Lifelong Learning / Lifelong Professional Growth

 bad teachers in our programs.  It is a truism that some people were born to teach. I know that I have been told repeatedly that I am a born teacher. I sense it in myself sometimes, as well. But I think that is because I have the right dispositions in place that make good teaching easier to master.  Research repeatedly tries to get at what are the hallmarks of a good teacher, what are the dispositions that are effective. This week, on the Lilly Foundation website, Scott Gaier, an Associate Professor at Taylor University, suggested three dispositions which he thinks makes the difference and which can be taught and therefore learned.   These are active engagement with learning, a curiosity about the world around then and the ability to learn from failure.  He suggests that these three qualities make up what he refers to as the Mindset to Learning and, while there are many ways of cutting this or approaching this concept, there are as good as any to try and pass on to our students. They need to understand that to promote deep learning, they have to allow their students to get dirty sometimes and engage in hands' on learning. They have to understand that THEY need to be curious, want to engage in action research, want to be willing to try new things and they need to NOT be afraid to fail.  I know I have constantly told my students to be reflective....why did something work and why did something not work. We all make mistakes but the secret is to learn from our mistakes and be able to grow as a result. There are many ways to approach this idea of dispositions but the most important  thing is to remember that we CAN learn or teach ourselves to be better prepared to teach and help our students learn.