Teacher presence is about being vibrant, interesting, involved, and interactive. Being there is the soul of teacher presence; when you are not there, what teacher presence are we talking about? Teacher presence is all about being there in the mind, body and soul.
Good teacher presence can make students more interested and also cultivates a passion for the topic being taught. I know presence is abundant when my students ask me questions, when they maintain eye contact, and I know when they start yawning, or give me the ‘glassy’ stare that the teacher presence may be waning.
Teacher presence—connecting with ‘live’ examples
I cultivate presence by peppering my sessions with humour, more examples that they can connect with and' of course by consciously cultivating my physical presence and voice modulation. Whenever I give them ‘live’ examples or act out a situation I find they connect. When I end the session with these I find that the knowledge lingers more with the students and they recollect better and then also understand ways to implement it. If students cannot see your eyes, they will not connect. Without a certain grace a teacher tends to be a distraction. Sometimes touching can be distracting and sometimes it is required, but touching students with your words and making them connect is truly required in presence. Mystery, awe and wonderment are important when you enter an encounter. Presence is highest when I am entering and disengaging from an encounter, it is ‘maintained’ steadily when in the encounter.
The teacher should be wise enough to ignore student behaviour that can affect teacher presence and, in turn, the presence of students in the class.
Teacher presence—connecting with the topic
My view of presence changed after I attended one particularly famous speaker’s session—there were witty jokes, great quotations and a lot of voice modulation etc. At the time I did enjoy it but there was a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction, something that I was able to put a finger on. The next day I realised it was an enjoyable session, but a waste of time because the topic was hardly touched upon! This is what I keep in mind and see to it that I do not call this as ‘teacher presence’ in my sessions.
4 comments:
Educators must act with knowledge and purpose to make sure young children acquire the skills and understanding they need to succeed. Intentional teachers keep in mind the key goals for children’s learning and development in all domains by creating supportive environments, planning curriculum, and selecting from a variety of teaching strategies that best promote each child’s thinking and skills.
The book "The Intentional Teacher" considers how and when each type of learning is most effective, and what teachers can do to support them.
A teacher especially a pre-school teacher assumes many roles while helping children have a successful first school experience. She wears many hats and to ensure that things are running smoothly, she must be able to act and react in a variety of roles as the need arises.
As always stated by Ms Swati Popat Vats- yes Teaching children is more than ROCKET SCIENCE, it is BRAIN SCIENCE.
In order to so motivate his students, the teacher must himself possess a goodly character. Teacher must be a true exemplar of his teachings in front of his students. Even in his life time, if a teacher can thus influence a few, nay even a single life, he would have achieved his mission.
Learned a lot about teacher & its role under the guidance of Swati Maam .
As a teacher myself i find most of the preschool teachers dealing with their own situations and are mostly stressed out and lack the patience to deal with the questions of a young child whose intentions are just to know more about the surroundings.so my question would be should we just wait for the teachers to wake up or should we give them a run for playing with the emotions of parents most of the time.
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