Different styles of teaching
Irina
This article suggests specific ways in which college teachers can foster relationships with students that promote motivation and satisfaction. The techniques presented here were organized into groups of techniques dealing with 1) fostering personal relationships with students, 2) obtaining regular feedback from them, 3) motivating students to work through effective classroom leadership, 4) showing special attention to certain types of students, and 5) handling miscellaneous interpersonal issues.events early in the term do not harm the development of rapport but have limited power to produce it, are not likely to be attended by the students who most need rapport, and cannot offset distancing or rejecting remarks by the teacher in class. Some college teachers try to promote rapport and reduce their classroom image as authority figures by dressing casually, encouraging students to call them by their first names, or giving students considerable freedom to select the work they do. Others encourage informal interaction with students outside classrooms by scheduling conferences, sponsoring parties or picnics, inviting students to lunch, or holding class meetings outside on the grass or in their homes. Unfortunately, none of these strategies ensures satisfied students. Furthermore, none are necessary for interpersonal rapport to develop and for students to be highly motivated. The students most likely to call the instructor by his or her first name or to accept social invitations are the ones who already feel relatively comfortable, not those who are most in need of special attention. Many students find the novelty of calling their first name. This novelty or comfort of calling first names of instructors is superficial and is no quick substitute for a real relationship period near the beginning of a course, this comfort is developed over time. As Kenneth Eble observes in The Craft of Teaching [3, p. 73], the best strategy for developing rapport «may be no more formal than providing excuses and opportunities for easy talk.» One-to-one interactions with students in the second half of a course are likely to be more meaningful than those that occur earlier. The subtleties of a college teacher «s behavior toward a class throughout the term do more to produce an optimal class atmosphere than sweeping structural changes at the beginning (» «Let's move the chairs back and sit on the floor»). Personal Relationships with Students. The easiest way to begin forming personal relationships with students is to learn their names. Nothing so impresses students as a college teacher who makes a serious effort to get to know them as individuals. Any instructor can learn to match up to 50 student names with faces in the first few classes if he or she approaches the task with a positive attitude and commitment. With practice, some may be able to learn up to 100. Learning each student «s name is so effective at promoting rapport because it begins personal contact immediately but does not seem forced, rushed, or intrusive. When we meet a new colleague, we learn his or her name as the first step in forming a working relationship; so it should be between college teacher and student. Learning them in class requires a large amount of ey...
