Along with good preparation habits that tap all of the many resources available to you to be ready for this important test, you must have a strategy for taking the test itself. You may recall in college that you may have had a series of superstitions as well as test taking habits that helped you face big tests and survive finals week. In the same way when you walk into that testing facility to take and pass your Teacher’s Certification Test, a strategy for taking the test can be just as important as your preparation strategy that you used to get ready for this important day.

Probably the biggest enemy you will face on testing day is nervousness. Because of the importance of the day and the pressure of the testing environment, anxiety and the testing jitters can become extreme enough to rob you of your concentration and make it less possible for you to focus and do well on the test. So anything we can do to reduce or eliminate test jitters is a big benefit to you when the testing time is upon you.

The preparation process is very much part of your test taking strategy. That is because if you have taken advantage of every coaching and reviewing process, done your remedial study and taken practice exams until they were virtually memorized, you can walk into that testing facility fully confident that you will do well. When you take away any potential for surprises and everything you will encounter in that testing situation is well known and understood, the test day goes from being a day of stress to a day of preliminary celebration because you are that ready to take the certification test.

Before going into the testing hall, make sure you are well rested and well fed. Don’t take any chances with the meals you have before the test. Be sure you eat foods that will settle in your digestive system well and that will give you the energy you need to get through the testing process well. If you do have superstitious items or rituals you feel you must do, do them. This is no time to go through repentance for your superstitious ways. Anything that you can do to relax and be ready to take that test you should do.

Be aware of what you can bring into the test with you both to take the test and in terms of items for your comfort. If you will be able to take the test better with mints or gum at hand, bring those in. Be sure you have had your trip to the lavatory and that your clothing is loose and comfortable on your body. In every way possible eliminate any physical distractions that will cause you worry or anxiety or distraction from the task at hand of passing this important test so you can start your career as a teacher.

When the test gets underway, be methodical and complete in your process of working through the test. First read the test carefully and slowly. Make sure you are absolutely sure you understand everything about the instructions so you can follow them to the letter. The Teacher’s Certification Test is timed so use your time well but don’t let that clock keep you from moving forward in a steady but patient fashion. Keeping your head under pressure will help you finish the test in good time and do well on marking your answers as well.

Go through the test and answer the questions that are easy first. This will increase your confidence when you see that you have finished 60% of the test easily and quickly. Then when you see you have the majority of the time left for the few remaining questions, ou can take your time and reason them out. This approach to testing along with careful marking of your answers is a proven method to assure your success.

There is a lot you can do even before graduation day to get your job search moving and to make yourself desirable as a teacher so when school administrators get flooded with applications from newly graduated teachers, you stand out as the one they want to call in for an interview. One thing you can do at any time during you academic career is to intern as a teaching assistant and volunteer to teach in underprivileged schools.

You can teach just a few hours a day and work it around your academic work. By taking on the working world of teaching even before you have your degree, you will be able to present yourself to employers post graduation as someone who has real world experience in the classroom and “knows the ropes” of getting through an academic year with real live students. That is tremendously valuable to a school administrator with a spot to fill because it reduces the concern that a new graduate who has never faced a classroom full of restless children might wash out when the reality of what teaching is really like.

Another way to get a jump start on the market before students flood the schools for jobs is to start your search early in your last semester of school. Schools know by February or March if they will have jobs to fill for the next academic year. So if you begin your search for a teaching position in March or April, you can often land an interview or even secure a position for the fall long before many of your contemporaries in school begin their hunt for their first teaching job.

Becoming proactive like this always gives you the advantage in finding the job you really want rather than just “any job” in the teaching profession. Spend some time narrowing down exactly what kind of teaching position you want and at what level you feel your personality and teaching style will benefit students the most. You may do much better with young children than with teenagers or you may wish to focus on high schoolers because they are more intellectually equipped to grasp the subject matter with you. By knowing well in advance where you want to teach, you can target those kinds of positions in your job search and improve your chances of finding that perfect teaching job.

You should make the phrase “leave no stone unturned” your motto for hunting up the teaching jobs that are open in your community. First of all, be very proactive in your search. Just because you are graduating, even with honors, with your teaching degree, that doesn’t mean the schools will seek you out with jobs. So you take the search to them before someone else does. And in doing so it will be you that gets the premium teaching positions rather than have to take “what’s left” after the good teaching positions are snatched up by more aggressive graduates.

