We want all teachers in ZSC to be effective teachers, and this depend on their involvement in, and commitment to, a continual learning process throughout their career. At Ziauddin, we support teachers to engage with continual and practical professional development.
Each new academic year brings challenges that all teachers need to adapt to as professionals. We believe that the foundation to being successful is for our teachers to draw on and develop their personal abilities and learning from experiences. In the teaching profession, these personal abilities and experiences, when combined, are classified as ‘competencies’. We have developed a set of quality standards than define these competences and how they are demonstrated by the effective teacher.
Through professional development, our teacher become effective teachers by developing:
Verbal Ability
We ensure that our teachers are enabled to make connections with their students and colleagues through their words and actions. At ZSC, the effective teacher ‘knows’ each student and the most effective way to communicate with them. All of our teachers are prepared to carefully reflect on the needs of their students when they are teaching, observing their reactions in order to decide the best way to teach at different times in a lesson.
The ability of teachers to effectively communicate with students influences the relationships they develop with them and the efficacy of their explanations as they teach. Research shows a clear link between this and students’ learning.
Content Knowledge
The relationship between what the teacher knows about a subject and what a student learns, is clear. An effective teacher knows their content thoroughly and can determine the essential knowledge and skills that are necessary to be learned by students. Teachers who are confident in their content knowledge also convey their enthusiasm (thus engaging the students), understanding and knowledge to students. A knowledgeable teacher is also able to connect the ‘real world’ to the topics and concepts in the curriculum.
We ensure that ZSC teachers have a strong grasp of the subject(s) they teach and that they are able to facilitate students in ways that help them interact with, and learn, the material.
Developing teaching experience (particularly in classroom management, questioning and reflection)
Experience leads to professional growth as teachers learn from practice. With time and experience, teachers develop a depth of understanding about the subject(s) they teach, and a deeper appreciation of the most effective ways to teach it. Through our ongoing professional development, ZSC teachers get a better understanding of, and access to, a wider variety of strategies to meet individual students’ needs, and learn how to get the most out of their course materials, management of the students in the classroom, and how to incorporate reflective practice more easily into their working day so as to realise constant improvements in what they do.