In the education triad, the learner, the teacher and the learning process, the most vital role is to be the teacher. The teacher is the indispensable key on the how learning process would be in its most effective way so that the learner would maximize his/her potentials. As Adams quoted: “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops”. Teacher’s role is dimensional. Breakthroughs in education emerged to give principles on how a teacher be an efficient and effective one in the pinnacle of learning. These breakthroughs greatly affect the learning process like teaching strategies, teaching methodologies, the concept of multiple intelligence, learning styles and teaching styles.
As generated from http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/, teaching styles refer to the teaching strategies and methods employed with the use of certain kinds of rhetoric in teaching. It is the individual teachers’ distinctive or characteristics manners of teaching. Grasha (1996) identified five typologies or characteristic manners of teaching. These are Expert, Formal Authority, Personal Model, Facilitator and Delegator. The expert teaching style possesses knowledge and expertise; oversees guides and directs learners; gains status through knowledge and focuses on facts. Teachers who have a formal authority teaching style possess status among learners because of knowledge and authority/position; focus on rules and expectations for learners and supervise learners closely with critical eye toward standard practices and procedures. Personal Model teaching style leads by personal example; suggests prototypes for appropriate behavior in office and wants learners to observe and emulate approach. Teachers who practice a facilitator teaching style emphasizes personal nature of teaching-learning relationship; asks questions, explores options with learners and focuses on learner responsibility, independence and initiative. The delegator teaching style encourages learner responsibility and initiative when appropriate. Teachers who practice a delegator teaching style tend to place control and responsibility for learning on individuals or groups of students.
Different teachers perceive the classroom environment in different ways in the same way that teachers use different instructional techniques or styles to accommodate the learning needs of their students. Research on learning and teaching styles has provided teachers and students with a different view of learning and teaching within the classroom. Grow (2007) stated that problems arise when the teaching style is not matched to the learners’ degree of self-direction. He found out that, out of the grid of 16 possible pairings between teaching styles and learning stages, six pairings are mismatches, and two of those are severe. In the model, teachers adapt their teaching styles to match the student’s degree of self-direction, and in order to increase that self-direction. Problems occur when dependent learners are mismatched with non-directive teachers and when self-directed learners are mismatched with highly directive teachers. Peacock (2001) studied the correlation between teaching styles and learning styles causes learning failure, frustration and demotivation. Interviews revealed that 72% of the students were frustrated by a mismatch between teaching and learning styles; 76% said it affected their learning, often seriously; and 81% of the teachers agreed that the mismatch between teaching styles and learning styles is very rampant.
Just as people have individual learning styles; teachers have teaching styles that work best for them. As a teacher, it is important to be aware of these preferences when creating and delivering instruction. Awareness of the teaching style a teacher possesses can break the mismatch. It could also give insights on how to develop the instructional concerns such as acquiring and retaining information, attention to course material, critical thinking, becoming motivated learners and self-direction in learning. Knowing one’s teaching styles can be a gateway to craft learning activities that will improve classroom instruction, thus, improving the quality of learning.
By: Ms. Danah Mae L. De Belen | Teacher III | San Pablo Elementary School | Dinalupihan, Bataan
