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This article looks at the importance of showing enthusiasum while teaching even during subjects that you do not enjoy. It also includes an hour long seminar with different teacher working together to learn about and improve their enthusiasm techneiques.

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Importance of Theme "Being an enthusiastic teacher"

Through "being an enthusiastic teacher" students are more engaged, more willing to contribute in class discussions and more willing to discuss any problems or concerns with a module. The theme also has an impact on students' overall performance in a module or a course. As a result of staff enthusiasm students are more committed to their studies and make the most of their time at university.
Dr Phil Race, Addressing Student Satisfaction - adopted from material published in Making Teaching Work by Phil Race and Ruth Pickford, London: Sage, 2007).
How to be enthusiastic about what I teach ?

Communicate your enthusiasm using tone of voice, body language, and eye-contact with students. Sentiments such as "the thing that really fascinates me about this is..." can help students to realise that the subject can indeed be really interesting, and that the person teaching it is already enthused about it.

Resist the temptation to let it show when you're not enthused about a particular subject area.

It's OK to explain to students that something is actually quite difficult, but not so good if students pick up the message that it's not important. If something isn't important for your students to learn, it is probably better to miss it out altogether, or at least not spend too much of your valuable face-to-face time on it.

In this clip winners of Swansea University's Excellence in Learning and Teaching Award share what they feel makes an enthusiastic teacher and how important it is to the overall student experience.

The theme is also significant in relation to the National Student Survey and the Higher Education Academy Fellowship.

National Student Survey

The theme has been taken from the National Student Survey question "staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching" under the category Teaching on my Course.

In the recent 2014 NSS results 86% of students at Swansea University agreed that "staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching".

Higher Education Academy

The theme is also important in regards to the United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) as "being an enthusiastic teacher" contributes to Areas of Activity A4 develop effective learning environments and approaches to student support and guidance.

For more information on the UKPSF follow the link https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/professional-recognition/uk-professional-standards-framework-ukpsf

What does research say?

Inspiring teachers are those who have a desire to acquire the knowledge and expertise that will enable them to provide a rich and stimulating learning environment. The enthusiastic teacher is constantly adapting and developing to accommodate further understanding of the pedagogies involved in their students learning. But is there any evidence that being enthusiastic actually has any bearing on student attainment? Here are a few papers that may inspire you, if you have any suggestions please send it to the SALT Team either below or email salt-team@swansea.ac.uk

Read on:

Teacher enthusiasm: Dimensionality and context specificity

Enthusiasm and the effective modern academic

Students' and mathematics teachers' perceptions of teacher enthusiasm and instruction

Teacher enthusiasm: a potential cure of academic cheating

What Makes Lectures 'Unmissable'? Insights into Teaching Excellence and Active Learning

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Through "being an enthusiastic teacher" students are more engaged, more willing to contribute in class discussions and more willing to discuss any problems or concerns with a module. The theme also has an impact on students' overall performance in a module or a course.

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This article engourages teachers to be enthusiastic in their classrooms. It explains why it is so important to enage students and make them curious. It also gives examples on how to be more enegetic in front of the class.

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Instructor's Corner #3: Teaching with Enthusiasm: Engaging Students, Sparking Curiosity, and Jumpstarting Motivation

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Teacher enthusiasm is generally recognized as one of the most essential and desirable qualities and characteristics of effective teachers. Derived from the Greek origin meaning "possessed by a god," the term"enthusiasm" often is used in instruction to connote a motivating, energetic, passionate, and dynamic teaching style.

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Classroom Engagement: Why is it Important?

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Classroom Engagement: Why is it Important?

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This article explains why classroom engagement is so important. Engaged teachers equals engaged students. It gives many different pracices that an enagged teacher utlizes to capture the attention of the students. It also talks about the long term effects of an eganged classroom such as overall success in the entire academic lifetime.

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Engagement in classrooms is critical for student success. According to research, there is a large correlation between "student involvement and participation in the schooling process" and students completing school. Maximum engagement in high school classrooms has "been a significant predictor of continuing motivation and commitment as well as overall performance in college."

Staying Focused

Though engagement is important, keeping students focused is becoming more of a challenge than ever. It's been said that that the older students get, the more disengaged they become. In the modern age, distractions are becoming more common. Social and digital media are succeeding in distracting students from their studies, which leads to further disengagement.

To ensure academic success for students, educators must promote meaningful learning experiences in the classroom to keep students engaged and motivated in their studies.

