Author: Margaret Wong
Researcher: Tammi Stein
Teaching is no easy job. Every student and teacher has their own preferred way of learning and processing information. By looking at different techniques and variations, we can find methods that help students advance and feel more connected with their own education. Yet to really find the best processes overall, we first need to establish what we're looking for. We want to be focused on what we are trying to achieve, where the student is learning, and how we are currently teaching. You need to determine a desired outcome, and figure out a way to achieve it. Sometimes you need to look at the general, overall group, and other times, you need to look at the individual people. This article should help readers to realize and determine which techniques are best fitted for their situation.
Some people may say there is no point in all special learning techniques and teaching methods. If a student doesn't get it, they just don't get it, and thus have to figure it out on their own. Yet I would argue against this view. Yes, some students aren't as prepared or pick up new tasks as quickly as others, but everyone has their own unique ways of learning and understanding. Everyone has different skills and inclinations. This is supported by Teaching Methods and Strategies: The Complete Guide, which includes the idea, the Multiple Intelligence Theory, which, “...states that people don’t need to be smart in every single discipline to be considered intelligent on paper tests, but that people excel in various disciplines, making them exceptional.” People aren’t cookie-cutter clones of someone else. Let’s say someone excellent at reading with strong suits in “Linguistic Intelligence” fails a math test. They aren’t automatically labeled as fools and kicked out of school. Nor should they be expected to understand what they did wrong afterward, magically on their own, with no help or change in learning methods. By helping that person learn with more text that is geared toward them, you can improve their understanding. People are all different, and so is learning. As teachers, you need to be able to see someone who may be struggling, and adapt teaching materials to fit them and their needs.
Let's say you wanted to teach a new type of formula or equation to a class that can be complicated and difficult to initially understand. You can’t change what you need to teach, or how many students you have to focus on. However, you can change and choose how you teach with different techniques. If you were to make a long, lengthy lecture about exactly how to do this, without any focus on your student, you’d most likely bore and confuse inexperienced learners. Lectures, as described by The importance of teaching methods, are when an “Instructor presenting material and answering student questions that arise. Students receive, take in and respond.” This whole process is very closed off and doesn't involve or interest your audience. Yet if you try to involve your students, explaining the problem while also asking and triggering the mind, then you can help elevate their learning. This is called guided instruction, which is “Direct and structured instruction that includes extensive instructor modeling and student practice time,” as stated by the same source. By adding this connection between teachers and their students, there is not only greater attention, but this incites greater interest.
There are many ways to educate and help students become avid learners. Yet there are still so many constraints, such as time and size of groups. Typically, you have one or two teachers looking after thirty kids. That is a large number of people to focus on, and sometimes they just can’t give everyone the attention they need. Either they’re already busy and their time is occupied with work, or they assume a student who is generally proficient can just work something out. This is a stressful situation for both the fatigued teacher and the baffled student. That’s why having students work together and cooperate can be such a great tool. As noted in the Effects of Cooperative Learning on Achievement in Secondary Schools: A Summary of Research, “Cooperative methods allow students to work in small groups under the assumption that cooperative tasks are more likely to motivate students to learn and provide more individual help for students. Cooperative learning is also advocated for improving social relations between races, ethnic groups, high and low achievers, or for increasing productivity in problem solving.” There are many benefits to this method. This can include group projects or simply group discussions. Team-based learning at ten medical schools: two years later shows how in stressful situations, such as those often encountered in medical school, team-based learning “...continued to be used in all but 1 school. At the 9 remaining schools, TBL was added to 18 courses, continued to be used in 19…” This method, with multiple students together and learning, was successful and helpful, adding to the schools' own systems and coursework. Not only can this enable students to learn and help one another, since this allows them to see and view things others might miss and also helps form strong bonds and forge relations between different people and groups, helping people become more aware and accepting (readying them for future jobs and social situations).
Although we’ve gone over some different techniques, we still haven't delved into a big and important topic: testing. Most schools and programs have students evaluate their own understanding and knowledge through various tests and quizzes. This is all to assess how well they’re doing on certain subjects compared to others. 6 Effective Learning Techniques that are Backed by Research highlights all of this, stating “...the whole point of practice testing; to highlight your weak spots so you can work on them… practice testing allows you to shift what you learned from short-term to long-term memory…” Therefore tests can be helpful and necessary to rethink and adapt to certain problems and issues. After seeing and realizing what they need to work on, using the other methods previously mentioned, they can adopt changes and thrive. I do not advocate stressing out students by giving them test after test they need to study and memorize for, while not truly learning or understanding their lessons. Instead, I would encourage practice tests, maybe after class or for a homework assignment, to show them what they have mastered and what they should work on. There are other techniques like Interleaved Practice, for example, where practitioners switch what they learn alternatively. To go into more detail, a student shouldn't focus on one thing and constantly practice it over and over (and be quizzed on it). Instead, students could switch between topics and keep their mind active, rather than stuffing it with information for a test they’ll just forget afterward. All in all, there are many ways to aid a student with various tests to help them achieve rather than grieve over failed courses and forgotten lessons.
It is vital to determine our students’ needs and help them overcome learning obstacles. By adapting different techniques, we can help students better understand work they may find complicated or confusing otherwise. When students have trouble understanding a subject or a particular topic we should want to help them, whether by encouraging more open groups to discuss problems or changing up the teaching methods. Most importantly, we don’t want to see teachers or students grow discouraged and disgruntled, as learning and understanding their lessons will help them and their community in the long run.
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