Teaching Portfolio
Teaching Strategies
Success in the art of teaching requires content knowledge as well as teaching strategies. The teaching strategy, “Introduction/Presentation”, refers to students’ prior knowledge by the use of questions and/or presentations of pictures/words or homework that was assigned the night before to help students start thinking about the topic that is going to be taught. Teacher: (looks at students) How many of you recently walked down a street with buildings on both sides? (some students raise their hands) Okay. Today we’re going to learn how to draw that scene. Introduction/Presentation helps students connect prior knowledge to the topic they are currently learning. This strategy also helps the teacher, who is able to assess what students know and do not know. Demonstration is the teaching strategy where the teacher first shows the steps to the instructions of the project that the students will be completing in the classroom. Teacher: (points to the board) Okay, let’s start. One of the most important lines that you need when drawing one-point perspective is the horizon line. (holds ruler horizontally on the chalkboard) So, place your ruler in the middle of the paper, relatively a little lower than the half point of the paper, like so. Demonstration is a great way to help students see visually how a concept and/or procedure is created. Demonstration skills not only breaks down the task into smaller steps, provide visual processes, they also include tips and suggestions that teachers give students to think about the task at hand and why certain steps are necessary to creating a successful final piece. Questioning has two parts; the first involves the teacher asking questions that requires critical thinking and can inspire students to create new ideas, and the second pertains to students questioning the subject they’re learning as well as their own artistic progression. Teacher: (in front of class) Please by yourselves right now answer the following questions by jotting down at least three ideas and explanations for each question. “What is an advertisement?” “When is an advertisement successful?” “Are advertisements considered as art?” I will give you ten minutes to complete. The crucial aspect to questioning is the type of inquiry asked. Only the open-ended and thought-provoking kinds will allow students to reevaluate their own thinking and processes. Only by questioning does one learn more and have a better grasp of the idea, topic, and/or process. Teachers are also able to better monitor student learning progression. Wait time is the brief time that teachers give students to think about and answer the question that was just posed by the teacher. Teacher: What qualities make a successful advertisement? You can think about what qualities make an advertisement unsuccessful as well. The teacher waits about 3 to 4 seconds while she looks around the room. Wait-time is crucial in the classroom because it takes time for the brain to process the question. The brain first needs to grasp what the question is asking for then dig into prior knowledge and long-term memory for information already learned to help with forming the answer. Wait-time is also important because it allows all students to have the same time to think of an answer before raising their hands. Journal keeping is a teaching strategy that asks students to keep a journal daily or weekly. The length of time that the journal is kept depends on the teacher. Student 1: (writes in journal for Day 1) Today in class we learned about facial expressions; ex. happy, angry, sad, shocked, stressed, determined, etc. Facial expressions are important because we can tell how other people without them needing to say a word. Journals help students keep the information they have learned from the classroom and outside of school in one area, allow students to elaborate on a concept they understand and/or do not as well as allow both the student and teacher to track the students’ learning progression. Teaching strategies are crucial to use in the classroom to give students’ a variety of learning methods. Full Teaching Strategies |