6 mistakes that new teachers make

These are just six of my favourite mistakes.

1. Being friendly rather than firm

As a new teacher, you’re treading a tough tightrope. On the one hand, you want to be firm and set boundaries. On the other, you want to be friendly and form a report with students.

You may not get this right straight away. Or even in your first year or two. 

The main mistake I see here is that new teachers err on the side of friendly. More ‘friendly’ language would be saying things “guys” when you’re referring to the class, or words like “come on” when you’re trying to get their attention. 

Instead, if you need the class's attention, state the year group. “Year eight,” for example. Also, ask for what you specifically need. For example, “Right now, I need your attention Year Eight. I won’t proceed until I have quiet.” And then wait. Be firm in your commands.

2. Not being friendly enough

Contradictions already!

When I was doing my teacher training I received this piece of advice: “Don’t smile until Easter.”

(For context: in Australia our school year runs calendar year. So we start late Jan and Easter marks the end of first term.)

The advice, “don’t smile until Easter”, is notionally about being firm and not showing a softer side until you’ve embedded some tougher routines. I failed this piece of advice from day one. 

It’s okay to smile, crack jokes and poke fun. But you also need to be firm when it’s required. 

3. Planning worksheets rather than lesson goals

An excellent worksheet can truly make a lesson. One lesson. But what happens next lesson? And then next week?

Spend more time on the lesson goals than the worksheets. Think about:

• What content should they learn from the lesson?

• What skills should they develop?

• What connections should they make between content areas?

Answer these questions first. Then, choose activities that best address these lesson goals. Spoilers: it might not be a worksheet.

4. Being inconsistent with consequences

From an early stage, students should be clear on the major consequences for their actions.

What happens when students don’t complete their homework once? What about the third time? 

How about the consequences for turning up late to class? And if this becomes a habit? 

The point here is that you want students to know that if they do X, Y will happen. There is no negotiation or uncertainty. It’s just the way you’ve structured your classroom.

You might be lucky and the school has developed a set of consequences. Or you may have the flexibility to devise your own. Either way, avoid being inconsistent. That can create extra challenges.

5. Trying to change the organisation too quickly

You arrive at the school and you start to see things that you think should change. Your intentions are good. But your pace is too fast.

Take note of the things you think should be improved. But resist the temptation to try and change them too quickly. Over time, there’s the possibility you can make adjustments. Right now, just know that organisations tend to change very slowly — particularly when the suggestions come from very new staff members.

6. Continually questioning your career choice

Stop asking yourself whether you should have become a teacher.

During my first year of teacher, I continually questioned my decision. Every bad day would be another prompt to ask: “Should I have become a teacher?”

It’s not a helpful question. You’re here now. Give yourself a period of time before you really interrogate whether you should continue. 

The constant questioning will undermine your confidence and motivation. So try and avoid it.

Bonus tip: Be helpful 

This is my advice for prac teachers but is very useful for new teachers too. Check it out below.

My top number one best ever tip for student teachers

My absolute top tip is to be helpful.

This particularly applies to working with your supervising teacher.

Think about it this way: this is your professional placement. But this is your supervising teacher’s job. 

There may be a range of goals you’ve got as a student teacher. You might want to teach a senior Modern History class, practice certain literacy techniques or observe a particular teacher and so on.

You have goals. Your supervising teacher has a job. They will likely do whatever they can to accommodate your goals. But they have to weigh this against the various responsibilities and requirements of their ongoing job.

If you think about it, your time at this school, in this role, is time limited. Your supervising teaching will still be there after you’ve left (at least for a period of time).

So while you’ve got your goals in mind, your supervising teacher has to take a bigger picture view.

Given this, my top piece of advice to student teachers is to be helpful. 

Do your best to help your supervising teacher do their job. When you’re a qualified teacher, you’ll be in control and able to do things as you’d like. Here, someone else is in control so you should focus on ways that you can assist.

An example in point. Let’s say you’re really keen on teaching that senior Modern History class. But your supervising teacher has asked you to teach a junior Geography class instead. What do you do?

Let’s say you insist on teaching the Modern History class. How might the supervising teacher respond? 

Or let’s say you agree to do the junior class, but you’re very reluctant to do it. How might the supervising teacher respond to this?

