Pros & Cons of Top 5 Teaching Methods That Work

Despite the fact that every teacher is different, over the past 50 years, new cultural norms and technological breakthroughs have all contributed to a significant change in teaching styles. Today’s educational experts identify at least five distinct teaching styles along a continuum from a teacher-centered model to a student-centered model. Educators always adapt their teaching tactics to their students and the current learning process. Even though the majority of educators can be characterized by a single personal model of teaching style.

Because of this, it’s crucial to understand the various teaching styles and be able to employ them effectively when necessary.

Top 5 teaching styles

Many educators in conventional teaching scenarios with years of experience are unaware of their main teaching style, despite the fact that their teaching method directly affects student interest and involvement. Let’s look at five instances of teaching styles to demonstrate how diverse education may be in the classroom.

• Hybrid
• Lecturer
• Facilitator
• Demonstrator
• Delegator

Hybrid

The hybrid teaching style is also called the blended style. It makes an effort to balance approaches that are student- and teacher-centered. The majority of the time, hybrid-style teachers apply their particular knowledge and experience in the classroom. While maintaining a framework for each lecture, they are able to alter their pace and provide the ideal exercises to keep the students interested.

However, because of its slower pace, the hybrid technique might make it challenging to complete information-heavy courses, even if it generally tends to be fairly effective in a number of situations.

Pros

• Students are able to learn from real-life expertise
• Longer duration of active and engaged learning

Cons

• Can be slower and less intense
• Requires the educator to put up a lot of effort

Lecturer

The lecturer style is also often called the formal authority style. We could say as well that it’s the most traditional and hierarchy-oriented style. Anyone who has faced protracted mono-directional lectures in huge university auditoriums is familiar with it. When a lot of student-teacher interaction is just not possible, this teaching style is frequently employed with big classes of learners.

Most of the time, the lecturer-style topic matter is rather exclusive and determined. It is necessary for students to take notes and ask questions at the end. Typically, there are no planned activities.

Pros

• Large classes of students could be taught at once.
• Professors can easily prepare

Cons

• Little capacity for information retention
• Without active learning

Facilitator

Let’s move to a teaching style that is even more concentrated on the needs of the students. It is the facilitator style. Within this method, a facilitator promotes inquiry-based learning as opposed to delivering monologues.

By posing queries and debating case studies from the actual world, students learn something new. Other exercises might be planned to enhance problem-solving abilities and aid in course understanding through real-world difficulties.

Pros

• Encourages students to become autonomous

Cons

• Doesn’t really work that much for theory-oriented subjects

Demonstrator

While the teacher still has a lot of power in the demonstration style, they are more willing to experiment with a student-centered method of teaching. You can see the demonstration motivating the class to brainstorm solutions to problems, pose inquiries, and practice what they’ve just studied.

The demonstrator frequently goes beyond lectures by providing slides, conducting experiments, and showcasing visuals and videos. It may thus be used with many learning methods.

Pros

• Utilizes a range of educational methods

Cons

• Does not take all students’ needs into account

Delegator

The delegator style of teaching is the most student-centered approach available. It is also called the group style sometimes. The students are performing all the work in this situation, while the teacher is only there to make observations and guide. In the delegator model, the majority of learning takes place peer-to-peer through constant cooperation and debates.

Practically liberated from his or her position of dominance, the instructor now only encourages the conversations. The delegator technique is most effective in group tutoring sessions, debates, creative writing assignments, and other peer-to-peer tasks.

Pros

• Motivates students to learn and work together

Cons

• Since students must determine the correct solutions on their own, it might not be as effective

Is one teaching style superior to another?

As you can see in the listing on top, each teaching method has its own advantages and disadvantages. So there is no clear winner here. Instead of searching for the perfect one, you better learn to mix and match teaching styles according to the scenario.

When creating your course content, consider which teaching style will assist your students to learn the topic most effectively. If you’re unsure, experiment with a few different approaches for the first few student groups to see what works best.

How can teaching approaches be adapted to varied learning types?

We’ve already discussed the four major types of learning styles, which are critical for every educator to grasp.

There is no question that various teaching styles bring out the best in different students.
A well-known “empty vessel” concept, for instance, says that students’ minds are fundamentally empty till lecturers pour their wisdom into them.

However, cooperative learning necessitates additional group effort and would enhance nicely the facilitator or delegator’s teaching style. For a more in-depth look at this teaching technique, explore Cohort-Based Learning. Interactive learning, for example, might be a good match for the demonstrator or facilitator styles.

Does the variety of my students impact my teaching style?

One more reason to keep a variety of teaching styles in your toolbox is the diversity of students in the class. You should be able to modify your teaching style on the go to optimize the learning potential for each student, as they learn better through different techniques and at a different pace.

It’s probable that your main teaching style will be a constantly shifting combination that is particular to you and the students you teach, instead of one solid basic style that we have outlined above.

Furthermore, as educators guide students and assist them in becoming high achievers, you should be conscious of the type of leadership you wish to foster during your teaching.

How can you make an ideal online course?

Do you want to find and try out your favorite teaching style? There is no better way to accomplish it than by developing a completely new online course. All you must have is a course-creation platform to get started.

TRIBLE is an intuitive and simple-to-use platform that allows any educator to quickly develop stunning online courses. The platform easily adapts to different teaching styles by utilizing content multimedia like video, images, and texts. Besides that, TRIBLE supports educators by offering marketing and monetization tips daily in the Creators Community.

And the best part, no coding knowledge is necessary. Simply select an attractive template and easily modify it according to your specifications with a drag-and-drop editor. Begin today and see how simple it is to create your own online course.