What Makes a Quality Teacher? Exploring the Qualifications of Becoming an Effective Teacher

The quality of an education system depends on the quality of their teachers, and the quality teachers depend on the quality of teacher policies. According to (OECD, 2018), teacher policies are the regulations and principles of action of the school and education system that shape the teaching force and what teachers do. The education system provides various strategies to equip the teachers to be more capable in their work environment. For more than a decade in the Department of Education, I have seen distinct stories and struggles of teachers to reach the learner's attention and capture their hearts. Teachers provide many opportunities to the learners as well as many experiences that the learners may need in the future. Thus, the teacher opts for various ways to become more effective for their learners. According to Doherty & Jacobs (2013) as cited by Irvine (2019), the measurement for the effectiveness of a teacher is by student achievement, and achievement increases as standardized test scores of students also increase. The effective teacher touches the heart of their learners; they can make a deep difference in the lives of their leaners. I can still remember how my grade schoolteacher dance in front of us just to teach us how to count, my high school teacher provides us different folk stories of their province to get our attention before proceeding in her lesson in math, and my college instructor way of giving us an assessment. These acts of my molder catch my interest and attention and eventually help me to engage more in their class. These are the qualities most of our teachers have in public school. Now, I am in their shoes giving a quality education our learners deserve. Several policies the education system is providing our teacher to be equipped and effective in dealing with the diverse learners. The policies believe that there are many ways to become effective teachers namely: education background, experience, traditional certification, teacher’s race, specialization, soft attributes, and literacy level of teachers (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2015).

The fight for quality education is always part of the policy over the past decade. The policy will give the department an effective teacher. The saying “you cannot give what don’t have” is literally applicable in educating our learners. You actually cannot deliver your content knowledge without fully understanding the whole content of your lesson. This is the reason why specialize teachers must be aligned with their specialization. The study of Dee & Cohodes (2008) shows that a social science teacher assigned to its specialization increased the test score by o.o8 standard deviation, same with the math teacher assigned to its qualification evidently increased the standard deviation by 0.12. This means that the teacher in their field shows a high performance because of the mastery of their content. Similar results found that high school science teachers handling their area of specialization are well prepared (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2015). The teacher specialization can be linked to effective teaching practices that affects the student’s achievements (Johansson & Myrberg, 2019). Alrefaei (2015) said that teachers who have Bachelor’s degree have higher efficacy in terms of classroom management and instructional strategies compared to a teacher who holds Master’s degree, however, master degree holder teacher has a higher efficacy in student engagement. According to Coe, Aloisi, Higgins, & Major (2014), the most effective teacher have a deep pedagogical content knowledge of the subjects they teach and the strong evidence of this is the impact on student outcomes. The teacher specialization has an impact on student achievement. The out-of-field teacher also can deliver a lesson but they cannot give depth to the topic. They are having a hard time revisiting the topic and lesson they will be going to deliver. However, the teacher handling the area of their specialization is more confident and can give a deeper knowledge of the contents. Moreover, they have ample time in making instructional materials and other activities that may help in developing the critical thinking of the learners. Thus, quality education may arise.

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