Teaching Styles

One of the most interesting things to observe is how each individual person teaches.  Because each person is different - they approach each subject with their own preconceived notions, ideas, and personal history - it is natural to assume that everyone has a different method, or at least variations on the most common styles.

Recently, I have had many opportunities to watch peers and professionals as they instruct various audiences.  Some of my peers, who are just learning, have the opportunity to try different methods to see what works best for them.

Professionals, on the other hand, are usually familiar with and are more likely to have found what they feel is the best and to stick with it, for good or ill.  Two professionals that I recently observed are in some ways similar and others completely different, illustrating my point.  Mr. C. is rather laid back and prefers that the students teach themselves, for the most part.  I agree with his thoughts that, in many cases, students are "spoon-fed" everything and are not necessarily taught how to figure things out.  While nice in principle, what happened instead was that a few students learned the material really well by both doing it themselves and then both teaching and (more often) doing it for the other students.  Many of the students ended up floating along in the current without making any effort to paddle towards the learning objective.

To be fair, I observed Mr. C.'s class in the middle of the year when things were mostly hashed out and the students knew what they needed to do.  I really would have liked to have seen his class during the beginning of the school year so that I could observe the initial setup and explanations of all the various modules.

For Mr. H.'s class, I was fortunate enough to observe the administration of a test.  At the beginning, Mr. H. went over the entire test and, in many cases, reviewed what the answers were.  I was given the opportunity to assist in grading the test and was sad at how many students missed the parts he reviewed.

Overall, Mr. H. seemed in more control of his classes.  I think it came down to the end of the period.  In Mr. C.'s class, as soon as the bell rung, the students would just leave in a rush.  In one case they lined up by the door waiting for the bell to ring.  Whereas in Mr. H.'s class, before the bell rung, he set the students cleaning up, including pushing their chair in and making sure everything they put all their tools away.

There were things I liked about both teachers and several items I will try to incorporate myself whenever I will be teaching.  I especially liked Mr. H.'s quieting/attention technique where he starts counting down from 10 and when he reaches zero, whomever is not ready to listen is given some sort of mark against them.  At his school it was a mark in their citizen book, though he offered the student the option of doing push-ups instead.  I could see myself doing something similar...