Teacher Resources

Teachers have a great impact on the lives of many of their students and it is important that teacher resources are made available to educators. People who enter the education profession have a love for learning and they have a love for their students. I recently visited my favorite high school teacher and was surprised to discover that he is retiring this year. He said, “I’m a regular dinosaur around here,” and lamented about high tech advances that have left him feeling outdated.

The teaching profession has changed a great deal over the past fifteen years. Fortunately, there are teacher resources available to help educators keep up with the changes. Although many teachers still rely on textbooks and lectures in their lesson plans, researchers have found that some students do not benefit from this traditional approach. Professionals have developed many teacher resources to address the diverse students in today’s classroom.

Gardner’s Eight Intelligences describes eight different learning styles that students may have. Some students fair well listening to lectures. They retain a lot of information that they hear. These auditory learners find listening to a speech or a classroom lecture to be the best way to obtain information. Not everyone is an auditory learner.

Some students are visual learners. These individuals need to look at diagrams or charts to help them process information. Sometimes a simple picture helps to literally illustrate the ideas and concepts that the educator is trying to address. A picture really does paint a thousand words for visual learners.

Many educators may feel lost when it comes to addressing visual students, but there are teacher resources that point them in the right direction. A professional educator can browse through a number of ideas that help visual learners maximize their strengths. These include Power Point presentations, charts, graphs and visually-based worksheets.

Other students learn by doing. The action of completing a task helps these kinesthetic learners retain information. These students are usually methodical and enjoy activities like following recipes or doing science experiments. The teacher resources available address kinesthetic learners through engaging activities.

The teacher resources also help some educators who are required to update their training each year. Laws like Act 48 in Pennsylvania require educators to keep up-to-date on the latest advances in their subjects. This requirement involves attending classes or seminars that provide credits. The teaching professionals are required to earn a certain number of credits each year. There are teacher resources available that allow educators to earn credits from home in their free time.

The teaching profession is a challenging but rewarding field for anyone who loves learning. Sometimes the job requires the educators to learn as they teach. Any teacher will say that the passion for teaching is directly linked to the passion of learning. Some of the greatest lessons are delivered by the students.