Simple and Successful Teaching Strategies

Being a teacher isn't easy, but one thing it most definitely could be labeled as is rewarding. The feeling of pride and happiness you extract from helping a struggling pupil to fulfill their potential is one you'd be hard pushed in recreating elsewhere, with only a select few occupations offering this kind of non-financial reward. In order to achieve this sense of complete satisfaction - for you and the student you're helping - take a look at some of these tried and tested teaching strategies.

Show interest and enthusiasm - It's been proven by countless child psychologists that children learn off those who look after and nurture them - be it a parent, guardian, or teacher at school. If you show that you're keen and enthusiastic about a topic, this is increasingly likely to rub off on the students you are teaching - making them motivated and focused on their learning.

Understand and respect students - By showing that you care about the success of your pupils and want them to achieve as highly as they can, you are giving them a reason to work hard and maintain high levels of concentration. If you appear detached and as if you wish be elsewhere, pupils are less likely to conform to your rules and follow instructions relating to tasks. After all, it's worth remembering: respect is a two-way street.

Clear goal and target setting - If you want students to succeed, you need to give them something to aim for. Don't provide an unrealistic challenge; setting a child up to fail is highly likely to result in de-motivation and a loss of confidence for all of those involved.

Look at their current ability, and set something slightly above this to push them towards making an improvement. Try and focus on one specific area of learning at a time, whilst keeping goals within a set time limit.

Conduct accurate assessments - On a termly basis, it's important to assess pupils to check for progress. This is the only way you can quickly define the areas of a subject they are finding difficult to comprehend, and the parts which they have grasped fully.

Make learning fun! - If students enjoy coming to school, it's only natural that they will absorb more information with less of a difficulty whilst there. Use multisensory techniques to captivate the imaginations of pupils, and use a diverse range of teaching strategies to make each lesson a refreshing change from the last.

Cater to all students - Different people learn in different ways, so make sure you take this into consideration when planning lessons. Avoid focusing on just one style of teaching - you can't give pupils unfair advantages over their classmates.

The three main learning styles are visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Carry out one of the many simple 'learning style' quizzes over the Internet to discover how each of your pupils learn effectively, and look at this when writing individual reports and goals.

Combined with your own favored techniques and personal knowledge, these teaching strategies should have you and your class on the road to success in as little time as possible. It's vital that you use your own initiative, too, in order to identify where and when each strategy can be used.