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Teaching strategies for modern classrooms

 

As the world evolves, the need of new teaching methods is becoming more and more inevitable. Clearly, today’s students are no longer the same audience, as that of the traditional system of education. The current student generation is working on a different level, with different pace and completely altered approaches.

Education as we know is no longer existent. The gap between modern students and teachers is not shrinking, but growing almost daily. Why? Because schools still base their teaching on outdated strategies.

The social media and technology are developing and spreading quite fast and in result, the less focused students become on their education. It was only twenty years ago that tablets, laptops and iPhones did not even exist. Right now, students are disturbed by these devices almost all the time. This is why educators must try to understand how to best meet the needs of modern students and do that while taking their attention away from video games and social media.

Change is now inevitable, especially since something as important as education of future leaders depends on it. This is why we have uncovered the most important teaching strategies that educators need to apply in their modern classrooms.

Modern classroom and outdated strategies

If you wish to teach a student something in today’s world, you have to be a modern teacher. Working with outdated strategies and principles on modern students is a failure to start with. As the world moves, so must the education.

The main task of a teacher is to understand how their students think. Understanding the modern values and seeing what needs to be done in order to share some knowledge is the first and most important step in creating a good learning environment.

Every teacher has been taught history of educating, most common teaching techniques and most successful strategies. However, as the world moves, so should we.

Modern students and ignorant educators

Being aware of the incompatibilities between the past educational systems and the ‘digital era’ of today, is highly important, but this means nothing if the teachers are ignorant towards changing. The main reason why teaching strategies have not adapted to the modern students yet is because the majority of educators simply remain ignorant of their environment.

Of course, every teacher has gone through extensive education in order to best implement methods of teaching, but should they rely solely on the traditional strategies? The majority of educators have received their professional education and training years before the technology was so widespread, so it is clear that their profession is still in need of developing. After all, the main purpose of the educational system is to make students learn and this cannot be effectively accomplished if educators reject adaptation.

Students did not have the recourses and access to information before like they do now and almost everything they learned came from their teachers. Right now, teachers also need to learn from their students. Why? Because as the world moves and education remains intact, students start seeing education as something they need to pass, not to learn. The amount of information is now so accessible to them, that they no longer see traditional learning teachers as their role-models.

The mindset of a modern teacher

Being a teacher in nowadays world is a difficult task, mostly because of the loss of the old techniques educators are so used to. As the mindset of students changes, so must that of educators. And not only that this does not sound easy, but it really is not.

Changing the mindset to one of a modern teacher is a challenging job, but an extremely important one. The internet is all modern students can think about when it comes to information, so you cannot keep adapting your ‘defensive mode’ every time a student brings up different ideas from those of traditional learning.

The internet is not going away. On the opposite, it will keep changing and developing faster and faster every day. This is why teachers need to adopt and learn accordingly. After all, there is no such profession whose learning ends with getting a degree.

3 tips for dealing with modern students

If you want to change your mindset to one of a modern teacher, you have to be more open minded. Being ready to adopt is the only way that you will fit in today’s educational system and make your students respect you.

  • Stop Focusing on Control

In the traditional learning setting, teachers were focusing on control. This is how they maintained their position of most intelligent in the classroom and a role-model for the students.

Now students are different. Controlling them is no longer an option and if you want to make them listen and learn, you must try to influence them instead.

Students need to feel good in the classroom. Having a modern teacher that promotes advanced, modern strategies is the only way to achieve this. If you manage to do that, you will have the influence you so need.

  • Grasp the Technology

Technology is something you should include in your classes. Instead of using solely books and other traditional methods, opt for some interesting video, an online presentation or other modern learning techniques. In this way, you will not only make learning easier for your students, but will include something they find very dear to their everyday learning. And we all know how important students’ interest is when it comes to successful teaching.

  • Guide Students to Important Content

Right now students have excessive access to information, but not all of it is true or relevant. Letting them know that the material you provide them with is filtered and relevant is highly important. Your main role in terms of technology is not to let students be misguided by it.

Conclusion

Learning to adopt and implement modern strategies in today’s education is not something that will come easily. Traditional teaching is so long gone, that teachers already struggle with finding the right way to reach their students. If you wish to do so, you must change in order to preserve the classroom’s functionality.

The job of every teacher is not only to teach, but to learn too. Adapting to the new environment is the only way to preserve the teacher-student relationship. At the end, if that is gone because teachers refuse to adapt, how will the teachers to their main job – teach?

 

About the Author:

Jessica Freeman is a professional journalist and a freelance content writer at the company Australian Writings. She focuses her content writing on education, career, and academic topics. You can follow her on Facebook and Google+.

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