Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a teacher assistant and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A teacher assistant assists teachers in achieving learning outcomes stipulated in a classroom set up. He/she works hand in hand with the students and the teachers to ensure that there is a seamless and beneficial interaction between the two parties.
Other specific responsibilities for this position include reinforcing lessons taught by teachers in the classroom. In one-on-one basis with the students, they review the materials and explain the complex concepts. In addition, he/she is responsible for enforcing school and class rules, to make sure students exhibit the best behavior. Lastly, they assist teachers in record keeping, lesson planning, and overall supervision of the students.
Core Skills Required to be a Teacher Assistant
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.
A teacher assistant should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
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.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
Collaborating with others:
Collaborating is willingly working with one another and cooperating in whatever task one is assigned without behaving poorly or having an attitude change that hurts others.
A Teacher Assistant is meant to collaborate with all workers and management both male and female without causing frustrations or sidelining any worker or delaying their promotion from any informal conversations where most decisions are often made.
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.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
Personal Relationships:
Personal Relationships is the relationship between individuals who have or have had a continuing relationship of any nature either professional or informal.
A Teacher Assistant reserves the right to take prompt action if an actual or potential conflict of interest arises concerning individuals who engage in a personal relationship that may affect terms and conditions of employment and he should not also date a subordinate.
Persuading Others:
Persuading others is making sure your best ideas get a fair hearing without manipulating others or using trickery.
A Teacher Assistant 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.
Using Common Sense:
Using Common Sense is the ability to see what is missing in a situation or a project and supplying it without necessarily being assigned or asked to do it.
A Teacher Assistant needs to creatively train his employees always to see the missing element that is typically crucial in any workplace or project and take the opportunity to do business out of it.
Hard Skills Required to be a Teacher Assistant
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.
A teacher assistant should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.