There are lots of ways you can flush out those teaching jobs. Check the HR or employment offices at the schools you would like to be a part of and keep an eye on their employment bullion boards. Use the internet wisely, watch the newspaper and even get in touch with placement agencies who are known for placing new teachers.

But above all, network, network, network. Use every contact you have and forge new relationships to get the inside scoop on jobs before they even become public. Networking is the number one best way to find great teaching positions so you should use it extensively to find a position to get your teaching career off on a great start toward a great future of success in the field of teaching.

But along with the values and ideals, we need to mix that inner drive with a strong dose of reality so that when you show up for your first day and work through your first year of teaching, you are not broadsided by some of the challenges and frustrations that lie ahead. A few moments talking about the brass tacks of a teaching career can help you prepare for the negatives so they are less potent and less able to stop you from being a success in your teaching career.

Probably one of the areas of teaching that often causes high teacher stress and burn out is the level of government regulation and the extent that the administration of a school gets in the way of the teaching process. Many times in public school it almost seems like education is of a lesser value than paying attention to rules and regulations and maintaining order and discipline in the school.

When you come to that teaching position with priority placed on teaching students the subject matter at hand and see them begin to excel academically and you find academics taking a back seat to the schools administrative issues, to discipline issues and to what seems to be a nonstop flood of forms and requirements for every governmental program imaginable, that can cause frustration about the job you have taken in that school.

Under funding of education probably ranks second greatest frustration with the working world of teaching. This lack of funding is evident in your pay and in how well the classes you need to teach are funded. You may not have the supplies you need and many teachers actually find themselves buying supplies from their own money just to make sure their teaching is successful. That is the contrast between the publics lack of substantial support for education and your deep commitment to it. But the funding issue can also result in overcrowding of classrooms because the school cannot afford more classrooms or sufficient number of teachers to handle a high student population.

The third problem that often broadsides new teachers is that many students are not the angels we wish they would be. Especially in a public school setting, you will have in every class some students who don’t care about academics and would rather disrupt the class than allow you to teach those who do want to learn. It takes some real experience and some coaching from experienced teachers in how to handle this kind of student but at least be aware that they will be in your classroom day one and all year long.

It takes some innovative thinking and almost stubborn insistence on staying positive to be a successful teacher under circumstances like this. But if you keep your focus on the kids and on those moments that do come in each school year when you really connect with students and you see them get excited about what you are sharing, that one moment makes dealing with all of the other frustrations entirely worth it.

So just as being a teacher is a state of mind, teaching is about more than just giving lectures. One of the joys of teaching is the strong bond you develop with your students. When you take a small group of students through an entire school year of material, you become a partner with them for their success. You become a confidant, a protector and a friend of the students and their families. This is a trusted place in the heart of your students and one that is not given lightly so cherish it an protect it at all costs.

One way that this bond is expressed is in how you will go to bat for a student if the need arises. That is because you can see beyond the outside view of what a kid is. You may have children in your class that have tattoos, earrings, wear gang colors or demonstrate violent behavior outside of class. But to you, that is a child who deserves to be loved, taught and cared for. It is not uncommon for this unique bond between teacher and student to turn a kid around and see him turn away from socially undesirable behavior and begin a long slow growth toward a productive lifestyle the he learned from you, his teacher.

Going to bat for your student means that when you know a child is gifted, you use your influence with the administration to get that child the special educational opportunities that will develop that blessing in that child. If the gift is not in the area of broad educational excellence but in a specialized skill like music, art or athletics, you go to bat for that child to get him or her an audition with the coach over that area of school life. Because of the bond you share with your students, you at first be the only one to be able to see that talent in that child. But when you get her the specialized training she needs and that talent blossoms into a wonderful skill that can bless others and the child’s life as well, you will have given her a gift for life.

Going to bat for your students also means not throwing any children away. When young people are put into your care, that is a serious commitment that you are making to those children. There is not one single child in your care of lesser value than the others. So one way you demonstrate your commitment to being a teacher to every child is when one of your students gets in trouble you go to him or her and find a way to save that child’s educational career.

The last thing you want to see is a child expelled and sent out into the world with the stigma of “not good enough” for school. You have it in your power to get that child into alternative schools, to get him or her tutoring until this rough patch passes or to get him or her moved into a home school situation so the many years of education for that youngster are not lost over a difficult time in the life of the child.

