This article is the last of a four-part series examining
Gallup's research on what great teachers do differently. The last
two articles explored "caring," a talent that great teachers use to
build relationships that lead to learning, and "belief," a talent
that motivates great teachers (see Related Items). This week, I
will examine one of the talents that great teachers use to
structure learning: "input."
Teachers with strong input talent love to collect, archive and
use information. They make learning fun through the wealth of
ideas, approaches and stimulation that they bring to the classroom.
These teachers have a very inquisitive nature that leads to a
continuing love of learning and the exploration of many different
ideas or specialties. They keep the best of traditional teaching
methods, but constantly add new ideas that help students learn.
Other teachers, as well as students, learn from teachers with
strong input because they are virtual storehouses of
information.
Teachers with strong input talent are distinctly different from
others in that they always share and give away what they are
learning. When they learn something new, they feel a need to share
it with someone else or use it to help someone learn.
Teachers with strong input talent:
- Have stimulating classrooms. There is always "stuff" on the
walls, bulletin boards, shelves or displays that deals with past,
present or future lessons. Science classrooms may be filled with
animal photos, taxidermic specimens and as many live animals as the
principal and health department will allow. A teacher in a Gallup
focus group said, "Can I make you learn anything? ‘No.' But
my responsibility is to provide opportunities (for learning)."
- Return to school at the end of summer vacation with truckloads
of things gathered in their travels. They are "pack rats," and they
want to want to share what they collect with their students.
Principals of teachers with strong input talent despair over never
being able to provide enough storage space, shelves or file
cabinets.
- May have piles or files of materials yet to be stored, boxed or
saved. Often they have boxes in attics, garages or storage
facilities. Their spouses invariably ask, "Can't we throw this
away, now?" The response is predictable: "No, I might need it
sometime." For these teachers, everything they collect could be
used to teach something.
- Leave seminars and conferences loaded down with materials,
catalogues and samples. As a consequence, principals soon learn to
send teachers with strong input to these events as often as
possible, because they love the excitement of seeing all of the new
ideas and bringing them back to share with the other teachers.
- Collect quotations, magazine articles and journal articles that
they find interesting and then share them with others. If you have
ever put a yellow sticky note on an article and sent it to someone
else, you may have strong input talent.
- Are rarely without a resource to help students learn. They use
historical artifacts in social studies, share books from the
classroom library in English class, and provide multiple specimens
in science class. All of these things stimulate learning by
creating excitement, interest and curiosity in students. Another
teacher in a focus group said her goal was to "make them (students)
feel" the subject matter.
The input talent, like belief and caring, is not learned in
classrooms. Great teachers have deep-seated motivations to teach.
They create relationships because they know that students work
harder when such relationships exist. They intentionally structure
learning rather than assuming it will happen.
The great teachers in our lives are special. Write, call or
visit a teacher who made a difference for you. Let them know how
they touched your life. They need the input.
The Gallup World Poll gives you the power to know - and act on - what the world is thinking.