The Science of Teaching
Teaching is partly a science and partly an art. Usually people enjoy teaching for one or more of the following reasons: 1) They enjoy passing on their collection of knowledge and experience. 2) They delight in seeing a student’s face light up when something seemingly difficult turns out to be quite simple. 3) They enjoy breaking the dogma that some subjects or topics are inherently too obscure or difficult. They love the challenge of taking an “obscure” topic and systematically breaking it down into easily digestible parts.
There are some simple and concrete ways to improve your teaching skills. Just carry out the basic steps involved in teaching as follows: 1) Gathering information from books, journals etc. 2) Analyzing the information (and thereby understanding it) 3) Ordering the information Often these three steps are merged into one, and the information is taken from a single book. 4) Wording the lecture in a language palatable to the students. 5) Rehearsing the lecture and anticipating the areas in which the student is likely to have difficulty. 6) Displaying the information (on the blackboard, whiteboard, or screen).
7) Delivering the lecture in a lucid manner, pausing, asking rhetorical questions, and intentionally repeating some parts. 8) Constantly taking feedback from the students: sometimes by simple eye contact, sometimes by direct questions. 9) Keeping the class engrossednot letting the students drift away into dreamland. 10) Conducting regular quizzes to test the understanding of the students. 11) Maintaining continuity from lecture to lecture. 12) Keeping the atmosphere in the class light and friendly. As you can see, good teaching involves effort. A lazy person can never be a great teacher.
Miscellaneous Tips 1) Keep your writing and figures neat and legible 2) Word your sentences well. Avoid long, convoluted sentences. 3) Keep your diction loud and clear. Talk to the students, not to the blackboard. 4) Avoid using a monotonous voice. A monotonous voice is guaranteed to put the students to sleep, especially after a good lunch. 5) Give the students time to comfortably copy the contents of the blackboard. 6) Clarify doubts before wiping the blackboard.
7) When starting a new subject, carefully study the prerequisites 7) When starting a new subject, carefully study the prerequisites. Even if you spend two or three lectures on the review, it will pay rich dividends. 8) At the beginning of each class, briefly review what you taught in the previous class. This helps in maintaining continuity. 9) Formulas and facts that will be used often during the lecture should be prominently displayed throughout the lecture. For this purpose, you can reserve a part of the blackboard or use a separate display system such as a whiteboard or a flipchart. 10) No matter how many times you have taught the subject before, you should always review the lecture and try to improve upon it or add to it. 11) No matter how many times you have taught the subject before, you should always rehearse the lecture before teaching.
12) Use your notes wisely a) Never give an extempore 12) Use your notes wisely a) Never give an extempore. b) Never teach a class without having your notes handy. c) Never read directly from the notes (except when dictating). 13) You should have the guts to say “I don’t know.” Never feed your students erroneous information just to protect your ego. It really isn’t so hard to say “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure.” But do add “I shall think about it and let you know in the next class Your students will trust you all the more for it.
14). Last but not the least, try to inject some light humor or tell a 14) Last but not the least, try to inject some light humor or tell a few simple, non-controversial jokes. This will keep the students awake and attentive. To sum up, teaching is largely a science and can be mastered by one and all. Teaching requires effort: please don’t be lazy. Once you have become a good teacher, you are ready to use art to become a great teacher.
Thank You