The Learn By Doing Instructor...
Teaching IT, Is it better to be a Learn By Doing Instructor or would another Teaching Style be More Successful??
Is the CourseName a Descriptor for the type of Successful Instructor???
Having knowledge of your learning style is very important. Knowing whether you are a visual learner, audio learner, or kinesthetic learner will help instrutors deliver effective teaching to the classroom. Also, instructors have specific types of teaching styles that can be helpful. For example, lecture and verbal focus, visual focus, logical presentation, conceptual presentation, small group focus, or lecture with group discussion. As a result, learn by doing, shoud also be implemented in the classroom.
I agree that a variety of activities can help student internalize the information. I found that on whole it does not matter if students complete an individual or groups activity before or after they have had a lecture to highlight and illuminate the basic concepts
Hi Giovanni:
Hands on instruction will always complement the theory and facts that are needed, say for external certifications or credentials and licenses. But for learning, hands on is superior.
Regards, Barry
IT and computer science instruction seems to go best by having projects that let the students practice. I know I learned more by doing the projects than by listening to the instructor. A good textbook helps a lot as well.
Programming is really learned by doing, by most people. Administration tasks are learned by doing with lots of feedback.
Hi Daniel:
Great example. The teacher is a SME, and along with the textbook, having the time to "tinker" stimulates more synaptic episodes than someone giving information by lecture, for example.
(SME = Subject Matter Expert)
Regards, Barry
I recently took a training course to be a substitute teacher in my local school. In it they gave a factoid in which they gave the following slide:
Students learn:
HOW WE LEARN
10% of what we READ
20% of what we HEAR
30% of what we SEE
50% of what we BOTH SEE & HEAR
70% of what is DISCUSSED WITH OTHERS
80% of what we EXPERIENCE PERSONALLY
95% of what we TEACH someone else
Having interpretted the experience personally one has being equivalent to DOING, I have arranged my college math class (they are only taking math to meet a college requirement) to spend lots of time doing problems. To be truthful I am not very comfortable with this approach -- I miss the time spent by the board explaining. BUT I have managed to escape the dynamic of bored students watching me with only partial attention and have shifted the onus on to the students to ask for help with particular problems as they encounter them.
Anyway this is my experiment to see if more students can gain more by this approach than by the more traditional one.
Hi Donna:
Exactly! Additionally, having the students practice what they've learned by trying to teach it to another student can sometimes be an effective adjunct learning method for all types of learners.
Regards, Barry
Hi Kathleen:
That's very true. A variety of activities in the classroom can be most efficiently used to address all types of learning styles.
Regards, Barry
Hi Denise:
Great list! I too have found that having others teach can be a great way to reinforce information that has been discussed.
One thing to keep in mind for anyone who is considering this technique - the students must have a basic understanding of something before they can articulate anything about it. It might be difficult for ANYONE to teach something the same day they learned it.
Regards, Barry
