You Gotta Know Your Stuff to Teach It.

Source

In order to be an effective teacher you must know your content. I've taught lessons before where I wasn't completely sure of the content I was teaching and the lesson bombed. Students can sense when you’re standing on a shaky foundation. Knowing your content makes lessons run much more smoothly. My cooperating teacher KNOWS her content. All of her lessons move seamlessly because the students trust her to teach them. Whenever they have a question she’s anticipated it and knows how to answer, and if she doesn't, she will get back to the students with an answer as soon as possible. In social studies class we were asked what we were most worried about in teaching social studies. I mentioned that I was worried about teaching the actual content. I’m no history expert. There are concepts that we will be expected to teach that I left back in high school. I asked my teacher how she dealt with this issue. She let me know that a lot of hard work went into her studying content, refreshing her memory, and planning effective lessons. However, the work is worth it. Having that peace of mind that you know the purpose of your lesson and what you want your students to come away with.

When I am planning my lessons, I will focus on knowing exactly what I want my students to learn, and how I want them to get there. I will pay close attention to the content I want to teach, and try to reacquaint myself with the content before I try teaching it to my students.