Every teacher is a great teacher
What makes a teacher great? Dean Shareski writes about How to Make Better Teachers and that blogging is an essential element of the self-reflective and sharing process.
Great teachers need support. As Rusul Alrubail recently wrote in a blog post on "How to Advocate for Teachers" that teaching is can be an isolating task. She advocates that teachers become mentors for others, be someone's champion, extend resources and supports, and work together to build PLN's.
In 7 reasons why teaching is still the best job in the world, author Paul Moss outlines his thoughts. These seven reasons include:
  1. potential to transform lives
  2. chance to be continuously creative
  3. chance to continuously get better
  4. grounding and humbling profession
  5. always satisfaction somewhere
  6. chance to truly lead the world
  7. the children 
For some of us, the children are adult learners, but the learners are the reason we teach.
Teachers are superstars! Hugh Jackman interviews for a teaching job.
Great teachers - looking at what makes teaching challenging
Bill Gates: How do you make a teacher great? Part 1 - https://youtu.be/OnfzZEREfQs
Bill Gates: How do you make a teacher great? Part 2 - https://youtu.be/BCSdIRNZmHw
How Dialogue Circles Promote Student Growth by David Palank, March 23, 2015 http://www.middleweb.com/21429/how-dialogue-circles-promote-student-growth/  This is included because the notion of dialogue circles can also work within online learning or within professional learning spaces.
In Hands-Off Teaching Cultivates Metacognition, Hunter Maats and Katie O'Brien explore what it means to allow students to struggle through questions and challenges, find their own answers, and shift responsibility to students. This article confirms that "great education doesn't come from a teacher who thinks for you. It comes from a teacher who teaches (and pushes) you to think for yourself."
Start with WHY?
Look at HOW deep is your learning?
Jackie Gerstein blogs and shares about teaching and learning. Many of her posts focus on elements that connect to good teaching.
Michael Fullan - Teacher as facilitator or teacher as activator in new pedagogies  http://www.learninglandscapes.ca/images/documents/ll-no12/fullan.pdf
On Stupidity - John Cleese
This is included because sometimes it's good to laugh at what you don't know because, if you know it's stupid, you've learned something. 
  • What are the 'stupid' things you know now that you didn't know before? 
  • How did you learn that it was a 'stupid' way to teach? 
  • Why does knowing make you a better teacher?
Sylvia Rosenthal Tolisano - links teaching to learning and making personal learning visible in communities of engagement. More about this work is found on this blog post - Learning to Document FOR learning and sharing.
High Quality Teaching and School Leadership: Rhetoric to Action presents information that comes out of the 2015 International Summit on the Teaching Profession. Some results from the Teaching and International Learning Study are presented.
Parker J Palmer adds to the topic in his work Good Talk about Good Teaching. The essential component to understanding what good teaching is comes through conversations. This article is available for download for larger discussion.
The 4 Properties of Powerful teachers, written by Rob Jenkins (March 16, 2015) outlines qualities that can be developed by teachers who make a difference. These include
  • personality
  • presence
  • preparation
  • passion

Kid President - Teachers be Awesome

Taylor Mali - What Teachers Make