With the right teaching methods, educators can create an enjoyable and productive classroom experience for students where they can learn important academic and social skills to last a lifetime. There are many frameworks that a teacher could use to support students with different interests, abilities and learning styles. If you’re a teacher or professional in the education field, you might benefit from learning about new instructive strategies in the field to maximize your students’ chances of success in your classroom.
In this article, we define what teaching methods are, explore nine types of teaching methods, review the benefits of these methods and provide some tips for doing so successfully.
Key takeaways:
Teaching methods are techniques that educators can use to facilitate the teaching process and help students feel engaged and interested in the material.
Types of teaching methods include differentiated instruction, lecture-based instruction, technology-based learning, group learning, individual learning, inquiry-based learning, kinesthetic learning, game-based learning and expeditionary learning.
Improve your teaching methods by testing different ones using the same lesson, meeting with other teachers to get their perspectives and remaining flexible.
What are teaching methods?
Teaching methods are ways to instruct students in a classroom, helping them to understand and remember what they’ve learned. Some of the best teaching strategies allow educators to convey information in a clear and concise way while also ensuring students retain it over the long term. If students can comprehend facts on a deep level and practice skills properly in the classroom, they can apply that wisdom and those abilities to their personal lives and their future careers.
Teaching methods are opportunities to make learning engaging, inspiring and fun for students. They aid teachers in fulfilling the responsibility of guiding the social and emotional development of children. By using the right strategies, teachers can instill values of respect, empathy and cultural sensitivity into their classroom. They also use teaching methods to prepare students for standardized testing. Your classroom philosophies and principles can vary based on your preferences as a teacher, your school mission statement, your subject areas and other factors.