The Characteristics of an Expert Teacher

A lot of research has been done on the qualities needed by teachers to be “experts” in their field. Some of the personal qualities of an expert teacher are:

* Expert teachers are passionate about teaching and learning. Expert teachers are highly knowledgeable and up to date in their subject matter but do not pretend to know it all. They are willing to learn from their students. Expert teachers are learners for life. Expert teachers are able to see the gifts of all children and through positive interaction and correct content handling bring the light of each child to the forefront of their being.

* Expert teachers have a high respect for students and colleagues and work in a shared and collegial way with other staff. Hattie stated; “The manner used by the teacher to treat the students, respect them as learners and people, and demonstrate care and commitment for them are attributes of expert teachers. By having such respect, they can recognize possible barriers to learning and can seek ways to overcome these barriers. The picture drawn of experts is one of involvement and caring for the students, a willingness to be receptive to what the students need, not attempting to dominate the situation. Too often experienced teachers tended to create more physical and psychological distance between themselves and their students than do experts.” (Hattie, 2003) Expert teachers recognise themselves and their colleagues as co-learners.

* Expert teachers have deep core beliefs and values. They have a genuine desire to promote the growth of humanity through their teaching and bring out the best in their students. Expert teachers have a broad view and perspective on life. Expert teachers are honest and open in their approach and can show their mistakes and improvements. They are often seen as “easy going” and “relaxed” and have a high ability to communicate effectively.

* Expert teachers have an entrepreneurial flare and take risks. Expert teachers are quick to see different approaches to different scenarios are opportunistic and flexible and can improvise. Experts will seek further information and will take advantage of new information quickly. They will seek and use feedback about their teaching strategies and change direction easily when needed. Experts are skilful at keeping lessons on track and accomplishing objectives while allowing for student discussion. Expert teachers are more inclined to take educational risks.

John Hattie delivered a paper to the Australian Council for Educational Research called Building Teacher Quality. This paper identified the greatest differences between experienced and expert teachers and created a possible benchmark for professional development of teachers. Three dimensions that distinguished between experts and experienced teachers were:

* Challenge

* Deep Representation

* Monitoring and Feedback

Challenge
Expert teachers set tasks for their students that are both challenging and engaging. An expert teacher takes the time to know the gifts of all children in the classroom and their prior knowledge. Expert teachers are able to integrate prior knowledge and new subject matter to create challenging and complex tasks that stimulate and enhance students’ self-concept and self-efficacy about learning. Experts aim to motivate students to mastery. Experts engage students more in challenging tasks and less in student listening. Expert teachers have high enthusiasm for subject matter and give constant acknowledgement and positive feedback. Expert teachers connect content learning with deeper learning giving meaning and understanding to students work. Expert teachers can relate and extend ideas allowing for deeper, higher learning.

Deep Representation
Expert teachers have deeper representations about teaching and learning and possess knowledge that is more integrated. Expert teachers have a wide knowledge of teaching and learning theories and are able to relate to different theorists according to different circumstances with ease. Expert teachers are able to use and integrate different teaching and learning theories into their lesson plans to formulate their lessons in accordance with multidimensional complex classroom situations.

Hattie states:
Because of these deeper representations expert teachers:
* can spontaneously relate what is happening to these deeper sets of principles,
* can quickly recognize sequences of events occurring in the classroom which in some way affect the learning and teaching of a topic,
* can detect and concentrate more on information that has instructional significance,
* can make better predictions based on their representations about the classroom,
* can identify a greater store of algorithms that students might use when solving a particular problem, and therefore are able to predict and determine what types of errors students might make,
* can be much more responsive to students [One of my criticisms of secondary schooling in New Zealand is the degree to which it is powered by curriculum, assessment, time bells, and other bureaucratic controls and not by responsiveness to students]

I find it fascinating that experts take more time than experienced teachers to build these representations, have more understanding of the how and why of student success, are more able to reorganize their problem solving in light of ongoing classroom activities, can readily formulate a more extensive range of likely solutions, and are more able to check and test out their hypothesis or strategies. (Hattie, 2003)

Monitoring and Feedback
Expert teachers have greater insight and ability to interpret events in more detail and can filter relevant from irrelevant information. They are able to monitor, understand and interpret events to provide more and better feedback. Due to their ability to monitor and interpret they have a wider scope to anticipate and prevent disturbances from occurring. Expert teachers test hypotheses and strategies about learning and are adept at evaluating their feedback. Expert teachers use feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching. Children cannot be thanked, appreciated and praised enough. The affirmation of a student is the most important thing in teaching. Expert teachers praise their students to success.

Other attributes of expert teachers are:

Inclusiveness
Expert teachers recognise that everyone must be valued and feel valued. Expert teachers contribute valuable time – not leftover time, and often their teaching commitments go above and beyond the classroom. Expert teachers teach the children to include everyone and respond positively to the responses of each person, this is especially important in group work. Expert teachers know the importance of group work and are proficient at constructing good social interaction in groups.

Critical Reflection
Expert teachers enable deep learning to occur in students through critical reflection and include critical reflection in every lesson. Expert teachers critically reflect on their own teaching ability, strategies, theories and daily practices. Expert teachers are adept at creating lessons that cause students to pause and reflect on their learning strategies and ideas enabling them to link into other cognitive thought processes and underlying beliefs and knowledge.