Teaching methods

Teaching methods have a long history and relate to the questions, "What is the purpose of education?" and "What are the best ways of achieving these purposes?" For much of human history, educational method was largely unconscious and consisted of children imitating or modelling their behaviour on that of their elders, learning through observation and play. In this sense the children are the students and the elder is the teacher. A teacher creates the course materials to be taught and then enforces it. Pedagogy is usually the different ways a teacher can teach. It is the art or science of being a teacher, generally referring to strategies of instruction or style of instruction. Resources that help teachers teach better are typically a lesson plan or practical skill involving learning and thinking skills. (Palmer) A curriculum is set by the Government with precise standards. These standards can change frequently, depending on what the Government states.

Diversity in Teaching in the Classroom
A teacher has many options when choosing a style to teach by. The teacher may write lesson plans of their own, borrow plans from other teachers, or search online or within books for lesson plans. Teachers know that students learn in different ways. Students take in information and demonstrations of knowledge differently too. When deciding what ‘’’teaching method’’’ to use, a teacher will need to consider students background knowledge, environment, and learning goals. Teachers use multiple means of knowledge to help students learn and strengthen understanding. Teachers know these needs are important, so a variety of strategies and methods are used to insure that all students have equal opportunities to learn. A lesson plan may be carried out in several ways: Questioning, explaining, modeling, collaborating, and demonstrating. (Palmer)

Questioning
A teaching method that includes questioning is similar to testing. A teacher may ask a series of questions to collect information of what students have learned and what needs to be taught. Testing is another method of questioning. A teacher tests the student on what was previously taught in order to identify if a student has learned. Standardized testing is in about every Middle School and High School. (i.e. Ohio Graduation Test (OGT), Proficiency Test, College entrance Tests (ACT and SAT))

Explaining
Another teaching method is explanation. This form is similar to lecturing. Lecturing is teaching, giving a speech, by giving a discourse on some subject that is open to the public, usually given in classroom. This can also be associated with demonstrating and modeling. A teacher may use experimentation to demonstrate in a science class. A demonstration is the circumstance of proving conclusively, as by reasoning or showing evidence. Modeling is used as a visual aid to learning. Students can visual an object or problem, then use reasoning and hypothesizing to determine an answer.

Demonstrating
Demonstrations are done to provide an opportunity in learning new exploration and visual learning tasks from a different perspective. Demonstrations can be exercised in several ways. PowerPoint is a program that allows the teacher to put together a presentation to present to the class on a computer projector. (NBCDET)

Collaborating
Students’ working in groups is another way a teacher can enforce a lesson plan. Collaborating allows students to talk among each other and listen to all view points of discussion or assignment. It’s helps students think in an unbiased way. When this lesson plan is carried out the teacher may be trying to assess the lesson of working as a team, leadership skills, or presenting with roles.

Learning by teaching (LdL)
Learning by teaching is a widespread method in Germany (Jean-Pol Martin). The students take the teacher's role and teach their peers. An important target is developing websensibility.

Ancient education
About 3000 BC, with the advent of writing, education became more conscious or self-reflective, with specialized occupations requiring particular skills and knowledge--how to be a scribe, an astronomer, etc.

Philosophy in ancient Greece led to questions of educational method entering national discourse. In his Republic, Plato describes a system of instruction that he felt would lead to an ideal state. In his Dialogues, Plato describes the Socratic method.

It has been the intent of many educators since then--such as the Roman educator Quintilian--to find specific, interesting ways to encourage students to use their intelligence and to help them to learn.

Medieval education
Comenius, in Bohemia, wanted all boys and girls to learn. In his The World in Pictures he gave the first vivid, illustrated textbook which contained much that children would be familiar with in everyday life and use it to teach the academic subjects they needed to know. Rabelais described how the student Gargantua learned about the world and what is in it.

Much later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Emile, presented methodology to teach children the elements of science and much more. In this he famously eschewed books, saying the world is one's book. And so Emile was brought out into the woods without breakfast to learn the cardinal directions and the positions of the sun as he found his way home for something to eat.

Then there is Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi of Switzerland, whose methodology during Napoleonic warfare enabled refugee children, of a class believed to be unteachable, to learn – and love to learn. He describes this in his account of the educational experiment at Stanz. He felt the key to have children learn is for them to be loved. But his method, though transmitted later in the school for educators he founded, has been thought too unclear to be taught today. One result was, when he would ask, "Children, do you want to learn more or go to sleep?" would they reply, "Learn more!"

20th century
In the 20th century, the philosopher Eli Siegel, who believed that all children are equally capable of learning regardless of ethnic background or social class, stated: "The purpose of all education is to like the world through knowing it." This is a goal which is implicit in previous educators but in this principle is made conscious. With this principle at basis, teachers, predominantly in New York, have found that students learn the curriculum with the kind of eagerness that Pestalozzi describes for his students at Stanz centuries earlier.

Many current teaching philosophies are aimed at fulfillng the precepts of a curriculum based on Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE). Arguably the qualities of a SDAIE curriculum are as effective if not more so for all 'regular' classroom.

Some critical ideas in today's education evironment include:
 * Instructional scaffolding
 * Graphic organizers
 * Standardized testing

According to Dr. Shaikh Imran, the teaching methodology in education is a new concept in the teaching learning process. New methods involved in the teaching learning process are television, radio, computer, etc.

Other educators believe that the use of technology, while facilitating learning to some degree, is not a substitute for educational method that brings out critical thinking and a desire to learn. Another modern teaching method is inquiry learning and the related inquiry-based science

Elvis H. Bostwick recently concluded Dr. Cherry's quantitative study "The Interdisciplinary Effect of Hands On Science”, a three-year study of 3920 middle school students and their Tennessee State Achievement scores in Math, Science, Reading and Social Studies. Metropolitan Nashville Public School is considered urban demographically and can be compared to many of urban schools nationally and internationally. This study divided students on the basis of whether they had hands on trained teachers over the three-year period addressed by the study. Conclusions: Students who had a hands-on trained science teacher for one or more years had statistically higher standardized test scores in science, math and social studies. For each additional year of being taught by a hands-on trained teacher the student’s grades increased.