Evaluating Styles of Teaching Approaches

Re-examining two methods of teaching: teacher vs. students centered.

Photo by jose aljovin on Unsplash

Teacher-centered approaches varies from educator to educator, and it is a method practiced in different modes depending on the teacher’s experience or content expertise. For teacher-centered technique, the teacher is the center of all the attention and students are expected to exclusively listen and engage in uniformly design.

For example, lecture only for an hour could be more a teacher-centered procedure because of the limited teaching style approach. In other words, students have none to limited academic discourse and collaborations among each other. However, for classroom activities each student works independently and assumed to complete assignments or projects.

On the contrary, there are both advantages and disadvantages for this type instructional delivery. For instance, “I use direct instructional approach for my English learners and this is what I consider a teacher-centered such as lots of visuals via PowerPoint slides, total physical response strategy.”

Arguably, some of the benefits of this teaching style are retaining the attention of the students/classroom management and students learn independency and self-initiative by direct instruction. Even though every teacher employs what is best practice for his/her students, teacher-centered approach can be practiced as in a considerate manner depending on the class.

In contrast, disadvantages of this practice might include lack of students’ cooperation with another, insufficient communication skills, expressive skills, and/or differentiated instruction. Laura states that aforementioned approach might not be appropriate for all students, especially for students who are newcomers and learning the language.

Student-Centered Approach

On the other hand, student-centered approach is a technique to replace traditional lecture based or teacher directive learning style to explicit instruction with academic discourse, open-ended questions with critical thinking and creativity-driven assignments such as project-based learning (pbl).

Most notably, student-centered instruction should began with the intention of unpacking…