Fine-tuning your teaching
Here I want to explore the two things that should happen in all of our lessons: teaching and learning. They may be easy words to say but I wonder how many teachers have stopped to think about their lessons and, for example, considered the balance between the two activities and where there could be some fine-tuning to improve effectiveness. One way of approaching this issue is to identify features of effective teaching and effective learning as they might appear in an ideal world and then to relate them to our own everyday experiences in an often rather less than ideal world.
Effective teaching:
- teacher expertise and subject knowledge
- good relationships and rapport with learners enjoyment
- a range of teaching strategies
- clear communication with the learner
- good planning
- providing an appropriate challenge for the learner
- using assessment of progress to inform planning
- using rewards and sanctions
- helping learners to become independent
Effective learning:
- enjoyment
- concentration and perseverance
- skill acquisition
- enthusiasm
- a growing independence
You may, of course, wish to add to these lists. You may also be wondering about how best to monitor your own performance in lessons. One way is to make an audio, or better still, video recording of some lessons. You are then in a position to measure some key features about your own teaching, for example:
- How much praise do you give in one lesson?
- What range of praise do you use – words, stars, sweets etc?
- How many minutes of the lesson are you talking?
- How many minutes of the lesson is music being played?
- How many minutes does your pupil talk?
- Is the lesson boringly predictable e.g. always starts with scales?
- Is there a clear plan to the teaching?
- Is the teaching pro-active or re-active?
- Do your teaching strategies match the learning needs of each pupil?
It is difficult to be completely honest with yourself when undertaking such an exercise and that’s why, on the CT ABRSM course, we invite students to engage in a peer assessment exercise using a video of their own teaching. An undoubtedly painful process but as that time-honoured saying goes, ‘no pain, no gain’.
Finally, let’s go back to brain dominance for a moment and a simple strategy to improve your communication as a teacher. You may remember that each of us has a brain dominance pattern that gives us a dominant hand, ear, eye and foot. So, which side of your pupils do you sit or stand when you are teaching? It may be that your pearls of wisdom are being delivered to the ‘wrong’, or less effective, ear.