Teaching Skills Development – Needs & its Implication

Alice Kense

WITH the rapid changes and advancement of technology, the needs and requirements of the students have also changed. Teaching profession is now more than imparting education from the texts. In order to meet such requirements, it leads to the emergence of teaching skills development. This paper focus on imparting education with positive attitude; factors involved in teaching skills development; objectives and advantages. Based on the research, closing remarks have been concluded. 
 “A teacher is someone who motivates not only within the four corners of the classroom, but for a lifetime”. Teaching skills and skill development is essential for both experienced and those new to the teaching profession.  Skills enable teachers in their profession to face challenges and problems that they encounter inside or outside classroom. Challenges and problems are an opportunity to develop rich experience as well as a platform to inhibit valuable qualities to tackle all sorts of situations.

Acquiring self-confidence and development of teaching skill are correlated. The more one develop teaching skill, the confident one become in a teaching profession.
Teaching is an act causing to learn or helping to gain understanding. To make teaching a successful one, it is important to know how the students learn and the approaches adopted. 
This write up will focus more on the teaching skills or skills development than the methods of learning. 

In the year 2014, our Prime Minister Narender Modi and his Govt. took initiative to revise National Skill Development Policy with an aim to attain “Make in India”. 
A skill is learning to carry out a task with pre determined results. It is an ability to communicate effectively with people in a friendly way. 
Development is an act or process of growing or causing something to grow and to be advanced. 
Skill development is an ability to develop oneself and ones skill to add value for ones career development.

Factors involved in Teaching Skill Development:
There are three factors involved in a teaching skill development. 
•    Cognitive skills: It is related to mental process involved in knowing, learning and understanding objectives. 
    Example: Giving opportunity to the students to present critical analysis on philosophers like Karl Marx
•    Technical Skills: It includes involvement of machines, processes and materials. It is used for practical skills and methods used to do any activity. 
    Example: Usage of Power Point Presentation (PPT) enables the students to learn better and remember better. Audio-visual effects have more effective learning on the students than the mere lecture method.  •    Inter-personal skills: An inter-personal skill is sharing a bond between the teachers and the students.      Example: If a teacher is strict and often scolds the students, in such case, the students may feel reluctant to approach the teacher for help.  Objectives: a.    Confidence building: To increase confidence and ability to create and deliver better lesson. b.    Personal Grooming: To develop teaching skills and enhance professional image. Example: Dress code and lifestyle are two ways where every teacher can improve their personality and their professional image.  c.    Innovative Teaching Methods: To gain knowledge, skills, techniques to add quality and effectiveness in teaching. Any activity which is unique and different from the existing structure is innovation.  For instance, one of my colleagues conducts psychological tests- SRT (Situational Reaction Test), WAT (Word Association Test) & TAT (Thematic Apperception Test). Each test is designed in a way to evaluate students’ writing skills, creativity, their knowledge about the subject matter etc.  d.    Being a good role model: To enhance self-awareness about personal style and impact both inside and outside the classroom.  e.    Effective Teaching: To increase effectiveness in responding to the needs and expectations of the students. Example, linkage with previous knowledge, proper revision after completion of every topic, usage of teaching aids, illustrations etc. in order to meet the requirements of the students, there should be remedial classes, question hour, group discussion etc. f.    To Redefine the role of education: Education is an all round development which begins from womb to tomb. It encovers all spheres of life. g.    Implementation of Reward-Punishment method: It is one way to create an environment which will motivate the students to learn.  h.    To develop skills to handle special students: By special students, we mean different from the rest, maybe physically challenged, aggressive in nature etc. Mentorship is one such program which will enable the mentors to know their mentees more in detail and enable them to overcome their weakness. i.    To inculcate the power of humour in teaching. j.    To inculcate effective body language and power of non-verbal communication.