Teaching

Instructional delivery is the most important factor in teaching. If you do not know how you are going to teach, your students will not be able to learn properly. There are many different types of instructional delivery methods, whether it is just standing in the front of a classroom and reading off of a premade presentation, or you are physically doing an activity with the students to show them how it should work. Any way of teaching is a good method as long as the information is clear and easy to understand, can be presented in a timely manner, and the students are gaining knowledge from it.

One of my favorite methods of instructional delivery is when a teacher uses guided notes with students. This method is very helpful because it highlights the important information that the students need to know. And, if the note guide is made by the teacher, they can make sure that students are learning certain parts by filling in blanks related to that topic, and also have a bit of information on the not as necessary details by simply having it already completed on the note guide. Since the notes are mostly done, it allows the students the luxury to pay attention to what the teacher is saying instead of frantically scribbling down unnecessary facts. The downside to this method is that students could get bored easily. The repetitiveness of just filling in blanks can annoy the students and discourage them from doing the work. When I observed Teacher A, who taught an AP World History class, he used guided notes when teaching his students. It was obvious that some students enjoyed this method, as they were looking at the teacher and the board, asking questions, and making sure they got every detail written down. However, other students were not interested in guided notes, since they were staring off into space, fiddling with their pencils, and lazily writing things down. According to Nancy A. Neef, Brandon E. McCord, and Summer J. Ferreri in their essay “Effects of Guided Notes Versus Completed Notes during Lectures on College Students’ Quiz Performance”, students who take Guided Notes not only learn more, but they also enjoy the class more. The students were able to learn more from what the teacher was saying, instead of what they were writing down. This is important because the teachers usually include more details in their speaking, rather than the notes. Students who used the completed notes also did well on quizzes, but focused more on memorizing than learning. They did not retain any information, and instead learned certain points and did not actually care about or connect to what they were learning. In another article titled “Guided Notes Improving the Effectiveness of Your Lectures”, by William L. Heward, it details the reasons why we should use guided notes. They can help students identify important information, help them actively engage in listening, and be more organized. This is similar to the class with Teacher A that I was observing. The students in that class who took guided notes did better on their assessment because they could think back to the notes and what parts were the most important, using that in their writing.

This is different from my observation of Teacher C, who taught a health class, where she had the students fully take their own notes. Those students did not pay attention at all, and sometimes were not even writing things down. When the teacher would ask them questions about the notes, they would remain silent since they did not actually learn or retain the information. Overall, guided notes are a great way to have students truly learn information, keep their attention, and allow students to remember certain important details.

Not all methods of instructional delivery are as effective. One type of learning both students and teachers seemed to dislike was group work. Group work is when a small group of students work together to learn about a topic, usually by doing some sort of activity or project. Teachers chose to use this method because it seems like less work for them- they do not need to present and talk through notes in front of the class, and the students would be the ones who are both teaching the information to each and learning at the same time. But, the reality of this method is that the teacher needs to be monitoring multiple groups of students to make sure they stay on topic, and help them through any questions or problems they might have. At that point, it is more time and energy consuming to do group work than to just go through notes. Another problem with this technique is how to organize the groups. If the class has an uneven amount of students, then some groups will have more students than others. This would cause students to think that some groups are getting an unfair advantage since they have more people to work on the same amount of work as the rest of the class. If the teacher allows the students to choose their groups, then the students are likely to choose their friends. If they choose their friends, they probably would not get any work done, and instead would just chatter about topics unrelated to their work. If the teacher, however, puts them in groups of their choosing, they will not want to talk to people that they do not know, causing the groups to work individually, rather than collaboratively. Lastly, the students could be placed with one or two of their friends in the group. The friends would work with each other, excluding the other members of the group. All three of these scenarios would impact the students' learning.

Still, there are positives to this method of group work. It would teach the students how to work together, even with people they dislike or do not get along with. And, it would boost the classroom culture, as students become more comfortable with each other and learn together. If all of them can participate in the group well and stay on task, this should be less work for the teacher. They can stay up at their desk and do work and get up when they are called over by the students, or they can be constantly walking around and participating in groups themselves.

When I observed Teacher B, a physics teacher, and Teacher D, a chemistry teacher, they used group work a lot. Whether it was having students go to lab tables to do a project, or just having students turn and talk about a problem on the screen at their seats, these classes were the most likely to utilize the group work method. The students seemed to have chosen their own groups since they would talk about gossip after they finished their work. They finished their work relatively quickly, most likely wanting to get their work done so they could talk to each other.

According to Bradley Busch and InnerDrive in their article “10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Classroom Group Work”, there are many positives and negatives to this method. A few benefits are gaining new perspectives, improving teamwork skills, and learning how to overcome conflict. These are all good life skills to have, and it is imperative to teach in schools so that the students are prepared for their life in the future. If you do not know how to do things like work together with other people or look at situations from multiple viewpoints, you will not be a functioning member of society. On the contrary, some disadvantages are that group work is time consuming, leads to students being off-task, and conflict can arise. These situations are obviously not good, and can affect the quality of the classroom, and ruin the students' learning experience. As you can see, the possibility of conflict is both a positive and a negative. It may be a good educational experience for the students to learn how to resolve a problem on their own, that is often not the case. When a problem arises in a group of children or teenagers, they are typically not the ones to solve it. If anything, they will make it worse and begin arguing, deterring them from their assignment.

Overall, group work can be a great way to teach students about compromising, collaborative skills, and to build classroom culture. But, its negatives, like causing conflicts, off task behavior, and time consumption, are greater than its positives.

Finding the right delivery method is a trial and error process, and can not be done within your first few years of teaching. However, with that being said, there are certain methods that just would not work in some classes, like a lecture in a gym class. It is important to get other people’s opinions so you can make sense of what you want to do. So, examine the type of class you teach, get other peoples opinions on their favorite type of teaching method, and find one that works for you.