial expressions or tone of voice. In the classroom, a successful teacher should motivate the students and diversify teaching approaches, class formation and types of assignments by making use of verbal communication, which is a method of carrying out the exchange of emotions and opinions, and also body language (nonverbal communication), which is effective in initiating, resuming and ending a communication process and which complements verbal communication. A teacher should both clearly convey his messages to the students and be an effective receiver of their messages. Such an active and effective receiving helps the students gain emotional security.  

6. Using the instruction time effectively: According to Montague (1987), one of the most important aims of classroom management is using effectively the time available for instruction. If the time spent with direct teaching can be increased, the amount of learning will naturally increase as well. The students should be able to acquire the aims of the lesson within the pre specified time of the lesson.

7. Creating a participatory learning environment: The students need to participate actively in the teaching-learning process for learning, that is to say, a permanent change in behaviour caused by experience to take place. An effective teacher actively involves his students in the teaching-learning process. The structure of education and the ideology of society require a democratic classroom management because the school helps the individual develop a healthy personality in agreement with a democratic life. In a democratic classroom, the teachers involve the students in the lesson but do not encourage them to rebel. As is in the formulation of classroom rules, the teacher also lets the students participate in the decisions regarding what to study in the classroom.

8. Monitoring the development of the students: An effective teacher carefully monitor the students’ level of understanding and apprehension of new information. When the teacher spots gaps in learning, he makes up the deficiency and corrects the mistakes. Evaluation of the teaching-learning process enables receiving feedback on the development of the students. Feedback serves functions of guiding, motivating and reinforcing. Sometimes, even children of the same age group differ in terms of pace of advancement, interest, ability and needs. Thus, it should not be expected that all the students will demonstrate the same level of achievement in all of the activities. 

9. Ensuring the students’ self-control:  Children need three types of sources for self-control; positive emotions towards their own selves and the others, grasping the difference between right and wrong and alternatives for problem-solving. Some of the strategies for ensuring children’s self-control are preventive, some are remedial and some develop plans for modification. As learning how to learn is essential nowadays, an individual who has developed self-control can plan for his career or future, can guide and monitor himself. A teacher in terms of personality affects his students in a positive way. The personality of the teacher has an influence on the learners and a positive classroom atmosphere; and once a positive classroom atmosphere is created, it continues to affect the student even outside the classroom. Research shows that friendly, flexible, tolerant, humorous teachers who pay attention to their students have a more positive effect on the students’ learning and attitudes. Direct, self-confident teachers who are at peace with themselves accept different opinions, are tolerant and encourage participations and interactions from students.

 Personality traits of a teacher:

1. Tolerance and being patient: As children of school age have a hard time in distinguishing between right and wrong and try to prove themselves, they might demonstrate a great deal of negative behaviour in the classroom. In this case the teacher should be tolerant and patient towards some of the faulty behaviour of the students. Tolerant and patient teachers have a chance of modifying students’ behaviour. It is important that teachers tolerate not only unexpected student behavior, but also different, unusual and contradictory opinions.

2. Being open-minded, flexible and adaptive: In today’s societies in which social change has gained speed and a lot of great advancements take place in science and technology, the teachers need to be open-minded, flexible and adaptive in order to improve themselves and their students. Teachers who possess these traits know that their ideas, emotions and perceptions might be different from the ideas, emotions and perceptions of other people. They can see situations in other people’s perspectives. Making use of unexpected situations alongside the planned activities is related to the teacher’s adaptive personality traits.  

3. Being affectionate, understanding and humorous:  Affection plays an important role in students’ personality development and their becoming self-confident and social individuals. The students who love their teachers develop positive attitudes towards the school and lessons and thus succeed. Affectionate teachers establish positive and supportive relationships with their students. Humorous teachers ensure a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere in the classroom. Humor eliminates the walls between teachers and students and reduces the distance. Students feel close to their teachers. Lessons become more enjoyable and pleasant. If the teacher is sincere, understanding and patient, this will lead the students to think positively.

4. High success expectancy: The expectation of the teachers towards the students and the success of the students are highly correlated. When teachers have high success expectancy towards their students, they make time for them, encourage them to learn and believe that they will succeed in learning and thus, it can be said that teachers become more attentive to the teaching process. Moreover, when the student feels the high success expectancy of the teacher, he also believes that he will succeed and develop a positive academic self-concept. In other words, students learn as much as the teachers expect them to.

5. Being encouraging and supportive:  Teachers should support and encourage their students to learn. A supportive teacher ensures that the students have self-confidence, learn by themselves and develop a positive academic self-concept. The studies have demonstrated that encouragement and support not only affect the students’ academic achievement, but also reduce undesirable behavior and disciplinary problems.  

6. A Democratic personality:  The people required by modern-day societies are educated in environments in which freedom, democracy, confidence and responsibility predominate. At school, this responsibility belongs to the teacher because the main element of the education system is the teacher. First and foremost, the teacher should believe in human rights, inevitability of differences and the goodness of a democratic way of life. When the rules of the classroom are set up together with the students themselves, it gets easier for them to learn and apply the rules and share the responsibility. Dewey states that school is an institution which is based on simplification, transparency and balance and these facts enable the learners to change their environment together and to establish relationships in a democratic and sincere (open) attitude.  

Knowledge of subject matter, teaching skills and personality traits which are essential for the education to reach its goals define artistic and scientific the features of teaching profession. A teacher should take up the role of a scientist while acting like an artist. While designing the learning environment with the characteristics of a scientist he should add beauty, elegancy, understanding, tolerance and affection to this environment with the features of an artist (Bilen, 1999). Teachers have a great responsibility for possessing and improving the knowledge and skills of the profession and deciding about how to do what. Therefore, the field of teacher training should be a field in which important knowledge and learning-teaching practices can be applied directly, questions are continuously asked and analyses and experiments are carried out (Loughran, 2006).

 

                      

 

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