What is your favorite teaching tip?

Everyone has a favorite teaching tip?  What is yours?

When I was teaching (I'm a full-time administrator now), I taught university seniors who would become business teachers the following semester.  My favorite tip was to model my classroom under the same guiding principles as they would be facing as teachers.  In other words, I didn't have assignment deadlines.  Instead, the students were assigned a mock teaching date near the end of the semerster/term.  They were required to provide me with all of their materials on the day that they taught.  This included:

• A detailed lesson plan
• A copy of their presentation materials
• An explanation of how they would be teaching the foundational vocabulary, the way they would teach the content knowledge, and the gaols for how the students would use the content knowledge
• A copy of all student handouts
• A copy of all assessments with an answer key and rubric
• A reflection of the planning process

We worked on these items for about 10 weeks and the students received feedback from me along the way, but nothing was "due" until the day that they taught.  This was the only way I could simulate the planning process for their own classroom of the future when they were in charge.  There would not be a professor telling them to have the lesson completed by a specific date.  

Tamra Connor
Professor, Business Education
Associate Dean for Accreditation and Operations
​Illinois State University