Check out our list of describing words for teachers that will show you descriptive words to use in your lesson planning process or in creating a great classroom environment.
Whether you’re a first-year teacher just getting the hang of classroom management or a twenty-year veteran with your sights set on retirement, your goal is to use results-driven tactics to help your students perform at high levels. Understanding words related to your craft, students, and fellow education professionals is an important part of staying on top of the latest in the field.
Be sure to include some of these words in your next unit or lesson plan; your administration will love that you’re putting in the extra effort to make your lessons shine. Your students might also love our list of spelling bee words to help them on their learning journey!
Contents
What Are Describing Words for Teachers?
The world of education seems to have a language of its own, and those in the profession need to understand what it takes to create a great classroom learning environment. These describing words for teachers can be used to describe goals you want to set for your students, qualities you want to see exemplified in your classroom, and traits that you want students to use to describe your teaching style by the end of the year. Check out our family words list.
| Ambitious | Enthusiastic | Objective |
| Amicable | Gamify | Pacing |
| Assessment | Good-natured | Perceptive |
| Asynchronous | Grit | Proactive |
| Awe-inspiring | Hard-working | Research-based |
| Benchmark | Incentive | Results-driven |
| Collaborative | Inclusive | Rigor |
| Confident | Innovative | Rubric-driven |
| Cutting-edge | Inquiry | Self-assured |
| Deconstruct | Instinctive | Standards |
| Dedicated | Intentional | Strategic |
| Differentiation | Jigsaw | Student-centered |
| Diligent | Level-headed | Synchronous |
| Easygoing | Mindful | Tough |
| Empathetic | Model | Unbiased |
| Engagement | Motivated | |
| Enrichment | Motivating |
Describing Words for Teachers Related to Lesson Plans
From year-long plans to unit plans to lesson plans, these words will help your administration understand what will happen in your classroom (and help you stay in the loop at staff meetings.)
1. Assessment
According to the curriculum lead, it was important for Mrs. Kingston to create a formative assessment to help her understand what her students had learned over the previous year.
2. Asynchronous
Dominique appreciated that her college class was offered asynchronously online, allowing her to log on and do her work at times that made sense for her schedule.
3. Benchmark
Quarterly benchmark data is key for helping teachers find and correct weak spots in their students’ understanding of their subject matter.
4. Collaborative
Taking a collaborative approach, the science teachers got together to figure out how they could better help their students understand the water cycle.
5. Cutting-edge
Whether you have a classroom with a chalkboard or cutting-edge technology, the key to creating high-level lessons is engaging your students through each lesson plan step.
6. Deconstruct
When approaching a tough topic like sexism in STEM, it’s important to help students deconstruct their prior beliefs before the conversation begins.
7. Differentiation
When students come from varying academic levels, differentiation is key to ensure that all learners are moving toward their goals.
8. Engagement
Hands-on activities are a great engagement tool for students who learn best by doing.
9. Enrichment
It’s vital to always have enrichment activities for students who fly through their assignments and are ready for the next challenge.
10. Gamify
Gamifying in-class reviews before a final exam can help students get excited to show what they know at the end of the year.
11. Incentive
Classroom management shouldn’t just be punitive; it’s also important to provide incentives that reward students for doing the right thing.
12. Inquiry
Using inquiry in the classroom allows students to get curious and engaged with new material.
13. Intervention
When a student struggles to pick up on a concept, it’s smart to have a few on-the-spot intervention ideas to help steer them back to the right track.
14. Jigsaw
Splitting students into small groups to have them read a chunk of text before coming together as a class to construct the direct instruction for the day is known as a jigsaw.
15. Model
Suppose a teacher isn’t modeling timeliness by returning graded assignments within a few days. In that case, it’s tough to blame students for failing to understand the importance of completing their work on time.
16. Objective
Going over the objective for the day at the beginning of class gives students a clear idea of where they should be by the time the bell rings.
17. Pacing
It’s important to do regular checks for understanding to know when you adjust the pacing of your lesson.
18. Research-based
Attending regular professional development sessions that go over new research-based approaches to education can help teachers take lessons to new levels.
19. Rigor
“Sure, your students all easily mastered the objective,” said the principal to the teacher, “But I think it has something to do with a lack of rigor in your lesson.”
20. Standards
To create a year-long plan that will set students up for success, it’s key to have a solid understanding of state standards.
21. Synchronous
While it was tough to always be online for her synchronous classes, Taylor did appreciate the chance to ask her professor questions during live lecture sessions.
Describing Words for Teachers Related to Students
Whether you’re working on writing comments on report cards to chat with parents about their students’ positive qualities, it can be tough to find the right adjectives to describe the kiddos in your classroom. Look at these adjectives and see if they fit your top students. You might also be interested in our list of neutral tone words.
