Teacher, author, and educational performer, Christopher James discusses a variety of modern teaching methods in his informative book, Teacher Presence: 12 Habits to Create Space for Accelerated Learning. The book is more of a guide for new teachers, as well as an experienced teacher that is looking for ways to improve their teaching methods to be more effective in the classroom. It is also for parents, who are looking into schools and different education systems to determine what is best suitable for their child. James writes about how education and schooling systems all began, from the first education system in the world to the most recent one.
But today, we will focus on why traditional teaching methods have failed in classrooms. Why we needed a modern change in education, to begin with. As we all know, everything in our world is constantly changing and improving. There is an upgrade after an upgrade for our phones, cars, televisions, etc. Just like that, scientists have been studying human brains for centuries to understand it better. They are always discovering a new piece of information to complete the puzzle. And educators, on the other hand, have been taking this information to form more effective teaching methods for our classrooms. To understand the need for more modern and upgraded teaching methods, we must first understand where we failed with the traditional teaching methods. As per Classroom, here a few reasons why traditional teaching methods fail:
· Lacks Student Focused Learning
A drawback of traditional training is that it inherently places the most value on standards, curriculum, and passing tests as opposed to student-focused learning. Student-focused learning places value on the student and builds the curriculum around the questions young people need to be answered to understand the material. Constructivist learning builds on the knowledge students already have to allow them to form concrete associations to new information, which improves retention. Traditional learning is based on repetition and memorization of facts that students care less about and retain at lower rates after testing.
· Lacks Emphasis on Critical Thinking
Traditional classroom training doesn't encourage critical thinking skills, the ability to actively apply information gained through experience and reasoning. Instead, traditional training emphasizes the role of teachers as knowledge dispensers and students as repositories. This style of learning doesn't allow students’ deeper levels of understanding required for complex concepts and lifelong learning.
· Lacks Process-Oriented Learning
Traditional training emphasizes passing tests, whether or not students under testing material. The learning process is thus devalued, and students are not encouraged to understand the methods, techniques, and skills required to find answers. Constructivist learning holds the process as important as the results because it stimulates skills important long after schooling.
· Lacks Emphasis on Larger Concepts or Structures
Rather than focusing on larger concepts and considering student context in the learning as constructivist training does, traditional training focuses on basic skills and gradually builds to a whole. While this simplifies learning, it provides little context, which can disconnect learners.
· Lacks Interactivity
Traditional training emphasizes individual student work and projects and is poor preparation for a student's future endeavors, which are likely to include working on teams and collaborating with colleagues. Under this training model, students receive few opportunities to practice group dynamics and teamwork.
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