Teacher+efficacy+and+expectations


 * Effective teaching-** involves presenting a topic or skill in such a way that students can understand and master it. Teachers must motivate students to want to learn, must help students recognize what true mastery involves and asses where each student currently is in his or her learning and development.

Effective teachers create an environment in which students believe that if they work hard and have reasonable support, they can achieve at high levels (Omrod, 2014, p. 3)

__Effective teachers:__ 2. Focus on knowledge and skills that will most likely enhance students’ long-term success both in and outside of school. 3. Provide some structure and scaffolding for activities and assignments. 4. Capitalize on technological innovations to enhance students’ learning and performance. 5. Take student diversity into account when planning and carrying out instruction. 6. Regularly asses and provide feedback about students’ progress.

__How to promote teacher effectiveness:__ 1. Keep up to date on research findings and innovations in education. 2. Learn as much as you can about the subject matter you teach. 3. Learn as much as you can about specific strategies for teaching your particular subject matter 4. Learn as much as you can about the culture(s) of the community in which you are working 5. Continually reflect on and critically examine your assumptions, inferences and teaching practices 6. Communicate and collaborate with colleagues. 7. Believe that you can make a difference in students’ lives. (Silverman, 2009)
 * Engage in reflective teaching, which is ongoing examination and critique of one’s assumptions and instructional strategies. Revise these strategies as necessary to enhance students’ learning and development.
 * Effective teachers rarely work in isolation.
 * Teachers with high self-efficacy have the confidence to try new strategies and persist in the face of occasional setbacks.

Effective teaching strategies use a variety of instructional strategies, often within a single lesson.
 * Virtually all instructional strategies should focus on learners, particularly what learners currently know and do not know, what their motives are and how instruction can best support effective cognitive processes and meaningful learning (Omrod, 2014, p. 14).


 * Expectancies**: Teachers must give students reasons to expect success with classroom tasks. Expectancies can be enhanced for success by providing the necessary resources, strategies and support. Teachers should help students find value in school activities (Omrod, 2014, p. 313). Some suggestions for fostering appreciation for academic subject matter include:

1. Clearly identify the particular knowledge and skills that students will gain from lessons. 2. Convey how certain concepts and principles can help students make better sense of the world around them. 3. Help students relate information and skills to their present concerns and long-term goals. 4. Embed the use of new skills within the context of real-world and personally meaningful activities. 5. Model how teachers value academic activities- for example, by describing how teachers apply the things they have learned in school.

Teachers’ self-efficacy is closely related to their effectiveness in the classroom. It is important for teachers to have high self-efficacy about their ability to succeed in the classroom //and// about their ability to help students succeed.
 * Students are more likely to achieve at high levels when their teachers have confidence that they can help students master classroom topics.

Teachers’ high self-efficacy about effectiveness in the classroom influences students’ achievement in a few ways: 1. They are more willing to experiment with new teaching strategies that can better help students learn. 2. They set higher goals for students’ performance. 3. They put more effort into their teaching and are more persistent in helping students learn.

Teacher attributions and expectations work hand-in-hand. The attributions teachers make about students’ successes and failure depends on how they have previously sized up different students’ motivation levels and abilities. Teachers’ attributions for students’ current behaviors affect their expectations for students’ future performance. These expectations then affect future attributions. Together, these affect the teaching strategies used with a particular student.

Most students readily pick up on their teachers’ subtle messages about their own abilities. When teachers have high expectations for students, they present more challenging tasks and topics, but when expectations are low, teachers present easy tasks and offer fewer opportunities for speaking in class. When teachers’ expectations are low, it can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy (Omrod, 2014, p. 361).

Teachers’ expectations, of individuals or the entire class, have an effect on students’ achievement levels. Teacher expectations also appear to have a greater influence in the early elementary school years (grades 1 and 2) and generally the first few weeks of school (Omrod, 2014, p. 362). Here are some ways to form positive attributions and expectations for student performance:

1. Look for strengths in every student. 2. Consider multiple possible explanations for students’ low achievement and classroom behavior. 3. Communicate optimism about what students can accomplish. 4. Explicitly teach students to form productive attributions for their successes and failures.

Teachers' effectiveness and the expectations they hold for their class greatly contribute to the classroom environment.

Webliography: Omrod, J. (2014). //Educational psychology: Developing learners.// New Jersey: Pearson. Silverman, S. (2009). //Teacher Efficacy.// Retrieved from [] Teacher Expectations and Attributions

Created by: Danielle Sorrentino, 10/10/2014.