Teaching Methods and Strategies

Teaching is fun. At first, I found the lesson planning and waking up early in the morning to be a pain, but as time progressed and I saw changes in my students’ behavior and schoolwork with the more effort that I inputted, teaching and everything else that comes along with teaching became fun to me. Using many different strategies is the major part in having fun while teaching, as it provides many different approaches that we can take to ensure students are motivated, excited, and straight up educated! Here are some of the numerous teaching strategies I used in the classroom:

•Mini Lecture: The mini-lecture is a concise way to provide participants with background information, research findings, or motivational examples to spark interest and give them a frame work for discussion or activity to follow. Mini-lectures should be brief and targeted, setting up an activity or discussion.

•Question Box: An anonymous question box provides the opportunity for all participants to get answers to questions they might be hesitant to ask in class. It also gives the teacher, leader time to think about answers to difficult questions or look for more information. Questions should be reviewed and responded to regularly, and all questions placed in the box should be taken seriously. If you don’t know the answer to the question, let the participants know and research it and get back to them.

•Games & Puzzles: Games and puzzles can be used to provide a different environment in which learning can take place. The can also be used in cooperative learning groups. Many types of games and puzzles can be adapted to present and review concepts.

•Student or Participant Presentations: Individual students or groups of participants can present information to the rest of the class. Be sure to have clear guidelines for participants to follow, including time, and objectives. This strategies also goes very well with adult learning theory, teach others for retention.

•Artistic Expression: Participants may be offered a choice of expressing themselves in art, or through writing. Such a choice accommodates the different learning need and talents of students. Completed work should be displayed.

•Creative Writing: This strategies can take many forms, from poems, stories, written role play (scripted) journal written reflective thoughts. They can be shared or not. This form gives participates a creative outlet to the subject taught or discussed. One can also see transfer leaning happen in this form of expression.

•Personal Contracts: Personal contracts, individual commitments to changing behavior, can help participants make positive changes in their behavior. The wording of a personal contract may include the behavior to be changed, a plan to change the behavior and the identification of possible problems and support systems.

•Factual Writing: Once participants have been presented with information about a topic, a variety of writing assignments can challenge them to clarify and express their ideas and opinions, supporting them with facts, figures and reasons.

•Cooperative Group Work: Cooperative-group work is a special form of small-group work. All small-group activities are not necessarily cooperative groups. For a group to be cooperative, a “sink or swim together” mentality must be created. Students, participants work in small heterogeneous groups (2-6 members) where each member is accountable not only for his own learning (or task completion) but for helping other members of the group do the same thing. The success of each individual depends on the success of the entire group. For a group to be cooperative, a sense of positive interdependence among the group members must be established. The leader must help the group establish mutual goals, joint rewards, assign specific roles, and shares materials. Cooperative-learning situations promote the development and practice of higher-level reasoning, critical thinking, decision making problem solving, communication, and interpersonal skills. The leader, teacher manages the activity by setting up the groups, and clearly explaining the tasks that must be accomplished. The teacher also serves as a consultant.

•Journal Writing: Journal writing affords the opportunity for thinking and writing. Expressive writing requires that participants become actively involved in the learning process.

•Celebrations: Activities that focus on the joy of completion and accomplishment. These activities serve as reminders and markers. It is appropriate to stop and acknowledge and appreciate their accomplishments.