Teacher Characteristics and Effectiveness

Teacher Characteristics and Effectiveness

• Effective teaching requires specific skills, personality characteristics, and behaviors that motivate students to learn.
• Effective teachers engage students by fostering passion and excitement for learning.
• Effective teachers manage the classroom environment to create a conducive learning space and maximize engagement.
• Effective classroom management is characterized by well-prepared classrooms, established rules and procedures, smooth and engaging lesson pacing, consistent accountability practices, clear communication about student support options, and procedures for when students finish early.
• While effective teachers engage in a significant amount of classroom discourse, most of it is academic rather than managerial or procedural.
• Effective teachers frequently ask questions and provide feedback rather than delivering extended lectures.
• Teacher effectiveness is influenced by personality, inborn and acquired abilities, talents, professional skills, attitudes, temperament, and emotional intelligence.
• Multiple intelligence, emotional intelligence, and social intelligence are areas of active research in psychology.
• Teachers are the initiators, facilitators, and coordinators of the learning process, making them the most influential factor in the quality of learning.
• The "Bright Person Hypothesis" suggests that highly effective teachers are inherently intelligent and adaptable individuals capable of navigating the complexities of teaching.
• Cognitive flexibility and problem-solving skills are crucial for effective teaching due to the demanding, complex, and unpredictable nature of the profession.
• Research in vocational psychology supports the "Bright Person Hypothesis", finding that cognitive abilities and academic achievements are strong predictors of professional success across various fields.
• However, research on the "Bright Person Hypothesis" in the teaching domain is mixed.

Research on Teacher Effectiveness and Multiple Intelligences

• A research study aims to investigate the relationship between socio-demographic factors, multiple intelligences, and professional effectiveness of secondary school teachers.
• This research seeks to determine if gender, educational qualifications, and school management type influence multiple intelligences and professional effectiveness.
• The study will examine if a significant relationship exists between multiple intelligences and professional effectiveness among secondary school students.
• The study will also explore if socio-demographic factors influence the relationship between multiple intelligences and professional effectiveness.
• The study aims to understand the professional effectiveness of primary school teachers in relation to their multiple intelligence.

Operational Definitions: Intelligence

• Multiple intelligence refers to distinct sets of processing operations that enable individuals to solve problems, create products, and acquire knowledge in a variety of culturally significant activities.
• Gardner (1999) identified ten distinct abilities as components of intelligence: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential, and moral intelligences.

Operational Definitions: Professional Effectiveness

• Professional effectiveness in teaching refers to the teacher's ability to successfully affect desired and acceptable changes in students.

Study Limitations

• The research is limited to primary school teachers in Ernakulam district, limiting the generalizability of findings to other districts or states.
• The sample is susceptible to limitations due to the heterogeneity of Kerala's primary school teachers in terms of socio-cultural, educational, and economic backgrounds.
• The study does not include special school teachers, technical school teachers, or specialist teachers from normal schools.
• The findings are applicable only to subject teachers with a Diploma or Degree in Education and teaching experience in core-school subjects.
• Data collection relies on self-reports, potentially exposing the study to common method error variance.
• The study lacks indicators of actual classroom behaviors, limiting the generalizability of findings.

Other Research on Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences

• A research study by Snyder (2000) investigated the relationship between learning styles, multiple intelligence, and academic achievement of high school students.
• The study revealed that the majority of high school students were tactile/kinesthetic and global learners, regardless of academic data.
• The study found a positive relationship between male students' grade point averages and preferences for working alone, visual and logical learning styles, and self-motivation.
• A negative correlation was observed between male students' GPAs and preferences for sound and working with others.
• For female students, a positive correlation was found between their GPAs and global learning styles, bodily kinesthetic intelligence, and tactile-kinesthetic learning styles.
• Students with higher GPAs generally reported being more self-motivated, persistent, and inclined to study alone.
• A study by Katz et al. (2002) examined the engaged behavior and social interactions of students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms.
• The study compared classrooms using MI pedagogy with traditional classrooms and found that the participants' experiences were more similar than different.
• Participants in MI classrooms engaged in a greater variety of activities.
• Students in MI classrooms spent more time interacting with their peers, while students in traditional classrooms interacted more with adults during individual activities.
• A master's thesis by Gögebakan (2003) explored the influence of gender and grade level on students' multiple intelligence.