Making an impact

How do you make an impact in the classroom? You can deploy all the latest shiny technologies you can get your hands on. You can introduce new, whizzy methods into the classroom, and continually invent new ways to engage students. You can pack your lessons full of content, activities, games and creative assessment. You can plaster your classroom walls with colourful posters and displays, and even invite guest speakers in to motivate your students. You can rearrange the tables and chairs into progressive seating plans and move students around the room constantly to keep them occupied. You can promote collaborative learning through group work, create authentic learning opportunities, and even set up a makerspace in the corner of the room. You can rip it all up and start over again.

Try it all. It can all make a difference. But the thing that makes the most impact in the classroom? It's when teachers care about each and every one of their students, are passionate about learning and are in love with their subject. Students will remember that for the rest of their lives.

Enthusiastic and caring teachers really do make the biggest impact on children's lives.

Photo by Ilmicrofono Oggiono on Flickr


Making an impact by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.