The place you are granted in the life of your students is one of trust and caring that is a privileged one indeed. Be sure you protect and cherish that gift by going to bat for your students when they need you there. And who knows, down the road your students may come back and go to bat for you in some way when you really need them too.

Teaching is as much a calling as it is a profession. As a profession, its often a career that does not attract the best and the brightest to become teachers because the pay is low and the frustrations and demands are high. So many people who may at heart be “born teachers” spend some of their adult life in other professions. If this is your story, you may be coming to a place in your life when that inner teacher is struggling to get out and get you into the career you of teaching young people full time.

The good news is that in this modern time, much progress has been made to offer you a way to get the degree, the education and the certification to make that transition from your current career to a life of a teacher with little disruption to your life. One such way is to get your teaching degree from an online university as a remote student In that way, you step through all of the requirements for your degree using the internet and eventually get that degree so you can easily transition into a life of a full time teacher.

It used to be considered far fetched to get an entire degree online. But almost every university in the country now offers a remote study program so you can satisfy every aspect of a degree plan on your own schedule using the internet as your classroom and your teacher. The lectures can be presented as video files and you can even participate in group projects and discussions via chat, message boards and wikis that the instructor can set up to bring you along through each class.

The good of this kind of program is that you can go about getting your teaching degree while continuing to hold down your full time job. Because the “classes” you take are online and recorded, except for live events such as team meetings, you can take each session when you get home from work and even pause them to deal with family issues and then continue when things quite down. This is an ideal situation for adult education when quitting your job to get another degree is just not practical.

The hard part about getting your degree online is that, like study by mail programs, the discipline to keep up, to “attend” class and to do your reading and homework is entirely put on you to stay with. Its very easy for life’s demands to draw you away from your degree plan and to slow or stop you which then makes getting the momentum going even more difficult.

But if you enlist the aid of your family and establish times when dad or mom are “in class” even if you are just locked in your study doing your online coursework, that regimen can help you get through your classes and successfully graduate ready to start a career in teaching. And when you are finally doing the job you feel is your calling to do teaching youth, the hard work of taking that degree from an online program will pay off.

Most schools will have a dress code that you will have to abide by as a teacher much as they do for the students. That dress code assures that you will dress in a way that is not dangerous or districting or inappropriate to the job of teaching. And that dress code brings you in line with what the administration expects of the students. But aside from those general guidelines, there is a lot of leverage left to you in your dress so you can express your personality in the “costume” you wear to teach school.

The important thing to remember about the outfits you select is that they do send a message to the students. If you dress very formally, you are telling them to address you respectfully and that you are very much the adult here and they are not. Even if students don’t know they are getting your message, they are and even you don’t know you are sending a message, you are. So its a good idea to think about what message your outfits are sending and how you might customize your wardrobe so the students understand who you are and what your expectations are of them just from how you present yourself to them in class.

One big message to send with your costume is, “I am the teacher and you are the students here.” This is not a message of superiority. It is a message of distance. First of all, be aware that this distance between you and the youth socially is necessary and must be part of your approach to your job if you want to be success long term. The classroom is no place for a midlife crisis. Even if you like dressing in a stylish or youthful way outside of class, in class dress like an adult and in a formal enough way that your clothing makes a clear demarcation between you and them.

This distinction actually makes your students feel more at ease with you. Students get uncomfortable when the adults over them try to blend in to youth culture too much and become “with it”. Youth people like the authority figures in their lives to be clearly designated and for you to live up to your role as authority figure in your behavior, your language and your wardrobe. So dress for success by having your clothing say, I am the teacher and the students will respond in kind.

Your outfits also have to be practical. Sometimes teaching can become a physical event. You must be prepared to bend down to pick things up and to do some level of low key physical labor even with students in the classroom. This means no tight clothing that restricts your range of motion. It means no short skirts that has you worried about the hemline and your legs all day long and shoes that can keep you going for an entire day of very a very active teaching life.

Just as almost every profession has guidelines for how to dress, these hidden messages and quiet efficiencies you include in your wardrobe selection will go a long way toward making your teaching day successful and comfortable. When your wardrobe is right and you are dressing in the costume of a teacher, you will “become” a teacher and step into that role you were born to play.

The teacher’s certification test is probably the single most pivotal event in the preparations to become a teacher because with your certification, you can confidently apply for teaching jobs anywhere in the state. So there are some preparations you do before going for your certification test to assure that you will know breeze through the test and be successful at getting your teacher’s certificate.

