Effective Teaching Strategies

Settling on effective teaching strategies is an ongoing pursuit that requires the interaction of teachers, students, parents, and administrators. A particular teacher may champion one approach for getting through to students but find him or herself shackled by the administration's rules. In other instances, it's administrators who are eager to implement new or innovative teaching strategies but find themselves heavily regulated by the school district.

Complicating the scenario even further is the fact that each child learns somewhat differently from the next. Some excel at "problem-based" learning, which has very practical and well-defined goals, while others thrive off the "discovery" approach, which is more open-ended. The same divergence exists when it comes to reading, writing, and language skills as well; there's simply no single approach that's universally effective.

What Are Parents and Teachers to Do?

If you're a parent or teacher at loggerheads with your school, there's only so much you can do. One option is for parents is to enroll their kids in after-school programs that take wholly different approaches to teaching. The only potential problem is that it's much easier to confuse young learners by offering two different sets of strategies. For this reason, a lot of parents simply suffer through ineffective teachers and curricula, much to the detriment of their children's education.

A second option is to invest in at-home learning aids that supplement the school's course work. Here, students are often given ways of incorporating new techniques for learning with those being taught in classrooms. While some teachers disparage the use of outside materials, many understand that these represent the best way for children to break out of ruts and become excited about learning, which can only be deemed a good thing.