How to Keep Students Engaged

The George Lucas Educational Foundation has identified six tips to keep students engaged in the classroom for improved academic success:

Make It Meaningful:

ensure learning activities that feel worthwhile for students.

Foster A Sense of Competence:

provide feedback to students so they feel as though they are "getting it".

Provide Autonomy Support:

allow students to feel somewhat in control of their academic progress.

Embrace Collaborative Learning:

encourage students to work together in groups to reinforce learning.

Establish Positive Teacher-Student Relationships:

establish and maintain personal relationships with students.

Promote Mastery Orientations:

encourage students to learn subjects for the sake of mastering them with a purpose instead of simply performing (i.e., getting good grades).

Technology:

Additionally, modern technology has played a role in motivating increased student engagement and self-esteem in the classroom. Working with devices as they are used in the real world has resulted in a sense of power and accomplishment for students in the classroom. To learn more about how BenQ technology helps support student engagement, click here.

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Classroom Engagement: Why is it Important?

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Engagement in classrooms is critical for student success. According to research, there is a large correlation between "student involvement and participation in the schooling process" and students completing school. Maximum engagement in high school classrooms has "been a significant predictor of continuing motivation and commitment as well as overall performance in college."

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This article has many great examples about how to be an enaged and invested techer for your students. It looks at behind the scence practices such as planning, tasks, curicculum, technology and grouping and how an enaged teacher functions in those areas. It really got me thinking about how to apply myself in other areas rather than just when I am standing up infront of the class.

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"The first job of a teacher is to make the student fall in love with the subject. That doesn't have to be done by waving your arms and prancing around the classroom; there's all sorts of ways to go at it, but no matter what, you are a symbol of the subject in the students' minds" (Teller, 2016).
Teller (2016), makes a powerful point about teaching and engagement, and how important it is that we, as teachers, portray positive attitudes towards our subject and towards teaching it. Do you consider yourself an engaged teacher? Are your students deeply engaged with mathematics, and how do you know? In education we talk about student engagement every day, but what do we actually mean when we use the term 'engagement'? When does real engagement occur, and how do we, as teachers, influence that engagement? In this post, I will define the construct of engagement and pose some questions that will prompt you to reflect on how your teaching practices and the way you interpret the curriculum, influences your own engagement with the teaching of mathematics and, as a result, the engagement of your students.
Student Engagement: On Task vs. In Task
In education, engagement is a term used to describe students' levels of involvement with teaching and learning. Engagement can be defined as a multidimensional construct, consisting of operative, cognitive, and affective domains. Operative engagement encompasses the idea of active participation and involvement in academic and social activities, and is considered crucial for the achievement of positive academic outcomes. Affective engagement includes students' reactions to school, teachers, peers and academics, influencing willingness to become involved in school work. Cognitive engagement involves the idea of investment, recognition of the value of learning and a willingness to go beyond the minimum requirements

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that students are engaged when they appear to be busy working and are on task. True engagement is much deeper - it is 'in task' behaviour, where all three dimensions of engagement; cognitive, operative, and affective, come together (see figure 1). This leads to students valuing and enjoying school mathematics and seeing connections between the mathematics they do at school and the mathematics they use in their lives outside school. Put simply, engagement occurs when students are thinking hard, working hard, and feeling good about learning mathematics.

There are a range of influences on student engagement. Family, peers, and societal stereotypes have some degree of influence. Curriculum and school culture also play a role. Arguably, it is teachers who have a powerful influence on students' engagement with mathematics (Anthony & Walshaw, 2009; Hattie, 2003). Classroom pedagogy, the actions involved in teaching, is one aspect of a broader perspective of the knowledge a teacher requires in order to be effective. The knowledge of what to teach, how to teach it and how students learn is referred to as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The construct of PCK was originally introduced by Schulman (1986), and substantial research building on this work has seen a strong focus on PCK in terms of mathematics teaching and learning (Delaney, Ball, Hill, Schilling, & Zopf, 2008; Hill, Ball, & Schilling, 2008; Neubrand, Seago, Agudelo-Valderrama, DeBlois, & Leikin, 2009). Although this research provides insight into the complex knowledge required to effectively teach mathematics, little attention is paid to how teachers themselves are engaged with teachers.
Engaged Teachers = Engaged Students
It makes sense that teachers need to be engaged with the act of teaching in order to effectively engage their students. If we take the definition of student engagement and translate it to a teaching perspective, perhaps it would look something like Figure 2, where teachers are fully invested in teaching mathematics, work collaboratively with colleagues to design meaningful and relevant tasks, go beyond the minimum requirements of delivering curriculum, and genuinely enjoy teaching mathematics in a way that makes a difference to students. In other words, thinking hard, working hard, and feeling good about teaching mathematics.
Are you an engaged teacher?
Teaching is a complex practice with many challenges. Teaching mathematics has the additional challenge of breaking down many stereotypical beliefs about mathematics as being difficult and only for 'smart' people, mathematics viewed as black and white/right or wrong, and mathematics as a simply focused on arithmetic, to name a few. However, there are elements of our day to day work that we can actively engage with to disrupt those stereotypes, make teaching more enjoyable, and promote deeper student engagement. The following section provides some thoughts and questions for reflection.
Curriculum
How do you interpret the curriculum? Do you view it has a series of isolated topics to be taught/learned in a particular order, or do you see it has a collection of big ideas with conceptual relationships within and amongst the strands? How do you incorporate the General Capabilities and Cross-curriculum priorities in your teaching? Do you make the Working Mathematically components a central part of your teaching?

