Homeschool Support Group
As I was preparing to write about teaching styles, I was thinking about how homeschoolers teach and wondering what kind of information would be useful. In my thoughts, teaching styles, learning styles and curriculum choices were overlapping. Our learning styles and curriculum choices help us determine how we teach, or so I thought, so it was hard to figure out what to say unique about teaching styles.
After a bit of research, I found that regardless of which curriculum we use, we each have a method of teaching, a philosophy of education, a view of how and what our children should learn and a style that is unique to us. Thus, despite the fact that we teach in a different environment than most teachers, the ‘classical’ definitions and information about teaching styles are still relevant.
Reading about the various styles, made me think about my teaching style and I realized it varies from subject to subject, child to child, as well as environment and audience. As you look at some of the definitions and styles below, remember, your style will and should vary and it may not be the best one for your child. You may have to adapt to another style. Hopefully by learning the different methods that can be employed in teaching, we can become more competent and flexible teachers.
One of the sites I found on learning, The Learning Curve, discusses five different styles of teaching.
These styles deal with the way we interact with our students. Do we lecture (direct instruction), do we give some information then expect the student to continue the process (indirect method), do we discuss or allow discussion to occur, do we let our children work together to research and explore a subject, or do we allow self-directed learning where the student learns, researches, etc on his own? Hopefully, to allow the most benefit to our child(ren), we use a combination and consider how they play a part in their learning ability/processes.
One school of thought in learning is Blooms Hierarchy of Learning. Bloom breaks learning into three domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. Each of these domains addresses a different aspect of the child's learning. While I believe we need to be teaching the 'whole' child, I will focus only on the intellectual/cognitive domain for now.
The Cognitive Domain deals with the way we take in and process information, our intellectual ability. Understanding these are critical to teaching style, because we want to make sure we are teaching so the child will develop in all of the following areas:
The above list was taken from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/BloomsLD/ but is in the reverse order, usually Blooms hierarchy is read from the bottom up with the most complex skill listed at the top, I listed it from the simplest to the most complex. You can find more detailed information on Bloom's Taxonomy here
Your child can develop in all these abilities from your teaching with any of the styles listed above, but some are more conducive than others towards the various intellectual abilities. As you use the direct method of teaching, lecturing and informing the student, he/she will learn to recall and understand. With the indirect method, you will be helping them apply knowledge they have to new situations. By discussing and working in cooperative groups, they learn to analyze information, and come up with questions, independent thoughts and ideas (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Through self-directed learning they learn to put all of their learning abilities to use in a constructive manner.