If I could only say one thing to someone about teaching, it would be about the importance of communication. Not only must teachers be able to communicate curriculum well to students, they must also be able to articulate classroom rules and expectations. I have seen many different styles of communication in my placements, and no one way seems to be the best for every student. One thing for sure is that teachers must be good at forming relationships.
In each of my placements, I have seen that the teachers who formed strong relationships with students were able to teach a lesson better, since they knew how their students needed the material to be taught to them. In the music rooms I am in, I have seen that when the teacher chooses music with their students in mind, the students are more motivated to learn the music, since it interests them.
Most importantly, though, I have seen the extensive communication it takes to co-teach. Mrs. Chapin (learning coach at Brookfield East) put it to me this way: "Imagine having to do a group project everyday for the entire year." She pointed out that the same amount of communication, or more, is needed when teaching with someone else. Having a good partner is a huge benefit, and will also help each individual teach better.
Social loafing (when people are prone to exert less effort when they are in a group) can be a huge problem when so much communication is needed. If one person decides to slack off, everyone else needs to work much harder to make up for them. Something else that can have just as bad of an effect is group polarization (when groups make decisions that are more intense than what the individuals alone would have done). I know I have been in a situation at school during a group project where this was present. We would talk about all of these ideas we had for our project, and after a while, our ideas would be so elaborate and out there, that none of us would be able to actually accomplish the project. But, similar to group think, group polarization has the opportunity to help groups reach their full potential, and help the group perform their best.
