How about teaching styles
I thought perhaps another helpful topic to push us forward in our thinking about our roles as teachers would be to have you respond to what teaching styles work best for you to learn; how can you incorporate the various teaching styles into your subject area; or why should we consider and use all the various styles. What will you struggle with when incorporating another teaching style.
I will share my resistance to direct teaching: I get nervous about lecturing for a number of reasons. For starters, lecturing suggests that I have all the information (which I do not!!! Not even on a topic that I know a lot about). I am not an auditory learner, so lecturing feels ineffective to me (remember this is my resistance - not a truth about learning in general). I also believe that direct teaching establishes a power imbalance (one that can not be escaped completely, and is sometimes important in order to establish classroom expectations and rules). Finally, although attention is nice, I prefer not to be the center of learning - I would rather be on the outskirts watching the possibilities unfold.
That said - there is still very important reasons to use direct teaching. I thought I would share my weaknesses first!
posted by Leanna at 3:20 PM
5 Comments:
I think that I learn by writing notes and listening to the teacher, however, I love activities that get me up and excited about the topic, especially role play. I think I will struggle most with teaching in ways that suit everyone in the class. I tend to talk quite loudly and quickly and I need to be more flexible and understanding about other peoples ways of learning.
4:22 PM
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8:24 PM
There is certainly a whole lot to be said about diversity in teaching styles. As we were discussing today in class, and as Ashley has pointed out in this thread, it is impossible to meet every students learning needs at all times. By mixing things up and experimenting with different teaching methods, we are at least trying our best. Maybe asking students what past teaching methods have worked well for them for different assignments, or possibly requesting feedback at the end of term on the methods you had used for the different units. Regardless of how each person "ideally" learns, direct teaching for certain subjects may be more practical and indirect for others. This point lends itself to the fact that each year or term you may have to change your teaching style and work a bit harder on your lesson plans for your new and unique group of students. I think that a big mistake that teacher make, is that they teach the same way with the same lessons year after year. It is really difficult to try to guess what these kids want or need in order to successfully learn, but with their feedback and through making our own mistakes, we may be able to slowly move towards a more effective learning atmosphere.
8:27 PM
It's funny how we all have different preferences for teaching methods...but I think the point has been clearly met, we should mix it up and ask the students for feed back....which we actually use to either continue what we are doing or change it!
I came home tonight and fliped on the TV for a brain break BUT what happened instead Oprah was talking about the schools in "crisis". There were various people on her show that were discussing the issues in the US school system. They hit everything that we have been talking about. Learning and how does it happen? What's the best methods and different success rates, class sizes, but the biggest point that they all made was Set high standards and let the students know that you believe in them, that they are important, that you care and that you know they are capable. Be supportive! Anyway, redundant I know...I just thought perhaps if Oprah is acknowledging this truth then maybe we are on to somthing too...Ha Ha. Keep up the good work!
9:09 PM
Although I am going to try and use different teaching styles I think that especially for Math the direct metod may be the most efficient. Math 10 has so much content that it is well known that it is difficult to complete the whole curriculum. Therefore, although I would like to use discovery and group learning I will have to severely limit the time spent in those styles.
9:12 PM
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