First of all, each state has different requirements for teacher certification. You don’t want to spend time on part of the certification process that is not important to the state in which you plan to teach. So get in touch with the state Teacher’s Certification Agency and get copies of the requirements along with the guidelines for preparation for the test. In that way, your preparation period will be efficient and focused on the test you will be taking when you go to get approved to teach.

As is true of many important college or career testing processes, there are preparation kits and books that can be extremely valuable to help you get ready for the test in advance. By finding study guides and sample tests that you can practice with, your preparation will be honed in on exactly what you can expect when you go for the certification test. Not only will this drastically increase your chances of success, it will help with your nervousness because it you will go to the test knowing there will be surprises.

The teacher certification board wants you to be successful when you take your test. In many cases you can actually get a certification board advisor who will work with you to prepare for the test. This service is offered for free and that advisor knows in detail what you need to do and what you need to know to pass the test. So don’t overlook this very valuable resource because he or she can make you as prepared as it humanly possible short of taking the test for you.

The key to passing the test is to first identify areas of knowledge where you need to do remedial work and then to devise a study strategy to shore up that area of knowledge. Practice tests that you will find on the internet or that are provided to you by your board adviser will very precisely identify where you have a weakness in your knowledge.

Most likely the areas that you will need to do remedial study were courses you took but you just need some refresher and review time to be ready to be tested on that knowledge again. Many times the local junior college offers refresher tests specifically to get you ready for the Teacher Certification Test. The cost is nominal and it is to the advantage of the school to help you get ready so there are more working teachers available to the schools in your area. So don’t be shy about taking advantage of these and all of these resources that are at your disposal to assure your success in taking the Teacher’s Certification Test.

Almost everybody has seen PowerPoint used and witnessed what a fun and creative presentation tool it is. You can take classes to learn how to use PowerPoint and to tap the power of the amazing animation and graphics tools it has to present information to your students. This is why PowerPoint is such a great tool for teaching. It gives you the chance to supplement what might have been a boring lecture with some colorful and quickly moving slides that will keep your kids riveted throughout your presentation.

PowerPoint is also easy to use. The genius of Microsoft is that they do facilitate us in using this great tool by making it so easy to take advantage of all of PowerPoint’s fantastic tools. In a classroom setting, PowerPoint alone could represent one of the biggest revolutions in how to present information to students in a long time. But it’s a good idea to think through how to use the tool and have some ground rules for how to use it so you get the maximum value from PowerPoint without becoming abusive of its powers.

When designing the way you will use PowerPoint as a teaching tool, don’t give in to the temptation to let the slideshow do all the work of teaching for you. Remember that PowerPoint is great as long as it is a supplement to your lecture or presentation to your students. The best kind of PowerPoint slide presentation uses bullet triggers to take you through your lecture but you do all the work of actually teaching your students. When it comes to putting a large amount of information on a PowerPoint slide, in a word, don’t. This will lead to reading the slide presentation to your students which will become boring causing you to lose the “punch” you hoped PowerPoint would bring to this lesson plan.

Another tip when working with PowerPoint in an educational setting is to never turn your back on your students. You need to have eye contact with them at all times when you are teaching. So know your presentation well so you don’t have to turn and look at the screen during the course of the lesson.

PowerPoint gives you the ability to use a timer fiction so the slides change on their own after a set period of time. This is a slick function but one that few actually use. And in your setting of trying to integrate PowerPoint into your teaching, you should avoid the timer function as well. The only way this function can work is if you are in a teaching situation where there is no chance there will be an interruption or a delay. And since in a classroom setting you can almost guarantee interruptions in your presentation, the timer function then would become your worst enemy rather than a good tool to help you.

Maintain a consistency to the design of your PowerPoint slides. This means using one single color or background scheme for the entire show. Consistency also applies to the motion of bulleted lists. There are dozens of presentation styles for bulleted lists that PowerPoint supports. You can have your bullet points fly in from the side, bounce in or fade in from nothing to something and then fade away again.

Avoid the temptation to use a different effect on each slide. By establishing one text management strategy, you will avoid creating a PowerPoint lesson that is distracting and disjointed. And by using common sense and good advice in how to put together your PowerPoint lesson plan, you will create a resource for that lesson that can be a valuable part of your teaching arsenal for years to come.

