Teaching Strategies and Technique

Teaching Strategies

Used in conjunction with active learning teaching strategies, the traditional lecture can be an effective way to achieve instructional goals. The advantages of the lecture approach are that it provides a way to communicate a large amount of information to many listeners maximizes instructor control and is non-threatening to students.

The disadvantages are that lecturing minimizes feedback from students, assumes an unrealistic level of student understanding and comprehension, and often disengages students from the learning process causing information to be quickly forgotten.

The following recommendations can help make the lecture approach more effective

Fit the lecture to the audience

Focus your topic - remember you cannot cover everything in one lecture

Prepare an outline that includes 5-9 major points you want to cover in one lecture

Organize your points for clarity

Select appropriate examples or illustrations

Present more than one side of an issue and be sensitive to other perspectives

Repeat points when necessary

Be aware of your audience - notice their feedback

Be enthusiastic - you don’t have to be an entertainer but you should be excited by your topic.

Teaching Technique

Questioning

A teaching method that includes questioning is similar to testing. A teacher may ask a series of questions to collect information of what students have learned and what needs to be taught. Testing is another method of questioning. A teacher tests the student on what was previously taught in order to identify if a student has learned the material.

Explaining

Another teaching method is explanation. This form is similar to lecturing. Lecturing is teaching, giving a speech, by giving a discourse on a specific subject that is open to the public, usually given in the classroom. This can also be associated with demonstrating and modeling. A teacher may use experimentation to demonstrate in a science class. A demonstration is the circumstance of proving conclusively, as by reasoning or showing evidence. Modeling is used as a visual aid to learning. Students can visualize an object or problem, then use reasoning and hypothesizing to determine an answer.

Demonstrating

Demonstrations are done to provide an opportunity in learning new exploration and visual learning tasks from a different perspective. Demonstrations can be exercised in several ways.

Collaborating

Students’ working in groups is another way a teacher can enforce a lesson plan. Collaborating allows students to talk among each other and listen to all view points of discussion or assignment. It helps students think in an unbiased way. When this lesson plan is carried out, the teacher may be trying to assess the lesson of working as a team, leadership skills, or presenting with roles.