Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as an infant and toddler teacher and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
An infant and toddler teacher is responsible for educating and caring for infants and toddlers. He/she ensures that the specific emotional and developmental needs of the infants and toddlers are met while complying with the regulations of the child care regulatory agency.
The teacher is also responsible for a couple of other duties including supervising the children. Others include assessing the specific requirements of each child and defining the most appropriate learning package for each as well as maintaining a creative but safe classroom environment. Lastly, they need to liaise with the parents and the director when making crucial decisions regarding the toddlers and infants.
Core Skills Required to be an Infant and Toddler Teacher
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
An infant and toddler teacher should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Interviewing:
Interviewing is an essential skill in making a sound hiring decision that seeks to find out the candidate's background, work experience, skill level, general overall intelligence, enthusiasm, attitudes, etc.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher ought to be equipped with the right techniques to handle interviews whether they are face to face or telephone as they can be grueling and intimidating to the candidate; clarity and calmness of tone and the atmosphere are ideal.
Multi-Tasking:
Multi-Tasking allows one to juggle and perform more than one task at a time without losing track of what you are working on or dropping the ball.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher must learn the trick of multitasking and help the staff balance the competing demands of their time and energy that they are expected to handle multiple priorities every day without compromising on the effectiveness of the work done.
Dedication to Work:
Dedication to Work is a devotion or setting aside the scheduled time that you are required to work each day consistently without fail as well as being on time and giving 100% of your efforts to doing quality work.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher ought to be dependable and set an example for the rest of the workforce by showing up for work on time every day consistently and producing quality work while applying company policies and business strategies.
Assertiveness:
Assertiveness is the inclination to stand up for your rights or other people's rights in a calm and concrete way without being aggressive or accepting a wrong.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher must be self-assured and confident to master the skills to put his points across without upsetting others or becoming angry and allowing the employees to do the same while complying with the company's policies and procedures.
Attention to Detail:
Attention to Detail is the capacity to achieve a thoroughness and accuracy when accomplishing a task.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher needs to have this prime characteristic and utilize it in a high performing organization that allows both the customers and staff to understand the need to be keen to all the details required to avoid massive costs for overlooked details that are common in the workplace.
Commitment to the Job:
Commitment to the Job is the feeling of responsibility that a person has towards a mission and goals of an organization.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher should be diligent in helping the employees connect and commit to their job by creating proper communication channels that make the employees feel listened to and encouraged to provide feedback thus creating mutual trust and respect in the workplace.
Personal Accountability:
Personal Accountability is the feeling that you are entirely responsible for your actions and consequences taking ownership without blaming others.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher should provide a list of duties and responsibilities that every employee is expected to perform and define timelines and supervisors who oversee the work to ensure each knows what she /he should do and remain accountable without passing blame.
Personal Drive:
Personal Drive is a combination of desire and energy in its simplest form directed at achieving a goal in whatever you have set your heart to accomplish.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher needs to creatively design ways that drive the staff to carry out their work without wasting time by helping them understand and develop their self-motivation skills that assist them to take control of many different viewpoints of their life.
Persuading Others:
Persuading others is making sure your best ideas get a fair hearing without manipulating others or using trickery.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher needs to creatively learn how to introduce new ideas that will boost growth for the company without managing the staff or put them under pressure with more work but with manageable goals that the employees will delight working on and grow as they do.
Practical Thinking:
Practical Thinking is the skill to think creatively about projects or work that requires your full attention to be completed and to bring great results.
An Infant and Toddler Teacher must ensure the decisions he makes are well sought after using professional characteristics for employees with high-level responsibilities to feel included and to allow growth for everyone in a constantly changing world that requires creativity.
Hard Skills Required to be an Infant and Toddler Teacher
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
An infant and toddler teacher should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.