Other Teaching Techniques
Brainstorming
Situations for use:
Generate ideas (quantity is more important than quality)
Students have some level of experience
Planning Required:
Formulate the question
Plan for recording ideas
Brainstorming Steps
Pose question to class
Generate ideas with group
Accept all ideas (do not criticize)
Go back to summarize
Discard “unacceptable” or unworkable ideas
Determine the best solution(s)
Supervised Study
Common technique used in problem solving instruction, but certainly not the only
technique appropriate for problem solving instruction.
Also a major technique used in competency-based education programs.
Often misused technique. A really bad form of this technique is: Read the chapter
in the textbook and answer the questions at the end of the chapter.
Would be classified as an individualized instruction technique
Situations Appropriate for Use
Discovery or inquiry learning is desired
Access to good reference materials (textbooks, extension publications, web
resources, industry publications, etc.)
Students may need to “look up” information
May be alternate answers that are acceptable
Many structured lab activities are actually a form of supervised study
Strengths:
Provides skills in learning that are useful throughout students’ lives. They need to
know how to locate and analyze information.
Recall is enhanced when student have to “look up” information, rather than being
lectured to.
Students have to decide what information is important and related to the question
posed.
Opportunity for students to develop writing and analytical skills.
Weaknesses:
Easy for students to get off-task.
Students may interpret questions differently and locate incorrect information
(practicing error).
Unmotivated students will do the absolute minimum.
Students tend to copy information from sources rather than analyze and
synthesize information
Requires more time than lecture
Relies on students being able to read and comprehend information at the
appropriate level
Procedures in Conducting Supervised Study:
Teacher develops a list of study questions for students to answer.
Resources and reference materials are located or suggested to students as
possible sources of answers.
Students are given time in class to find answers to the questions and to record
the answers in their notes.
Note: Due to time constraints, teachers may want to assign different questions to
specific students, so that every student is not looking for the same information.
Summary consists of discussing the correct answers to the questions with the
entire class.
Note: Teachers must be careful to emphasize that incorrect answers must be
corrected.
Role of the Teacher:
Develop a list of study questions that focus on the objectives of the lesson
Develop the anticipated answers to the questions-it is important that the teacher
have a firm idea of what are correct or incorrect answers.
Establish time frame for completing the activity. Students need to feel a sense of
urgency, so don’t give them more time than you think they will need.
Supervise during this activity. NOT A TIME TO GRADE PAPERS, MAKE PHONE
CALLS, PLAN FOR THE NEXT LESSON, OR LOCATE THE ANSWERS TO THE
QUESTIONS IN THIS LESSON!
Assist students in locating information, but do not find it for them.
Keep students on task and eliminate distractions.
Plan for reporting of answers
Small Group Discussion
Also Called:
Buzz Groups
Huddle Groups
Phillips 66
— 6 people per group
— 6 ideas to be generated
— 6 minutes
Advantages:
Increased participation
Good for generating ideas
Cooperative activity (students learn from each other)
Planning Required
Clearly form the question or topic
Develop a plan for grouping the students
Plan for reporting
Summarize the activity (what they should have learned)
Conducting Small Group Discussion
Write question or topic on board or handout
Give specific instructions on how the group will operate
Establish time limits
Circulate among the groups to help keep them on task (Not as a participant!)
Give warning near end of time allocated
Reports: Rotate among the groups for answers
Games
Situations for use:
Motivate students
Reviews
Check for understanding
Strengths:
Active learning technique
Appeals to competitive students
High interest level
Planning Required
Game must be developed by teacher
Rules must be established. Try to anticipate all potential situations that might
occur. You do not want the effectiveness of the activity to be destroyed by
arguments over rules.
Develop a plan for determining teams
Develop plan for keeping score
Determine rewards-make them appropriate (usually very minor in nature)
Types: Games may take a variety of forms, but most often they are modeled after:
TV game shows
Sports
Home board games
Field Trips and Resource Persons
Situations for use:
First hand experiences are needed
Need expertise
Planning Needed:
Objectives
Trial run/visit
Special considerations (safety, grouping, etc.)
Summarize (don’t give up responsibility!). It is critical to know what the students
have learned from the activity.
Tips:
Provide advance organizers (report forms, fact sheets)
“plant” questions among students
Assign students to begin the questions
With-it-ness – The teacher knows what is going on in the classroom at all times.
Seemingly, the teacher has eyes in the back of his/her head. This is not only when the
teacher is in a small group setting, but when he/she is presenting a topic or students are
working as individuals. It can be as simple as looking around the room frequently or
making sure your back is never turned to the class. It is not necessary to know what the
teacher knows is going on-it is what the students believe she knows
Other Helpful Info on Student Control
The Hawthorne effect is a phenomenon in industrial psychology first observed
in the 1920s that refers to improvements in productivity or quality resulting from the
mere fact that workers were being studied or observed.
Pygmalion effect (or Rosenthal effect) which refers to situations in which
students performed better than other students simply because they were expected to do
so.
Placebo effect, the phenomenon that a patient’s symptoms can be alleviated by
an otherwise ineffective treatment, apparently because the individual expects or
believes that it will work.
John Henry Effect has also been identified: an experiment may spur
competition between groups, precisely because they are conscious of being part of an
experiment. The term “halo effect” describes what happens when a scientific
observation is influenced by the observer’s perceptions of the individual, procedure, or
service that is under observation. The observer’s prejudices, recollections of previous
observations, and knowledge about prior observations or findings can all affect
objectivity and must be guarded against.
JACOB KOUNIN All of this came about from an incident that happened while he
was teaching a class in Mental Hygiene. A student in the back of the class was reading
newspaper, the newspaper being opened fully in front of the student so that he couldn’t
see the teacher. Kounin asked the student to put the paper away and pay attention.
Once the student complied, Kounin realized that other students who were engaging in
non- appropriate behaviors (whispering, passing notes) stopped and began to pay
attention to the lecture. This gave him an interest in understanding classroom discipline
on not only the student being disciplined, but also the other students in the classroom.
This is the effect that became known as the “Ripple Effect”
