Teaching Methods You Need To Keep Students Challenged and Motivated!!

It's important that teachers vary their teaching strategies, classroom teaching methods and teaching techniques.

Lecturing all the time becomes monotonous and students lose interest.

Come up with some creative teaching ideas and creative methods of teaching suitable for different learning styles and you will become much more effective.

These methods might include:

1. Demonstrations (or experiments) by the teacher or guest (possibly a parent) can provide an interesting (dare I say, exciting) new perspective to learning.

2. Questioning/Discussion keep students on their toes, paying attention and involving them in the learning process by getting their opinions and feedback.

When teaching and asking questions of your students, don't give them the answers in your explanations - allow them to think and give them a chance to answer back.

Do not ONLY choose students whose hands are up - if you do that constantly only the same few students may respond all day long - involve everyone; you'll be surprised how many students have a valid opinion or the correct answer and don't raise their hand.

3. Group activity provides students with the opportunity of getting to know each better, teaches them to work together as a team and listen to other students' points of view.

You may need to make groups; such as, groups of no more than 4, evenly distributed based on intelligence, or learning centers using manipulatives, or working with partners (to name a few).

4. Visuals, visuals, visuals, examples and manipulatives are so crucial to use when teaching a lesson since most students are visual learners.

As well as these effective teaching methods, here are a few other teaching ideas:

* Tell students exactly what they will be doing before the lesson begins and your expectations of them - they need to be aware of what's expected from them.

* After teaching the lesson explain again what you want the students to do (seatwork) and expect from them. If applicable, do an example or two from the worksheet and write answer(s) on the blackboard so that students can refer to it (for the kinesthetic learner).

* If you forget to mention or include something during a lesson, don't talk over your students if they're on to another activity, - most won't listen. Wait until they settle down and then ask/get their attention before going through what you forgot.

* Scan the classroom continuously as you teach and when students are doing their work, always be aware of what all students are doing - you're responsible for them all day long - "you're accountable to each other"

* Even if you have a straight grade (i.e. not a split between 2 grades), don't fool yourself - you still will have varying levels of academic ability - so be aware of making accommodations and modifying assignments for particular students - those who have been labeled and those that are weak in certain subjects.

Return from "Teaching Methods" page to "Home" page

Return to " Teacher Student Relationships" page