Effective Teaching Strategies

Being a good teacher means learning effective teaching strategies. Many teachers like to choose one strategy and stick with it all the time. Some people style themselves as disciplinarians, believing in an old school method of educating that requires absolute obedience. Other people take an extremely laid-back approach, giving their students as much freedom as possible and believing that learning has to come from inside. The best teachers, however, are the ones that are flexible. They don't have their own pet effective teaching strategies. Rather, they are willing to take strategies from anywhere that works.

A lot of the time, people miss the boat on effective teaching strategy. Problems that look to be primarily behavioral often come about as a result of learning disabilities. Kids who have trouble reading might start to act out out of frustration. The school districts, meanwhile, sometimes will catch them acting out without dealing with the source of it the fact that the kid can't read.

Many of the best effective strategies for teaching reading have gone out of style recently. A lot of kids fall through the cracks because of whole language reading programs. Unlike phonics-based reading, whole language doesn't really give learning disabled kids the tools to sound out new words. These kids, because they don't have a natural instinct for reading that is as well developed as other children simply never learn to read from whole language alone.

Fortunately, there are plenty of effective teaching strategies to help learning disabled kids. Using word lists, phonics rules, mnemonic devices, and many other educational strategies, these kids can learn to read. Interestingly enough, however, these are also some of the most effective teaching strategies for other students. There are areas where the old methods are the best.

Still, sometimes exploratory education works better than an old school, teacher centric model of the classroom. When students are challenged to ask questions and solve problems, they learn how to think on their own. While they're doing this, of course, they also get to develop mathematical, reading, and science skills. It doesn't work for all kids, but it is a great program for many. Some students need a more structured classroom, however, so it is wise to divide your time between different effective teaching strategies. That way, both the students who like to listen to lectures and those who like to explore on their own get something.