4 Teaching Styles That Serve as Barriers to Student Development

Are you aware that the use of ineffective teaching methods could block a student’s potential for overall development? They range from cognitive processes to behavioral patterns. However, they all have one crucial thing in common: they slow down growth and make a teacher’s job even harder.

Think back to your school days – did you have any teachers that were just, well, not that great at their jobs? Or maybe there are a few teachers you know now who are not that competent.

Undeniably, it isn’t up to us to critically evaluate them, but what we absolutely should do is understand the barriers to student development. From the wise words of Buddha, “The mind is everything. What you think you become.” That means our mind is responsible for the actions we take. During the process of student development, ineffective teaching methods have highly affected our thinking and behavior. Consequently, such teaching mechanisms compel us to believe that we are not good at certain subjects. Instead, all we need is a different approach.

So, in this post, we’ll be sharing a few of the most unproductive and ineffective teaching methods that serve as barriers to student development.

1. Teaching without management

Classrooms are critical when it comes to learning. A standardized classroom would be of enormous help to both teachers and their students. It allows teachers to get every student on board the learning process and ensure they learn at a suitable pace. In many institutes, only the students who sit at the front rows gain from what the instructor teaches. Those who sit at the back are often clueless about the lecture and have the attention span of a parrot. Here, the teacher must unbiasedly lead every student and keep them on the same page.

The teacher’s job is to practice educational leadership and collaborate with all the students through active participation in projects and discussions. For this purpose, educational institutes must train teachers to master outstanding teaching styles that shape students to become active learners. Thanks to the advent of online education, teachers can now opt for a masters in educational leadership online and create optimal learning environments for students.

Student recognition is also important in encouraging students to study more. Teachers who often reward students with little prizes or customized awards will likely find themselves with a highly participative class.

2. Failing to establish relevance

Students tend to learn best when they visibly see the relevance of course content to their career goals and interests. The “trust me” approach to teaching (“You may not understand this now, but trust me, in a few years this information will come in handy”) does not inspire students. Only those who are motivated by grades tend to follow this approach. 

Teachers must begin the course by explaining how the content relates to significant social and technological problems to offer better motivation. They should align the students’ interests and goals with their methods of teaching. After all, if there are no such connections, the students might never want to learn. 

Teachers must apply inductive teaching methods, such as problem-based and guided inquiry learning, which generally includes real-world problems.

3. Teaching without clear objectives

The traditional approach to teaching is to create assignments and lectures that cover topics listed in the curriculum, give exams on those topics, and move forward. This approach fails to determine whether students have developed the concepts or not.  

A key to making tests fair and courses coherent is to write learning objectives – explicit outcomes. The goals should specify observable actions (explain, solve, critique, define, design, and model), avoiding unobservable and vague terms like appreciate, understand, and learn. The more elaborate you are about your goals, the more likely the students will reach them. Nothing clarifies potentials like upright learning objectives.

4. Teaching through PowerPoint

It has become common for teachers to put their lectures into PowerPoint and spend the entire class time droning through the slides. Such classes are generally a waste of time and are meaningless. 

Besides being a waste, teaching through PowerPoint means no interaction with students, a strict order of slides, and an uncontrolled presentation speed. In addition, slides limit learners’ understanding. They may only review a topic’s key points instead of diving deep into it. 

If the students don’t have case studies or articles to back the topic, there is no way they can keep up. Today, academicians urge education institutes to teach students subjects through the utilization of case studies and articles. It allows them to understand concepts in real-world scenarios and relate with them better.

Conclusion

That concludes our list of ineffective teaching methods that are the root cause of breeding unproductive brains. Instead of sticking to old and useless teaching methods (that serve no purpose to the modern world), teachers should use other improved and progressive ways of learning.

Modern teaching methods are more activity-based; they encourage students to participate. Moreover, incorporating collaborative learning, crossover learning, and technology would help cultivate a new attitude, bring confidence, and remove fear among students.