How do you plan for the teaching of mathematics? Does your school have a scope and sequence document that allows you to cater to emerging student needs? Does the scope and sequence document acknowledge the big ideas of mathematics or does it unintentionally steer teachers into treating topics/concepts in isolation?
Assessment
How often do you assess? Are you students suffering from assessment fatigue and anxiety? Do you offer a range of assessment tasks beyond the traditional pen and paper test? Do your questions/tasks provide opportunities for students to apply the Working Mathematically components?

What gets you excited about teaching mathematics? Do you implement the types of tasks that you would get you engaged as a mathematician? Do your tasks have relevance and purpose? Do you include variety and choice within your task design? Do you take into account the interests of your students when you plan tasks? Do you incorporate student reflection into your tasks?

How do you group your students? There are many arguments that support mixed ability grouping, yet there are also times when ability grouping is required. Is the way you group your students giving them unintended messages about ability and limiting their potential?
Technology
How do you use digital technology to enhance teaching and learning in your classroom? Do you take advantage of emerging technologies and applications? Do you use digital technology in ways that require students to create rather than simply consume?
Professional Learning
How do you incorporate professional learning into your role as an educator? Do you actively pursue professional learning opportunities, and do you apply what you have learned to your practice? Do you share what you have learned with your colleagues, promoting a community of practice within your teaching context?

There are many other aspects of teaching mathematics that influence our engagement as teachers, and of course, the engagement of our students. Many factors, such as other non-academic school-related responsibilities, are bound to have some influence over our engagement with teaching. However, every now and then it is useful to stop and reflect on how our levels of engagement, our enthusiasm and passion for the teaching of mathematics, can make a difference to the engagement, and ultimately the academic outcomes, of our students.
References:
Anthony, G., & Walshaw, M. (2009). Effective pedagogy in mathematics (Vol. 19). Belley, France.

Attard, C. (2014). "I don't like it, I don't love it, but I do it and I don't mind": Introducing a framework for engagement with mathematics. Curriculum Perspectives, 34(3), 1-14.

Delaney, S., Ball, D. L., Hill, H. C., Schilling, S. G., & Zopf, D. (2008). "Mathematical knowledge for teaching": Adapting U.S. measures for use in Ireland. Journal for Mathematics Teacher Education, 11(3), 171-197.

Hattie, J. (2003). Teachers make a difference: What is the research evidence? Paper presented at the Building Teacher Quality: The ACER Annual Conference, Melbourne, Australia.

Hill, H. C., Ball, D. L., & Schilling, S. G. (2008). Unpacking pedagogical content knowledge: Conceptualising and measuring teachers' topic-specific knowledge of students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 372-400.

Neubrand, M., Seago, N., Agudelo-Valderrama, C., DeBlois, L., & Leikin, R. (2009). The balance of teacher knowledge: Mathematics and pedagogy. In T. Wood (Ed.), The professional education and development of teachers of mathematics: The 15th ICMI study (pp. 211-225). New York: Springer.

Teller, R. (2016) Teaching: Just like performing magic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/what-classrooms-can-learn-from-magic/425100/?utm_source=SFTwitter

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"The first job of a teacher is to make the student fall in love with the subject. That doesn't have to be done by waving your arms and prancing around the classroom; there's all sorts of ways to go at it, but no matter what, you are a symbol of the subject in the students' minds" (Teller, 2016).