Page 38 - Teaching Principles and Methods Student Textbook short

Study Section 8: Various Teaching Methods

8.1 Connect

You can study diligently and come up with some real gems in God’s Word, but until you can
communicate those gems to a group of people, only you are blessed. The skill of
presentation is equally important as the ability of mining gems. There is an infinite number
of ways to share information to others. But most teachers utilize a few methods to do so.
Today we are going to look at some of these methods and give you the pros and cons of
each.

8.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to describe the limitations to presentation of information and a
good teacher understands them and operates within their boundaries.

2. The student should be able to explain that some methods of teaching are best used with
large groups and some others with smaller groups of students.

8.3 Various Teaching Methods

There is no one set method a teacher must employ to communicate information to the
learner and to insure that learning is happening. Have you heard the saying, “Variety is the
spice of life?” That is true, especially for the sake of those who sit on the receiving end of a
class. You will find that your class will respond to your teaching style if you use several
methods.

“The mind can only receive what the seat can endure.”

Here is a saying that is so true: “The mind can only receive what the seat can endure.”
Sitting an hour listening to someone drone on using a lecture method will result in very little
learning. Use methods that take into account the amount of time the student in your age
group can actually concentrate. That amount of time is shorter than you think.

For example, the average attention span for a goldfish is 9 seconds. Not many of your will
teach goldfish, so you don’t really need to know that. Younger children can have an
attention span of 10-15 minutes and older children can hang in there about 15 – 20 minutes
maximum. The average attention span for an adult varies, but typically an adult can retain
concentration about 30 minutes. After that, and adult’s mind will tend to wander. College students can
push 50 minutes.

This means if you create a lecture for 50 minutes, not only will the retention be about 10%, but after
around 30 minutes the majority of the class will shut down to almost zero percent retention. An
effective teacher will incorporate several methods within a class that will take attention spans into
account. Mixing methods resets the attention span on a new mental clock the moment the teacher
makes the shift.

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