It’s no guarantee but when you’re helpful, others may be inclined to be helpful to you too. It’s worth thinking about. 

Rather than going into your prac placement with a checklist of goals to hit, go in with one super objective — to be helpful.

How to give an effective teaching demo lesson

When you’re going for a teaching job you may be asked to perform a demonstration lesson. This can be a tricky task.

You’re being asked to turn up in an unfamiliar classroom at an unknown school and teach. And not just teach! You want to turn up and shine and put yourself in the best position possible to get the job.

I’ve participated in demo lessons and I’ve observed demo lessons. I’ve seen successful and unsuccessful approaches. I thought about all this and distilled three keys to delivering a successful demo lesson.

1. Be super clear on the content you’re delivering

You want to know exactly what content you should be teaching in the demo lessons. You don’t want an approximate idea or a rough indication; you want the precise syllabus dot point, text book pages or concept.

During the recruitment process, I recommend you try and speak directly to the classroom teacher, whose class you’ll be teaching, to be really clear about what you should be teaching. This could be via email, or indirectly through the HR person running the recruitment process.

Once you’re “super clear”, don’t engage in major tangents. Once a class is yours, you can spend some time exploring related issues that link to the syllabus points. But, in a demo class, stay very constrained and focused on the correct content area.

2. Hook your audience with the intro

Spark interest with your intro. Try and avoid starting with, “Today, we’re going to be looking at [insert content area here].” Do something unexpected, to spark a sense of mystery and engagement among the students.

Some ideas for engaging intros include:

• quirky headlines taken from news articles

• interesting photos or videos whose meaning are not immediately obvious

• a short quote.

Unfamiliar items can lead to student engagement. Student engagement is a crucial factor in student learning. By creating this kind of intro, you’re demonstrating your skills in involving students in your lessons from the very start.

Check out my video below for how I’ve used a sneaker-related intro.

3. Use a mix of teacher- and student-led activities 

In your demo lesson, you want to demonstrate you can teach a specific concept AND have students independently work on tasks. This is tough balance to strike.

Here’s my suggestion. Use part of the lesson to clearly and concisely teach the content in question. Use some slides to help with this process. Incorporate definitions, formulas, some perspectives — that kind of thing. But keep it small and tightly focused.

Then make sure you include a student-led activity. This could be individual or pair work where you set a task and allow the students to work through it, using the content from the first part of the lesson as a basis.

Please: avoid group work. Pairs, and then combining two pairs would be the max. The problem with group work is that you don’t know the class dynamics and you could create groups that undermine your lesson.

Advice for those trying to land a teaching job

For a new teacher, it can be hard to land that first job. 

What advice would I give people trying to crack into teaching and be hired without having extensive experience in the classroom?

I say: start a YouTube channel.

Teaching can feel like being stuck in an experience loop. You can’t get the job until you’ve got more experience; you can’t get more experience until you’ve got the job. This can be enormously frustrating.

Part of proving your worth as a teacher is showing (not just telling!) that you have the skills necessary for effective teaching. That you have a positive and engaging presence. That you can clearly and concisely explain complex concepts. 

YouTube can be the perfect channel to demonstrate this. Let’s say you want to teach Economics but you don’t have an Economics teaching job. Start a YouTube channel focused on Eco content. No major investment required. Use your phone or laptop to record videos of you teaching Economics content, drawn specifically from HSC syllabus (or Biology or English content, or whatever subject you’re focused on).

In discussions with schools, share your YouTube channel. 

I’m giving this advice because my own YouTube channel helped me land my first job. My channel was much smaller then, only a few videos, but I had this video on automatic stabilisers (see below) that I put a lot of effort into. As part of my application process, I shared this video (see below), discussed why and how I made it, and how this would be part of my teaching approach.

The panel watched the video and told me that it was a positive factor in their decision-making process.

It can be tricky to make videos. It can be trickier to make videos that you’re happy with. But, as a starting point, you can use Zoom to make these videos. I’ve got an instructional video below you can check out.

The important point is that YouTube allows you to get experience in being a teacher without having to be employed, for now, as a teacher.

Linking this to COVID

Let’s say that remote learning, in some form, continues. You can demonstrate your ability to teach via a screen really well through a YouTube video. Just give it the same effort and energy that you would give an actual class.

This can be helpful if schools may not be able to bring you on to campus in the near future.