The desire to bring in and encourage new and refreshed teaching strategies to the table is perhaps the best quality a tutor can have. As for experts, they say that an effective teacher would renew themselves in their professional career, always striving for ways to provide the highest quality of education to their students. Such a teacher would never be afraid to explore new areas, fields, and techniques to enhance the overall teaching-learning experience. There are numerous cutting edge vetted teaching products online that can help out educational organizations like yours. For that, you need to do extensive research and select a credible consultant/advisor for the same.
To begin with, you should primarily put all your attention to classroom management strategies. According to a latest research done by a reputed institute, educators reported lack of professional development assistance for improving the strategies of classroom management. This may lead to confusion for the students and present new challenges to the tutors. Whenever students have the best understanding of what are the levels of expectations from them, they is the higher chance of them being being engaged as well as focused with the studying materials. Some of the best tips to create a positive building environment include:
- Modeling of ideal behaviour, which puts assertion on explaining proper behaviour, and then you, as the tutor, following the same.
- Encouraging and appreciating initiatives taken up by the student. This allows students become proactive in the numerous class discussions that includes exercises and assessments.
- Actively prevent collective punishment as that may bring down the moral of the whole student group or a set of sub-group. Alternatively, you should call out individual names who are engaging in troublesome acts as well as behaviour.
In addition, you can arrange for flexible seating in the classroom. When tutors and instructors connect student seating and academics, that can be immensely beneficial for fostering the teacher-student relationship. When the students are not trying to hold themselves in the seating arrangements, that can integrate tactile and visual systems present in the body. There are several ways by which you can incorporate flexible seating into the classroom and make a better relationship with the students. That said, choose something that suits the learning objectives of your students.
Furthermore, you can implement Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DoK) in your teaching strategies. There are four levels to it (recollection and reproduction, knowledge application, strategic thinking, and extended critical thinking). As students move forward from one level to another, they will encounter or face contexts in the form of assessments that require learning and thinking at an intensive cognitive stage. The final level to pass the hurdle would involve students in solving a real-world issue that uses a blend of contents from various subjects.
Author - The author is a blogger and the article is about cutting edge teaching techniques.