ABSTRACT

Effective teachers always strive to improve and they focus on something they can control: their own behavior. All teachers, even ineffective teachers, have high expectations for students. The difference is that great teachers also have very high expectations of themselves. When students are not focused and engaged in the classroom, great teachers ask themselves what they can do differently to improve student engagement. This chapter presents key concepts, discussion questions, journal prompt, and group activities related to the variable in terms of teacher expectations. The main variable in any classroom is not the students, but the teacher. Just as successful students and parents accept responsibility, the most effective teachers accept responsibility for their performance in the classroom. The group activities allow to create a mission, vision, or value statement for a great teacher. Working in groups of two to five, have them reexamine the issue of expectations from the perspectives of students and parents.