That is the level we all want to reach in the field of teaching if that is your calling. Not only do you want to be a true professional in your area of specialization which is teaching, you want your students to notice your professionalism and recognize that it makes a big difference having a professional running the class rather an a lesser talent.

When a professional is on the case, everybody relaxes because they know the job will be done right. In the movie, Pulp Fiction, when the gangsters needed help because of a killing, they called in Mr. Wolf. And Mr. Wolf was well known for being the man that always knows what to do, who moves fast but is as courteous as he is efficient and who knows how to get the job done right. When Mr. Wolf was on the scene, the problem was as good as solved. And even though that movie was a bit grisly and profane, Mr. Wolf is a great example of true professionalism at work.

So how do you show your professionalism as you go about your craft of teaching? For one thing, you dress the part. Take pride in your wardrobe and present to yourself to your class each day in a garment that says, I came ready to teach so you should come ready to learn. That is what happens when a professional is on the premises. Everybody wants to get on board with the program.

A professional always knows what to do both long range and right now. That means you come prepared. Your lesson plans are in order, your room is prepared and you paperwork is organized so at no time do you have to pause and get yourself together when you are into the process of teaching your students. This will take some time for you to get to that level of organization when you walk in the door of your classroom the next day. But putting in that hour or two each night so you are that organized not only makes you a better teacher, it lets the students know that this is a professional operation so be ready.

Students, particularly youth and children can tell the difference between someone who knows what they are doing and someone who is floundering. As the saying goes, they can smell fear. It gives young people confidence and a sense of security that you are organized and not only know what you are going to do each moment of the teaching day, you know what they are going to do as well. That is professionalism and it will make a world of difference in how your teaching goes.

A professional teacher also responds to interruptions and even disturbances calmly because you have seen it before and you know what to do. Of course developing a history in teaching to where you really do know what to do in each circumstance takes time. But if you are completely prepared in every other respect, interruptions won’t throw you because you can address them and be right back to you lesson smoothly and calmly.

A byproduct of being consummately prepared and so well versed in what your lesson plans say and what you are teaching is that it gives you a calm confidence that frees you up to be relaxed and even humorous with your students. When your students see you smile because everything is going exactly the way you want it to go, they will respond and open up to you because they sense your confidence and they want to see where you are going to take them. And because you are relaxed and at ease, your students are at ease as well and they can ask you questions and interact with you as you teach. And that kind of interactive dialog is what makes the difference in the lives of students and makes you a true professional teacher.

There is a fallacy in this image though and it lies in what will be actually going in the minds of those students you will try to teach each day. The fundamental flaw in this assumption is that when you are looking out at a group of a couple dozen kids that their minds are only on you because the class is all about you and the topic at hand in your lesson plan. The truth is that the class is all about each other and the social side of any classroom setting can come to totally dominate the classroom time for the kids.

If you do not recognize or don’t know how to diagnose what is going on socially in your classroom, you are working at a distinct disadvantage. Kids are learning a lot at school and not all of it is what you have prepared for them to learn. The social setting in that classroom is teaching them all kinds of lessons that you have no control over. Moreover, some of those lessons may not be wholesome or socially acceptable concepts.

The society of children and teenagers can be amazingly brutal. Kids are far more harsh on each other than adults would ever imagine and the harm that can be done to the heart and soul of someone who gets singled out to be victimized can be lifelong and devastating. So it is to your advantage if you learn to recognize the signs of unhealthy social interaction and jump in and change that group behavior before it goes too far. This will take some keen powers of observation on your part, an ability to spot social exchanges happening even as you teach and the psychology to know what is going on.

The good news is that as the leadership in the class room, you can effect change in how the kids influence each other socially. Because you know that social skills are being learned all the time around you as you teach, you also have the opportunity to create activities and opportunities for discussion that can change that social behavior for the better. You can literally teach those kids to get along and to treat each other in a civil fashion and do so without alarming the kids or losing any teaching time that you need to complete your academic goals.

One great way to begin to move the kids toward positive social models is to move from the traditional “teacher talks to big class” approach to teaching to one that uses small group activity, teamwork and competition to not only make learning a lot more fun but to encourage good social development that will help the kids develop socially as well as academically.

You should not feel that by trying to teach the kids good social skills you are abandoning your core principals as an educator. If you can also teach the kids good social skills while you have them in your class, that time could turn out to be the most valuable thing you have to offer your students. And when you see those positive social values begin to change lives in your young students, you will get a unique form of pride because it was you that made it happen.