Effective Teaching Techniques

Recently I was having a casual conversation with a newly appointed teacher in my school. We exchanged few details about the classes we handle and the subjects we taught. We shared some things about our families too. She asked me, “How many kids do you have?” With lightning speed I answered, “I think I have 23.Last year I had 20.”

She was startled for a second, gave a blank look at me. I tried to recollect, what was her question? (Did I answer it right?) After a momentary pause we both burst out into laughter. She was asking me about my own children whereas I mapped it to the children in my class.  I realized it once again like any other day, ‘the moment we enter the school premises, we forget our own world that is outside the school compound and school becomes our family’.

I am sure most of you must have had or shared lighter moments with a peer that makes your day. Like many of you, I have always believed in having a cordial relationship with teachers at school, irrespective of whether they teach primary or high school. There is always some thing we have in common that we figure out in due course of time, it may be about our teaching methods or classroom management techniques.

Informal discussions and talking more openly about the issues we face in class, will fetch us solutions very easily. But there has to be a genuine thought- process and concern in all these discussions, else it may unknowingly turn out to be ‘branding a child with specific issue’ kind of a talk.

In these years of classroom transactions, I have experienced being an assistant teacher in my initial years of service. Apart from those learning, I have picked a few cues and nuances in handling students by observing many of my peer sessions and through visits to other schools.

I realized, just as how every child is unique, every teacher is unique. But there needs to be a constant supply of ideas and resources shared so as to avoid stagnation of thoughts and teaching techniques. This vests purely in a teacher’s hand.

In this article I would like to share some of the practices, which I think were effective classroom techniques and teaching methods that made ‘learners to learn’.

1. Science session on ‘light’

The teacher wanted to make her students realize the importance of ‘light’ in their life using senses. Instead of just beginning the session by defining light or asking questions, ‘do you know what is light?’, she darkened the room to an extent and gave every student a sealed carton box (something like a cereal box) with ‘small hole’ on top. She asked them to peep in through the pin hole and to share if they could see any thing. As expected, students replied there is nothing in the box. Then she gave them torch light and asked them to repeat the same procedure. Students were excited to see a strip of paper inside that closed box. The paper had words written on it “I can see with the light”. This experiment took 20 mins of her session but the realization of importance of light and the conceptual learning of light was amazing. They were easily able to define what is light and absence of light is called darkness.

A concept can be introduced in anyway orally/writing the definition on the board or even reading it out from the book as simple as it sounds. If it’s planned with much care then the session continues to sail smoothly and effectively with utmost engagement.

I started believing more in kinaesthetic learning than ‘chalk and talk’ method

2. Reciting poems loudly

This was an English teacher who had cultivated the habit of reciting poems just for fun and rhythm. But she made use of it wisely for student engagement in such a way that whenever students know that it is English session, they start reciting the poem one after the other (whatever they have learnt so far). By the time teacher reaches the classroom, the whole class would settle and get ready for English class with books and note books while reciting the poems simultaneously. There was complete focus when teacher arrives. The loud recitation created a good vibration in class atmosphere and that was pleasant for their ears as well. The teacher would seamlessly continue her sessions as planned. This happened every day without fail and I never saw that teacher spend time in settling them after she came in.

I realized how music and rhythm enhances student focus and engagement

3. SWBAT –Students Will Be Able To_________________________

Few years ago, I had a chance to visit one of the elementary school in USA. I went around the school and entered few classrooms and dining area as well. One thing that impressed me was, the teachers there always had the habit of sharing the objective of every session with their students. They had mentioned it on the white board as an acronym ‘SWBAT’.

For instance, she wrote Students will be able to …solve the addition problem worksheet independently. She tells it orally as well.Students are clear of what their aim is and what they need to do that day. This was written in Grade 2 classroom.

After implementing the same practice in my sessions I found them to be more engaged.It prepares the students to be present in the class mentally.

E.g. SWBAT: Students will be to -read the passage and find answers for given questions.

