Teaching Style

I recently came across an interesting article from the website, http://www.oncourseworkshop.com titled, “Ten Worst Teaching Mistakes (5-10)”, by Drs. Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent.  Felder a college professor and Brent, an educational consultant, have provided hundreds of workshops worldwide.  These mistakes they write about are excellent reminders of strategies/teaching styles that are not very effective.  Their piece can be found at http://oncourseworkshop.com/Getting%20On%20Course023.htm .  My favorite is #5 “fail to establish relevance”. 

I found their work very interesting and began browsing the internet looking for more.  I came across three “facts of life” from one of their workshops (How Students Learn, How Teachers Teach, and What Usually Goes Wrong), that I found very true! Here they are…….

 

Fact of Life 1: What students learn is always less than what we teach.

Fact of Life 2: How much they learn is determined by their

 

1. Native ability

 

2. Background in the course topic

 

3. Match between their learning style and our teaching style.

 

Fact of Life 3: We can’t do much about their ability, background, or learning style.

Conclusion: To maximize student learning, all we have to work with is our teaching style.

  ( http://www.csom.umn.edu/Assets/38667.pdf )

 

 

Their work seems to center around college/university teaching, but I find it very relevant to high school educators as well.  Based on my high school teaching experience, teachers often make the mistake of “cramming” too much information into their class period/marking period/semester/year and these “facts of life” are very true and relevant.  In my opinion, good teachers are not judged solely by content knowledge, but by their ability to motivate students to learn.

 

Felder and Brent’s “facts of life”, Thomas Friedman’s “curiosity/passion quotient formula (http://www.energizetheclassroom.com/educationnews.asp - Nov. 11)” and my philosophy of “keep it fun, keep it relevant, and keep learning”, are not based on content…they are centered around improving teaching style!!  In order for a teacher to improve, it is his/her style that should be the focus of improvement, not simply the gathering of more information and curriculum. 

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Be sure to check out the “idea of the week” and “website of the week” at www.energizetheclassroom.com .

 

 

-Paul Richmond

 E.T.C