Learning, as most people perceive it, is based more on internal factors, and no external factor can affect it. However, that’s the totally wrong way to see things. Learning among students can be greatly influenced by you as a teacher.
In this article, we’re looking at 12 ways that you can ensure an effective learning process for all your students, or at least the majority.
1. Effective lesson planning
Every teacher has to have a clear plan on how they want their lesson to go throughout their lesson. Some of the specific things that teachers have to include in a thorough lesson plan are;
- Topic coverage
- Simplification of each topic
- Time within which each topic has to be covered
When a lesson is properly planned, your students get to have an effective and smooth learning process because everything is planned beforehand.
2. Group students up
So many times, it’s been reported that some students learn better while they’re with fellow students than with teachers. However, some students need to be helped on how to unite with their fellows to achieve optimal academic results – in ways like;
- Give group questions for all students to discuss
- Grade according to group
- Group students heterogeneously (group students of different academic performance levels so they can help and learn from one another)
When students are grouped, it even motivates the lazy ones to become active through the power of association – thus an effective learning process.
3. Use the relevant tools
Depending on the school where you teach, there are teaching aids and tools, and these can always be used to contribute to an effective learning process. They include;
- Relevant text books
- Appropriate technological teaching aids
- Relevant lab classroom equipment
4. Test
Testing students is the best way to track how effective your teaching is – and how your students understand the things you teach them. Testing also gives you an insight on your students’ strengths and weaknesses. Here’s how you can test them;
- During lessons
- In exams
- Verbally
When students have to answer questions, they’re motivated to read in order to find out what they don’t know.
5. Review and correct
In addition to testing your students to find out what they do or don’t know, you have to review, mark and correct your students where they’ve gone wrong. It has advantages like;
- Making students learn after failing
- Eliminating the fear of trying and failing among students
- Encouraging students to learn more through practice
6. Encourage student participation
Students, through participation in the classroom, are able to learn even better. This is because they can have benefits like;
- Enabling them to feel free while in class
- Making them ask questions on behalf of others
- Stopping them from being silent whenever they have a question
If students get used to participating in the classroom, learning becomes far easier as they get comfortable in the classroom.
7. Teaching memory exercises
Students have to be taught to retain things in their heads in order to enhance the learning process. Exercises like retrieval practice have benefits like;
- Enabling students to remember majority of the things they learnt in class
- Making students use their brains to their fullest capacity
- Boosting the confidence levels of your students
While things like mindless cramming can be dangerous even though effective in memorization, students have to make memorization a huge part of their academic lives.
8. Follow up
Students need to be followed up. I don’t know how much I can emphasize this, but students can only follow rules or even improve academically if there’s someone to remind them of what they need to do. below are other advantages of following them up.
- Makes students feel free to open up to you about what they don’t know
- Enables you to understand what the students’ weaknesses are, so you can help them
9. Emphasize order/ organization
Order is so crucial for the academic performance of every student, and this can be manifested in ways like;
- Orderly and clean classrooms
- Neat and complete notes in their books
- Organized lesson plans and scheme of work
If students aren’t organized well enough, it’s hard to have a stable academic results because all their actions will not lead towards that.
10. Provide career guidance
Some students stall their own academic progress because they don’t know what to do. This is why providing career guidance to your students is one of the most effective ways you can equip them for academic success.
11. Ensure attendance
For students to learn effectively, they have to always attend lessons without missing, and that’s why teachers have to ensure regular attendance through measures like;
- Conducting roll calls
- Checking up on students
- Asking students to account for the lessons they’ve missed
- Punishing students who missed lessons accordingly
Students have to see that you’re not leaving them a way to miss classes because that’s how they start to miss out.
Conclusion;
Even though students are responsible for how much they manage or fail to learn, there are so many instances in which the efforts of the teacher make or break the students’ performance. Therefore, you have to make the initial efforts so that you can set the pace for students to help themselves. Also take note that certain students will never be able to push themselves, and they’ll always need you to help them realize their full potential or get close.
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