SWBAT- Students will be able to recite the poem from the book loudly with rhyme and rhythm

SWBAT-Students will be ableto write adjectives to describe the given scenery

I understood that students need to be aware of the objectives at the beginning of every session

4. In Art class

You must be wondering what I would have observed from art classes. It is the place where all their senses are involved. After PE class, the most sought destination could be the art room in every school. What I had learnt from the teacher was the effective time management besides following routines. I observed that though there was enough work planned for the day, the teacher ensured enough time was allocated to train the students to put all stationery back to places wherever it belonged. At the end of sessions, the classroom appears as neat as it was before the students entered. She would also ask children to tell the name of painting technique they had learnt that day before they exit the room. Again, I observed that this practice is done in every session of hers so that the system is well established and students get tuned to their teacher’s expectation.

I learnt, by using time wisely, a teacher can teach the content and skills simultaneously

5. A worksheet with difference

As teachers of this decade most of us are aware of using worksheet based on the topic taught. This is done for revising or for more practice .Now a days it is done with ease with so many free resources available online. But in this process, we need to be careful to customize it for our learners.

 A math teacher( middle school USA) had designed it in such a way that student’s arrive at the correct answer by eliminating all the wrong answers. They were expected to evaluate all the choices and justify why they were wrong. This way the teacher ensured students are clear with the concepts in totality.She had also given some tips and formulas in a box separately as support. Even though there were only four or five problems given in the sheet, I found students were working out more to find the right option .Though they were taught the right way of solving such problems the approach expected from the students were to validate all options before arriving at the result.  Since then, whenever I discuss with my co-teacher on worksheet for math, I have emphasized this method of ‘Eliminating wrong’ as one effective way for student engagement.

I make use of this method even in my English class by writing sentences that are grammatically wrong and ask students to identify errors. While they were at this task, I was able to identify some of their misconceptions too. Based on their responses, I have even altered my sessions to revisit the concepts again.

Even a standard method like using worksheet as teaching aids/tool can be made interesting if a teacher plans carefully.

6. Extensive and appropriate usage of walls in classroom

Once a science teacher was asking her students to write the aim, procedure, materials to be used and their guess/prediction on what will happen in the experiment on small chart paper. She put them carefully on pin up boards of classroom in the same order. The next session she made use of those data and their predictions. I found that this was her practice and all soft boards /notice board in class showcased every bit of students learning and their progress every day. It was helpful for students to recall what happened the previous day and make connections to further learning.

This practice of gathering their thoughts on soft boards has helped students to recall and remember concepts taught in math and science session.

 From all these observation sessions, one major take away for me was, “Connect with kids and adapt to make your session lively and to enthuse students”

Few other things that impressed me…

• Playing music in the back ground to create an ambiance, relevant to the topic taught. This I learnt from a social science teacher.( I am sure that teacher is reading this blog!)
• Plan to invite a group of older students to teach the younger students for a change. Believe me, it works wonderfully. There is so much of excitement and fun involved in this method. The session becomes a memorable one, for both the younger and the older students. I also observed that older students are so careful and organised when they teach younger ones.

It is proven that we learn the maximum only when we teach. So why not employ this strategy often in our classrooms?

I agree that all these takes effort and careful planning but it’s definitely worth a try!

 Please share your experiences, if you can map any of these techniques in your classrooms.

Teaching style,Learning style and student attainment

Multiple intelligence and it’s influence

As I started writing this post, a thought loomed…will the readers be hooked on to reading this article till the end?

May be few of you will look for images associated to the topic, while others might look for some video link related to my post and a few might look for catchy phrases highlighted in bold words to obtain the main idea of this article. Some of you may scroll down to see if I have included any activity that would interest your students. I think, I should even explore the idea of including an audio version of this content.

Why should I consider all these possibilities? Well, this explains the theory of multiple intelligence and the learning style of every reader who reads this article.

I would like to begin this week’s article with a virtual handshake to each and every teacher out there in the field. I look up on teachers’ as …

Talented,

Enthusiastic,

Ambitious,

Charismatic,

Holistic,

Energetic and a

 Resourceful person who makes a difference in students’ life

With all these qualities inbuilt in them, over a period of time through experiences and knowledge gain, there is always a vacuum some where in the heart and mind that doesn’t  allow them to completely take the credit of the value add they do through teaching.

If only I knew how to make him understand that multiplication is just repeated addition!

If only I knew how to make that girl focus during this video session?

If only I knew how to help her in learning to balance that chemical equation?

Often a teacher feels guilty of not being able to figure out, why some children can’t attain maximum potential. When will these children reach the threshold of self- learning?

