Best Practices In Teaching

There are many different ways to teach.  Some are effective, some are not so effective, but then again, we’ll never know what will work unless we try them out.  As usual, there is no single method that is considered most effective for learning anything.  This may be due to the students’ preference or capacity to learn in each method used.  To take this discussion even further, there is no way of finding which combination of methods would work best.  Educators know this to be true as even the best teachers can be considered by some students to be ineffective in teaching them.  This points us to the conclusion that each and every student has to be taught differently depending on their level of understanding, and also depending a lot on their background or their upbringing.  It is therefore the educator’s task to find out how to teach the student best.  In any case, there are ways and means of teaching that have been around for a long time.  Each of these teaching methods has been proven to be effective at some point or another in their own way.

Let us then discuss the different teaching styles that are available.

One of my favorites as a student, but mostly because I won’t really have to do much to succeed, is the cooperative method.  This is when the teacher asks his or her students to form a group and basically learn from each other.  This teaching method for me is like a double-edged sword as it has its advantages and disadvantages.  It is effective because as they say, there are many ways of skinning a cat (no animals were harmed in the production of this article), and this method allows each student to learn those many different ways from one another.  When presented with a problem, like an algebraic equation or something, there are many different ways of solving it. Although some ways may give you the wrong answer, there are just as many ways of getting the right one.  This means that in using cooperative method in a team of 5 students, you might just get 5 (or less) different solutions, all coming up with the same answers.

The thing about the cooperative method is that some students (like my younger self) may become more reliant on the others.  It’s not that they’re not as bright, but most times, they’re simply too smart for their own good.  This is what makes this type of method a double-edged sword.  It fosters development to some, but as in this example, is harmful to others.  It is therefore best to combine this way of teaching with other methods.  As an educator, I personally found that the method that works best with this is the active learning method.

The active learning method, defined by some as an unorthodox way of teaching, but praised by some as one of the more effective teaching styles in an educator’s arsenal, is one that I am very much partial to.  This type of learning method allows the students to not only discuss but formally practice whatever it is that they have learned.  Although this may be a very old style of teaching, it is as effective today as it was then.  Scientists and learned scholars now agree that a huge percentage of learning is retained when the subject has actively participated in a more practical use of the newly learned skill.  For example, when computing for velocity in the classroom, it’s easy enough to compute.

Velocity = Distance / Time.  Easy enough right?  Then again, during actual practice, you will find that the computation for velocity does not make you tell when a car when arrive.  You may only know this when the car has actually arrived.  This means that you’ll know the car’s velocity after the event but not before.  This may seem unimportant, but after all, it is merely an example of the things that you might overlook when on the drawing board.  They say that those who can do, while those who can’t teach.  This is no longer true in the modern classroom though, especially when you’re learning to practice and not just to earn some degree that you’re not going to use.  Practice makes perfect.  This method combined with the cooperative method, makes for a winning formula of teaching, although I must stick with my previous statement that methods of teaching vary depending on many factors, some are yet to be discovered.

One other method of learning that I found to be rather interesting is technology integration.  I personally love technology, and I like how I no longer have to use a liquid eraser every time I make a typographical error.  Technology has made our lives a lot better.  Although, some say that technology has made life a lot more complicated.  I guess this is true for some people.  As things are getting easier through technology, the faster paced your life gets.  For example, the writing of this article may have been given at least a week to be submitted, but now the editor would like it in within 24 hours.  In any case, as mentors, we have to teach and assist our students to use the new technology properly if we do not want the world to leave them behind.  Each and every technology that can be used has to be maximized.  Proper usage of such technology is the key to being more efficient.  Having a computer for example could make one very productive.  However, if used in an improper way (such as spending 8 hours a day on a social networking site), I really doubt anybody would finish anything.

Those are just some of the so-called new methods of learning as they call it, but really they’ve been around for an awfully long time that I doubt anybody could really call them new anymore.  Still, they are called to be such mostly because of the time-honored tradition of learning, which is still the method that’s being widely used in schools these days.  Perhaps this would be the last method that I’ll introduce here, if you haven’t heard of it already is the method of forming better study habits.  This, in a way, is mostly undervalued but is really still quite effective.  Probably the most common way of using this method is the assigning of tasks to students.  Teachers usually call this “home work”.  Yes, home work may be something that nobody wants to do.  However, when done properly, and with the proper amount of interest in the subject, home work could actually lead you to places nobody’s gone to before.  I may be exaggerating here a bit, but really, I view home work as a guide.  It’s supposed to point students to the right direction, and from there, only they can limit themselves as to how much learning they’re planning to acquire.  Besides homework, the same kind of method is being used when discussing (and sometimes just reading) something from a book when inside a classroom.

Some may disagree with my statement that it’s undervalued, but it’s a very practical statement.  Most students for example, regret the fact that they got rid of their books, worksheets, and notes right after graduation.  When people are transported from school to the real world, they realize the value of the lessons that were taught to them, most of which are not easily retained by the average student.  While in school however, you’re not just being taught the subjects that are being taught, but you’re also trained to learn, retain, and develop good study habits.  Since you’re being forced to think in school, chances are, you’ll be thinking quite a lot even after you graduate because that’s how you were trained.  When a person is trained to do something, they do it on impulse, and they don’t get rid of it easily.  It means that if you had yourself trained well in school, then you can train even better in the real world.  To tell you honestly, we educators believe that some people sleep better when they read a book (especially one that’s not very engaging) because this was how they trained themselves when they were in school.  If you’ve spent enough time doing something, then you retain that habit and continue doing it for the rest of your life (most of the time, unless you’ve seen the error of your ways).  Old habits die hard they say, and this is exactly my point.  That’s also the reason why they call it better study habits (really!).

There are many other methods of learning and teaching strategies available, but these four are probably the most commonly used and the most effective.  Nowadays, some scientists would claim to have discovered new methods of learning that are far more effective than the older methods.  Upon further examination though, you’ll find that they’ve merely mixed and matched some of these methods to suit the students’ needs.  It’s like finding a new flavor for an old recipe.  It’s the same recipe, but with a new more chocolatey taste.