HOW TO TEACH

HOW TO TEACH

 

Teaching well is an art rooted in practical, applied, behavioral sciences. There are definitely techniques that have been proven to work better than the typical "stand and deliver" lecture or presenting them with only linear or sequential information such as reading or listening to lecture. Pictures, maps and hands on efforts can teach several concepts simultaneously, instead of only receiving line after line to read or write. Successful teachers focus more on facilitating meaningful, expanded, multiple representations of information in learning experiences--and, all in all, that isn't so difficult to learn how to do. Read on to learn basic steps for becoming a good teacher in common teaching situations--from analyzing student needs, developing and facilitating meaningful learning objectives for your lesson plans, to following through on the learning design and giving feedback, with appropriate assessments.

PART - 1    IDENTIFY NEEDS

 


1  Identify crucial academic skills : These include reading and essential math skills used in many other subjects. Prioritize crucial lessons. Think about what skills your students will need to employ in order to make it through elementary and secondary school, be ready for higher education and progress onward throughout their lives. Think about the skills you use as an adult, such as good communication skills, including questioning and courageous speaking skills, and finding/looking up what you need to know. Plan and follow through on ways to build those skills in your students. These should be skills which students will need to function in various areas of life.

2  Identify complementary, life-improving skills : Encourage not only following learned processes and procedures, but also to find ways to use initiative, self-expression within guidelines -- without being unruly or disruptive. Once the crucial skills have been identified, consider complementary skills for happy, productive lives. Praise and place value on their using creative skills and problem solving, being opportunity makers and help them be providers of interesting questions and giving answers and information in class.

    Give them crucial emotional outlets including participating at their age level in arts, music and expression as a creator and a performer, not only being a spectator.

3  Identify emotional and social skills : It’s not just academic skills which make people more functional, self-actualizing human beings. Apply techniques in your classroom to help students develop self-confidence, overcome shyness/"stage fright" by many steps, building self-esteem one effort at a time, coping with stress and disappointment (not just taking the easy escape), learning to not be overly defensive. They need to learn to accept reality without embarrassment by encouraging their efforts and trying again, and not unfairly blaming others for difficulties. They need ways to interact, being inclusive of other students needs, and productive coordination with others.

PART - 2    SET GOALS

1  Determine overall goals : Once you’ve identified the major skills which your students will need to succeed in life, determine some goals based on those skills. If you have a bunch of kindergarteners who will eventually need to read, for example, you want them to know their alphabet, the basic sounds of some special letters, and also be able to recognize simple sight words (eventually you can get around to advanced ideas such as: c in cat sounds like "k" -- "keh", and an example of k might be "keep". But c in ceiling sounds like "s" -- "sss", an exciting example of s might be "snake"/pronounce the "sssnake" and show them the "ssss" of a "hissing snake" -- but do not mention it so soon as to confuse the idea of phonics).

2  Set specific goals : Once you know what your general goals are for the class, think of specific goals which will serve to show you that those overall goals have been met. Have your kindergarteners from the previous step be able to read and write the alphabet forwards and backwards and read basic three letter words, for example. 

 

3  Outline how those goals will be reached : Now that you know what you want your students to be able to do, outline the smaller skills which be necessary to get them to those larger goals. These will be mini-goals and will serve as a road map. With the kindergarteners, an example of these mini-goals would be learning each individual letter, learning to identify compound sounds, and then learning how to string sounds together.

PART - 3    DEVELOP LESSON PLANS

1  Outline each course that you teach to achieve education goals; the school may require each teacher to have a course syllabus or similar document : Now that you have your educational roadmap, make a lesson plan which specifically lists how you will get them to each step in that road. Every skill that will need to be mastered in order to get them between those mini-goals will need to be planned and written down.

2  Consider learning styles. When making your lesson plan, keep learning styles in mind : Every student learns differently and if you want your whole class to have equal opportunity for success, you will need to accommodate these. Plan to use sound, visuals, manipulatives, physical activity and the written materials along with your student centered lessons for facilitating, introducing, modeling, giving guided practice and periodic homework all for each subject, whenever possible.

3  Mix subject matter to build cross-curricular, multiple skills : If you are in an environment where you can interrelate subject matters, such as science and math or English and history, do some of that. This will help students understand how information is applied and is more related to the situations they will encounter in the real world. Life is not broken up into class subjects, after all. Find ways that you can collaborate with other teachers to provide your students with engaging, integrative lessons.

PART - 4       ENGAGE STUDENTS

1  Use visual aids and multiple representations of concepts : Introduce as many visual aids as possible into your lessons. This is not only for social studies, math, earth, physical, chemical, biological and social sciences. Social studies and many science related classes can use graphs, charts, maps, the globe, photos, movies and timelines -- such is true for their history and government studies. Certainly, math can involve grouping, recognizing changing patterns in sequences of numbers, contextual clues and shapes, with mathematical modeling often including formulas, graphic representations, diagrams, charts, "mappings of data" by various kinds of graphs. Also, collecting, organizing and presenting data can show the student how data is used in all kinds of subjects. Such things will give students more concrete experience, non-linear, multiple forms of applications/uses of data, visualizations, images and examples of the things which you are discussing. Complex concepts are often difficult to imagine and having a chart, an image to work, a choice of techniques, or an understandable formula will help many students stay engaged with the material, rather than tuning out because they can’t follow a dry, linear discussion.

2  Employ activities : Generally, it is better to never lecture for more than 15 minutes at a time. Besides reading, writing and written activities. You will want to often be getting your students active in the material and learning process. You can do this by having hands-on learning opportunities like learning activities (don't call them games), peer-to-peer discussions, or question and answer time (where either you ask the questions or they do).

3 Engage everyone : How? Create a variety of ways to use questions and answer/discussion sessions. One basic is keeping all students "on-deck" in the batters circle, so anyone may be the next one "up to bat". This will keep students from tuning out while others engage.

1. • One method would be to keep a jar with student’s names written on a popsicle stick. Pull from the jar at random and the student will be required to either ask a pertinent question or answer one.
   • Wait for the answer. Count to four to remind yourself to wait, when you use open questions where anybody can volunteer to ask or answer them. Avoid giving in to the urge to jump in to answer your question or to finish their answer. Draw out important issues from them. Don't to quickly rescue the student, allow them to answer deliberately, not freaking them out by pressure or showing how smart you are. You defeat their motivation if you have to wow them as a genius/expert.
   • Class wide actions such as getting quiet when asked, ready to go to lunch or putting away one/getting another kind of book and materials can be time to utilize a classroom scoreboard with positive and negative marks that can lead to a reward or penalty for the whole group.