Teacher toolbox weekly investment

Teacher toolboxes are important because when one thing may not work out you need to be able to have a back up plan. When thinking about my own personal teacher toolbox all I really have is what I have learned in college thus far. Along with some of my experience teaching in a public setting at the Elk Country Visitors center. In comparison to seasoned teachers that means my toolbox has started however it is not nearly full. 

As a teacher gets experienced they will get more and more comfortable with different methods of teaching as well as becoming comfortable with developing relationships with students. As a student teacher or even as a younger teacher once I get into the profession, I am not going to be able to have as much flexibility in my teaching and relationships with students as a seasoned teacher would. This is not because I'm a bad teacher, but because I'm not fully comfortable yet with my own teaching style. 

Its important to be able to pull from your teacher toolbox different methods of teaching a subject based off of how students are understanding the content. the further along I get in my teaching career the more flexible I will be with changing up my lessons. For example maybe I'm explaining something off of a power point and my students are just not understanding, then I take a moment and think about how I can convey the information to them in a different way. perhaps I would draw on the board so they can visually see step by step where the thought process is going. 

I will also have to be self aware that I am not going to know everything that my students may want to know. I need to be able to teach my student the skills to go find the information on their own. Giving them this autonomy may lead them to discovering information that maybe they could share with the class and even teach me as well. 

When it comes to developing relationships with my students I need to try and not to stick with just one type of student. I need to be able to try and reach out to all types of students. As a teacher I need to be able to put myself out of my own comfort zone and use my knowledge of different mentalities that I have stored in my toolbox and reach out to the students that I otherwise would not have spoken with. 

With all this being said your teacher toolbox is important and it may start out small, but slowly you'll add to the toolbox and it will grow and grow.