“Teachers must Bridge the Gap and Reduce the Gap” - Professor M.S.Rao

“More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given.” - Bertrand Russell

For successful teaching there must be good coordination between teachers and students. First of all, the teachers must bridge the gap by reducing the gap between them and students to ensure effective teaching takeaways. Whenever teachers intend to deliver their content they must identify the audience profile first to have fair idea about their educational background, intelligence levels, age, sex, and experience so that they will be able to prepare their content accordingly.  After going to the classroom for teaching, they must observe the body language of the people and mould their teaching style accordingly. If they find that the students are responding with positive body language they must continue with the same momentum.  If they find that some of the students don’t catch up with the momentum they must repeat the key ideas and insights to ensure effective takeaways. Alternatively they must change their teaching pedagogy as per the situation. In addition, every teacher has their own teaching style.  They must learn to mould as per the situation and moods of the students to ensure effective takeaways among the students.  Gail Godwin once remarked, "Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." Hence, teachers must adopt various teaching methods such as role-plays, enacting drama, storytelling, and Socratic Method as per the situation, context, content, and profile of the audiences to ensure successful teaching for students.

Now-a-days, students want more of interactive sessions and less of conventional teaching of referring books and reproducing in the classroom. They want unique knowledge which is not available in the internet as most of the students are smarter than teachers in searching the internet and accessing the information.  Therefore, teachers have to enlighten students that there is a difference between information and knowledge as everything which is available in the internet may not be knowledge. If teachers refer search engines and share knowledge they lose their respect and relevance. Hence, the teachers must be more careful with the students so as to deliver something unique content which is beyond books and internet by doing intensive research.  They must also apply various teaching tools and techniques to share their knowledge through their out-of-the-box thinking and presentation.  To conclude, teachers must get away from their traditional and conventional pedagogy gradually and adopt new teaching tools and techniques to add value to teaching and command respect from their students.

“Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the naturals, the ones who somehow know how to teach.” – Peter Drucker

Professor M.S.Rao

Founder, MSR Leadership Consultants, India

Email: profmsr12@gmail.com

Blog: http://professormsrao.blogspot.com

Born for the Students

Dear readers,

I would appreciate your comments about this article.

Copyright©2012 MSR Leadership Consultants India. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

This is an educational blog for free sharing of knowledge, not for commercial use. Please don't cut articles from my blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the Blog http://professormsrao.blogspot.com  This material may not be sold, or published in any form, or used in the provision of business services to a third party without permission.