If you’re keen to find a position as a Teaching Assistant and want to directly impact the educational experience of young learners, working in the classroom provides a highly rewarding (and fun!) work environment. Teaching Assistants are valuable assets to any school or learning centre to ensure students understand what is expected of them and help with any questions, further thoughts, and concerns.
Aiding students with their studies and helping them obtain their goals is very gratifying - you’ll support them with their academic hurdles and see their intellectual growth along the way. As a Teaching Assistant you’ll be making a difference, not only by helping your teacher but giving students the guidance needed to excel and motivate them too.
We understand that working in a job that’s not very satisfying or worthwhile can spur you on to find a career that will allow you to make real change in the world. Being a Teaching Assistant is an ideal career switch for those seeking to have a career with value and influence the next generation! If you’re curious to know how exactly you could help your students' academic performance and just how important you’d be in the classroom, consider our breakdown of some of our thoughts as to how you could impact students while working as a Teaching Assistant:
See student progression first-hand and help them reach their potential
You’ll be there to witness your
students' milestones! Whether it be the development of their academic growth and understanding or seeing them develop confidence and social skills.
It could be that one student particularly struggles with maths and manages to reach a good level with your extra help. Or your prompts and questioning could allow students to think of great, creative ideas and solutions inspired by your suggestions. Perhaps, your ability to read the room and spot a student who needs assistance could be just what it takes to lift their spirit and keep them motivated if they are uncertain.
A good Teacher Assistants classroom contribution will have a knock-on effect on students' learning and understanding. You’ll get to witness students discover how to become productive, resourceful and develop their intelligence.
Help foster creativity and allow students to have a ‘Eureka!’ moment
Overall, you can be a tremendous
help with student problem-solving when it comes to any subject! Whether it’s learning about IT software, writing a story for English class or conducting a science experiment - you can help enable those lightbulb moments when then suddenly great grasp on what they need to do going forward!
Allowing students to get creativity is a top priority too. But how can you encourage them to think outside-the-box and explore their artistic capabilities? Creativity has proven to bring joy, deepen understanding as well as being highly motivating. This could be through
creative thinking exercises like storyboarding, role play or arts and crafts.
These will be the moments that will define your career and let you know that you’re truly inspiring and elevating the understanding of young learners in the classroom. The satisfaction and joy on their faces is always amazing! It makes the job incredibly rewarding and worthwhile to see this kind of progress in action.
You can help with follow up questions and reinforce learning objectives
There are all kinds of tips and tricks to provoke interaction and discussions with your students. Take asking questions, as an example: If you
wait around ten seconds before either repeating a question or giving the student extra time before circling back around, this should be a sufficient amount of time to gain a thoughtful response.
Then there’s small but effective components like re-enforcing the positives (encouraging their strengths and talents), maintaining eye-contact, and keeping your sentence structures simple if you are working with a particularly young year group. When it comes to reinforcing the objectives, don’t be afraid to ask if they understand what you’re saying! You’ll gain plenty of trust over time and you’ll be contributing to the overall productivity of the class as well as helping your teacher out too.
Develop valuable relationships and become an integral part of the class
Building bonds with your students will come naturally and will encourage your own sense of purpose and drive as you form these relationships. It could be by winning over a disruptive student and influencing them to behave better, bringing more shy students out of their shells and just becoming a reliable, helpful, and trusted figure in young learners' daily lives!
You’ll get to know and love your students' personalities, quirks, and different character traits pretty quickly and enjoy your lively conversations! As a result, you will become an important part of their learning and will be remembered as somebody who helped them bring the best out in themselves.
Assist monitoring class behaviour and creating a productive classroom environment
A bit of positive reinforcement goes a long way while helping to manage classroom behaviour! Some tips for first time Teaching Assistants would be establishing clear communication and reiterating the Teachers expectations in a kind but serious tone of voice, teaching positive behaviour and being careful with your instructions in this regard. It’s about spinning the negative into a positive to achieve a better outcome. As an example: “Stop shouting!” could be replaced by “Please talk quietly”. Or “Don’t run inside!” could be swapped for “Please walk nicely indoors”.
By implementing your own techniques for assisting with behaviour in class, you’ll be helping to sustain an environment where the class can attain better results, concentrate harder and mitigate any distractions. There’s nothing worse when poor behaviour goes unchecked and the rest of the class has to suffer for other students' actions. As a Teaching Assistant, you can work to make the class constructive and an overall positive space.
Find an E-Learning course with career support to begin your journey!
Want a career as a Teaching Assistant but don’t know where to begin? The Training Room can provide you the certification you need to start your career switch.
Our
comprehensive Teaching Assistant courses cover the essential skills needed to begin your career in the education sector!
We provide excellent tutors who have a wealth of industry knowledge and a background in education who will help you reach your goals, answer all your questions, and guide you through each module. Also, you will receive valuable career support after you finish your course with us and we will help you to find a position as a Teaching Assistant.
Check our detailed course page and download your free online prospectus today!