Let me digress to another scene which is just like our own class room the only difference being we listen and some one else conducts that session. Yes, it’s nothing but the teacher training workshop that we attend as a part of professional development programme.

(Anna university teachers at ‘dealing with stress’ workshop)

Have you ever wondered when we attend an in-service workshop conducted at school or elsewhere, there is a standard flow of events during the course of the workshop.

• A talk by renowned personality
• PPT with visual clips and /or audio
• There is a group discussion and presentation, it could be a group presentation or individual the choice is given to the attendees,
• Finally, there is feedback or brainstorming on how this could be applicable in our classrooms

An adult workshop is planned so carefully keeping in mind that, in a huge crowd of teachers there could be people with different learning styles. Some will verbally read and learn newer things, some pick cues from visual aids, a few who will participate only during group discussions( and are not comfortable to speak in the crowd) and last but not the least there are individuals who may take away the crux only towards the end of workshop during the summation.

It is apparent that “Each of us do learn, in one way or the other”. “Each of us possess one or more intelligence as innate quality”

Well I am sure you can link this with our own student group too!

To represent this pictorially,

As teachers, we need do a bit of self analyzing of our own learning style first to maximize the learning outcome of students.There is a valid reason behind this. It is obvious that the way we are comfortable in learning, influences to a greater extent in our lesson planning too.If you can associate yourself to any one of these styles given above, you know how most of your sessions are going to be.You could even share the lesson plan you make with your colleague to check if there are variety in approaches and in testing.

Some tips that can help you maximize your learner’s learning is to work in collaboration with other teachers. It can be planned as,teachers who handle other subject areas for same grade or teachers who handle same subject area in other sections. By allowing other teacher of same subject expertise to take few of your sessions, students will benefit from different teaching styles.This idea of exchanging sessions can be done either at the introduction stage of the new topic or towards the end while revisiting(revising) the topic . In my experiences I have seen students come up with some points that you may not have taught them.They even mention how and when they learnt it.This implies there was another method from where the student learnt it.

You could be an expert in content delivery (linguistic/verbal intelligence), well your peer could be excellent in conducting a quiz or a game based on the concept(kinesthetic or logical intelligence).An art teacher who has the artistic intelligence can motivate a child to illustrate their understanding based on the academic topic where as an English teacher who has linguistic intelligence may help with framing sentences for definitions or give a better choice of words for explanations. An art teacher can even motivate children to include comic strips and cartoons in a creative writing session.This might interest student to write. I am only suggesting few changes here and there which we tend to over look or even assume its not our zone of teaching.

It’s a community of students, so we too must attend to them as community of teachers and not as an individual who is solely responsible for his/her growth.

When we as an individual possess one or more intelligence by nature, it is inevitable in an organisation like school where there are thousands of children, with different intelligence pooled together, I suggest that we initiate a different learning process for that child, tapping the right intelligence.

It is true that children blossom at different pace and to go by the saying,’ One Size Doesn’t Fit All’, let there be enough scope for various approaches in our teaching style.

Too much of play-way method will not satisfy a logic-smart student and repetitive problem solving methods  may not interest an art-smart student.

There is so much of thinking that happens and effort that goes in to every teacher’s session plans. A teacher must be conscious while making lesson plans, toprovide scope for teaching the same concept in different styles to maximize that ZPD.

Though the underlying principle is same when it comes to MI and different learning styles there is a difference conceptually.

Please check the following link to get more insight in to Multiple intelligence Vs Learning style.

http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-research

All these research, established hypothesis are to support the teachers to be more successful in her/his aim of reaching students with ease.

My suggestion to teachers would be to plan their  formative assessment and every day task providing scope for MI concept. This will enable teachers to actually get proof of their student’s learning on whether they actually got the idea behind the lesson.

• Are they good in concept ?
• Is it only their ‘writing/presentation’ problem?
• Can they represent it in flow chart or an illustration?
• Will they explain it verbally in an organised fashion?
• Can they depict their learning in a chart?
• Will they be able to use concrete objects to express their understanding?
• Will he remember the math tables if I encourage him/her to recite it?

Also think about collaborating with other teachers to share the sessions so that the different teaching & learning styles are considered.

Above all, “A teacher who teaches the student is preferred than a teacher who teaches the curriculum”.

Be smart. Be efficient. Be a continuous learner.