Teaching Strategies

(Applying strategies for creating interest, motivating students, promoting participation, and enhancing student performance)

Piggybacking off of different thinking, I believe it is a teacher/mentor's job to adjust their thinking to other people. It's not the students job to learn the way I teach, it is my job as a mentor to adjust my teaching to the way different students learn.

I often begin a mentoring or teaching session by making it clear "If you do not understand what I am talking about, you need to let me know, so I can try something else." I want the student to know it is ok to ask questions or express when they're not tracking.

I have seen many examples in my years of teaching, mentoring, and training that often people will stay silent rather than risk looking like a fool. This means I as a mentor need to develop different ways and avenues of teaching what I know and understand to other people.

Letting a student know from jump that they have a voice and an opinion that matters is a key feature in keeping students engaged and participating in the learning process. I fundamentally believe that an educator's job is to adapt their own teaching styles and methods to meet the different styles of thinking you will run into in the classroom (digital or physical).

This point was really drilled home to me when I was working as a TA and Admin at a specialist school for children with autism and otters developmental disabilities in my mid 20's. Each of the students I worked and engaged with had specialized educational and behavioral plans you had to know and switch between with different students in the same classroom. Understanding the communicative barriers with some students.

It all reinforces the belief of see each person you teach as a person, with their own experiences and understandings, and to meet them where they are to lead them where they want them to go.