22. Easygoing
Jade was one of the most easygoing students that Mr. Smith ever had, and he worked to use some of her go-with-the-flow attitude when lessons didn’t go quite as he planned.
23. Good-natured
Tara was a good-natured student and always worked to ensure that everyone in the classroom felt included.
24. Grit
Mrs. Miguelez saw Janet struggling to master putting words in alphabetical order, but she knew her grit would help her push through until she got it right.
25. Hard-working
While math didn’t come easily to Charlie, his hard-working attitude meant that he could still pull off a B+ as his final grade in the class.
26. Level-headed
Conversations in AP Politics often became heated, and students looked to Madeline, the leader of the debate team, to use her level-headed personality to bring things back to normal.
27. Motivated
After getting a D on her last paper, Charlene was motivated to bring up her grade in social studies.
28. Self-assured
Standing at the front of the classroom, ready to read her poem aloud, Allison was self-assured, prepared, and confident to share her thoughts with her peers.
Positive Adjectives to Describe an Inspiring Teacher
You want to be the best teacher possible for your students, and a part of becoming an excellent educator is knowing how you want your students to describe you by the end of the year. Choose a few of these describing words for teachers and think about how you can model these qualities for your students.
29. Ambitious
Mrs. Paden knew she was setting an ambitious goal, but she believed she could get all her students to score proficient or better on the state standards test at the end of the year.
30. Amicable
Mrs. McCormick’s personality was amicable, and students knew they could count on her warm smile and kind words every time they walked into her classroom.
31. Awe-inspiring
Seeing Mrs. Wolfe’s classroom was awe-inspiring–she worked to transport her students into whatever novel they were focusing on, and this month’s theme was A Wrinkle in Time.
32. Confident
Mrs. Herman was nervous for her first observation of the school year, but she did her best to appear confident and hoped that her first graders would follow suit.
33. Dedicated
Mrs. Perotti was beyond dedicated to her craft, often coming into the school on weekends to ensure her classroom was perfect for Monday morning.
34. Diligent
While Marcy was initially nervous to see all the marks Mrs. Leibowitz made on her paper, she was relieved when she realized her teacher was simply diligent about pointing out the positive.
35. Empathetic
Mrs. Brandt knew Sierra had a new baby sister at home and was empathetic when the young girl told her she was having trouble sleeping at night due to her sister waking up.
36. Enthusiastic
Mr. Harding’s enthusiastic energy was infectious, and students couldn’t wait to see what he had planned for Spanish class each day.
37. Inclusive
Mrs. Delta worked to create an inclusive classroom where all students felt heard and appreciated.
38. Innovative
After the summer education conference, many teachers at the school got to work revamping their year-long plans, working to incorporate the innovative new techniques they picked up into their lessons.
39. Instinctive
After being in the classroom for ten years, Mrs. Stancey had an intuitive feeling that let her know whether a student was lying when providing a reason for an absence.
40. Intentional
In years past, Mrs. Palau pulled lesson plans off of the internet, but this year, she wanted to be more intentional when planning with her students in mind.
41. Mindful
“It’s important to be mindful of what some students may be going through at home,” said the principal of the students at the Navy base, as many of their parents were just sent on a deployment.
42. Motivating
Before the start of the school year, Mr. Rathfon developed a motivating class reward system that would help students stay on their toes when it came to turning in homework.
43. Perceptive
Mr. Halpert was perceptive enough to know that something was going on in his classroom, and he took a moment to address the bullying incident that happened on the playground earlier that day.
44. Proactive
Rather than wait for struggling students to reach out, Mrs. Barny took a proactive approach, inviting students to join her for homework help (and juice boxes) after school.
45. Results-driven
Looking at the successes and struggles of the prior school year can help teachers develop a results-driven approach to their curriculum for their incoming students.
46. Rubric-driven
A rubric-driven teacher lets students know exactly what they need to do to succeed, taking the guesswork out of getting a high grade.
47. Strategic
Teachers need to be strategic when creating a seating chart for the classroom, but this can be tough to do before the students’ personalities begin to shine a few weeks into the school year.
48. Student-centered
Providing students with jobs that rotate weekly can be a great way to create a student-centered classroom that provides kids with ownership of the learning.
49. Tough
Mrs. McKenna was known for being tough, but her students knew it was only because she cared deeply about their academic success.
50. Unbiased
When the students got into an argument, Mrs. Scott fully listened to both sides, then offered an unbiased solution to help the students get back to enjoying their review game.
Looking for more? Check out our list of random words!
