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.

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.

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.

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.

   

      

GOALS

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).

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.

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.

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.
Courtesy wikihow.com 

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