6 essential soft skills for k-12 teachers

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In addition to honing your classroom instructional skills, soft skills can help drive your professional growth. But do you know what soft skills are, and how you can develop your own as a K-12 teacher?

Soft skills are traits or abilities that support how people work and interact with one another. They’re skills that can help facilitate relationship-building, foster trust and enhance teamwork. Soft skills can often be applied across settings and different experiences – making them transferrable to many aspects of your professional life.

When it comes to the field of education, you need to interact not only with colleagues or administrators, but also with students and families. Developing soft skills can help you build credibility.

Soft skills are important for educators, but they’re equally valuable for those we teach. And demonstrating soft skills can help you model those skills and behaviors for students.

Here are six soft skills that may be beneficial in the field of education.

1. Leadership

Regardless of the grade level of your students, leadership skills can help you work effectively with and garner respect from students, families, administration and the community.

Leadership abilities help ensure that you, your colleagues and your students are working toward clear goals and desired educational outcomes. Educators with strong leadership skills can play an important role in today’s academic environments.

Being able to support faculty and students, both formally and informally, adds to the capacity for an educational setting to improve. Whether as a resource provider, a mentor or an innovative visionary, leadership aptitude may help you improve student outcomes.

You can cultivate this skill by exploring mentorship and coaching opportunities. It will also help you stay engaged by learning new leadership trends from books, articles, workshops and seminars. 

2. Communication

Good communication skills are important for two reasons: they can make you more fluent in conveying lessons and educational materials in ways students can comprehend, and they help you relay feedback so that students can find new tools to make progress.

Students are expected to be effective communicators: you set an example of good communication every time you interact with families and students. Good listening, speaking, reading and writing skills are the signs of a successful educator.

To be sure that everyone understands your expectations, you should present materials with clarity and provide feedback effectively.

Build on your own communication skills by preparing your delivery, practicing active listening and being aware of nonverbal cues like body language and eye contact. Develop your skill set for helping students read and write with confidence with an MS in Education, Reading and Literacy. 

3. Teamwork

With the emphasis on collaborative professional learning communities, finding ways to work as a group has become vital for pushing innovation or resolving challenges. Teamwork in an educational setting involves parties sharing mutual goals and working together to reach them. The ability to work well within and across teams has an impact on your students, families, colleagues, administrators and other key stakeholders.

As you work on your team collaboration skills, make sure to focus on understanding your team’s objectives, embracing feedback and being willing to adapt to meet different situations.

4. Problem Solving

Internal and external issues that arise in the classroom can negatively affect learning outcomes. Whether it’s deescalating a conflict or working through a life problem that’s getting in the way of a student’s learning, be prepared to take on challenges and know how to best approach the situation.

To enhance your ability to solve problems, approach challenges creatively and collaboratively. When you focus on solutions and practice active listening, you grow soft skills for problem solving. 

5. Social and Emotional Intelligence

Social and emotional intelligence, the awareness of emotions and the ability to adapt your behavior based on that awareness, help contribute to a safe and positive learning environment in increasingly multicultural and multilingual education systems. Be prepared to teach and practice social and emotional skills, give your students opportunities to practice these skills and help your students apply these skills in other scenarios.

Grow this skill by recognizing your emotions and learning how to express them in constructive ways. You can demonstrate persistence by setting realistic objectives and taking proactive steps toward goals. Practice empathy by respecting others’ feelings and taking in different viewpoints.

6. Cultural Competence

Cultural competence is the ability to understand, relate to and effectively educate across cultures and demographics.

It’s important for educators to welcome diverse voices into their classrooms. You don’t have to understand and know all cultures – but be willing to let your students teach you. This will help create a space where students can learn about empathy, acceptance and tolerance by experiencing it and celebrating diversity.

Self-reflection and awareness will help you cultivate this skill. Find ways to approach interactions with an open mind and adapt your communication approach to different cultural norms.

As you develop your teaching skill set, be sure to check out our other blog post: 6 key areas of expertise to help become a successful teacher.
 

Many soft skills, including communication and teamwork, can be developed through online education degree programs. Explore MS in Education programs at Capella.