Jarvik Joshi English 1102 Mrs.

Keaton April 10, 2013 Multifarious Teaching A famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle, once said, Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well (Aristotle). The teachers play an acute role in students lives since a third of students day is spent with the teachers. The teachers are there to educate students on different subjects. What they teach holds the same importance to how they teach it. The teachers have existed for long time but their teaching methods have evolved over the years to accommodate different factors. The researchers have found out how effective and what those teaching methods are for each those different factors. What are those methods? What are those factors? The sources gathered for this paper will help elaborate more on the effective teaching methods according to the different factors. Dalton, in her article, has provided the readers with five standards for effective Pedagogy also known as effective teaching. The very first standard is Joint Productive Activity which elaborates on arranging classroom seating to accommodate students individual and group needs to communicate and work jointly, (teacher) organizes students in a variety of groupings, such as by friendship, mixed academic ability, language, project, or interests, too promote interactions(Dalton 11). Dalton emphasizes the benefits of group work and suggests that students increase their academic achievement, motivation, self-esteem, and development. Similar ideology is shared by researchers Barbara Allison and Marsha Rehm who conducted a research on diverse Florida schools. They pointed out few methods which were effective in a diverse

Group of students., one of them being group work or as they would call it peer tutoring. Peer tutoring, according to them, which pairs two students of differing abilities and background has been found to be extremely effective in multicultural classrooms, especially with English language learners and with Hispanic and Native American students, When native English speaking students are paired with English language learners, they become teachers and resources for each other, often relating better to each other than they would to a teacher. Furthermore, peer tutoring promotes communications, motivates students, and helps learners attain higher levels of achievement while developing friendships between students from different backgrounds (Allison and Rehm 4). Going to diverse school myself, I personally can attest to the fact that the group work does help everyone in the group to develop friendship, communication skills, and cooperation. Although it helped to have group work or projects, when a teacher overused it, it became pointless and lost its effectiveness. It did the opposite of what Allison and Rehm described. It demotivated some students to not fully cooperate and work as a group. There would be some who are willing to give in an effort and others who simply dont do any work. Borich talks about teachers having five different key behaviors which are essential for effective teaching, one of them being lesson clarity. He argues that most effective teachers make their points clear to learners to a wide variety of students, explain concept in ways that help students follow along in a logical step-by-step order, have an oral delivery that is direct and audible to all students (Borich 12). To abet the lesson clarification, teachers use examples, illustrations, and demonstrations which help interpret and reinforce main points. Zahorik , in his research, also found out that in smaller class sizes, teachers tend to deliver more clear, explicit, step-by-step instructions, The teachers gave clear direction, explained concepts, modeled procedures, led class practice, provided feedback, and scaffold students understanding (Zahorik

2). Zahorik mentioned how one teacher, from his research, spent one-third of her time presenting and modeling the information to the class, following up with personalized practice. Brights second effective habit recognizes instruction as a performance and teaching as a sales job, Accordingly, how lessons are sold is as important as the product itself. It doesnt really matter how hard teachers work, how many degrees they hold, or the quality of their pedagogical vision (Bright 2). He understand is that if instructional delivery is boring, students will not likely pay their attention to what the teacher is saying. I have had teachers who wouldnt explain the lesson or assignment properly which leaves me confused and studying the wrong material for the test thus not doing well in that particular test. On the contrary, I also had teachers who exemplified everything that was discussed in this paragraph. That helped me learn the material much faster and lowered the amount of extra work needed on my part to learn that material. The third standard in Daltons article is Making Meaning: Connecting Schools to Students Lives. In this standard, she emphasizes how teachers should incorporate the teaching with the real world. She suggests that teachers should design instructional activities that are meaningful to students in terms of local community norms and knowledge. She gives a perfect example to support her argument, About two years ago none(of the students) knew what a biscuit wasSo we made biscuits and I used that experience to teach measuringIts all estimation and you have your ingredients that you measure in the palm of your hands instead of in a measuring spoon. Thats the way they see it at home (Eriacho, Gchachu, & Odell, 1991) (Dalton 22). For schools with smaller class sizes, Zahorik found that teachers wanted students to acquire basic knowledge and skills and to become critical thinkers and able problem solvers (Zahorik 2). Bright argues this point in his second habit of an effective teacher. His argument is that due to certain restrictions, teachers only stick to what is mandated by the curriculum,

Linking curriculum and instruction to post graduation demands puts the lie to educators who claim theres no time for creative writing, research, oral presentation, or persuasive essays, as well as other authentic but labor-intensive activities (Bright 2). Since critical thinking is stressed on these days, why are teachers still not implementing that in their lessons? Should the curriculum really be a factor which hinders critical thinking?

Works Cited Allison, Barbara N., and Marsha L. Rehm. "Effective Teaching Strategies For Middle School Learners In Multicultural, Multilingual Classrooms." Middle School Journal 39.2 (2007): 12-18. ERIC. Web. 25 Mar. 2013. Aristotle. "Quotes About Teachers." Good Reads. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/teachers>. Bright, Neil H. "Five Habits Of Highly Effective Teachers." Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed For Quick Review 77.7 (2012): 21-24. ERIC. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. Borich, Gary D., and Debra A. Stollenwerk. "Key Behaviors Contribution to Effective Teaching." Effective Teaching Methods. Fifth ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2004. 11-21. Print. Dalton, Stephanie Stoll. (1998). Pedagogy Matters: Standards for Effective Teaching Practice. UC Berkeley: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6d75h0fz Zahorik, John Halbach, Anke Ehrle, Karen Molnar, Alex. "Teaching Practices For Smaller Classes. Educational Leadership 61.1 (2003): 75. Master FILE Complete. Web. 25 Mar. 2013.