Adapting Instructor Style to a Specific Class
I'm curious how often many of you end up adapting your teaching style to the learning style of a particular class. Obviously, this kind of adaptation happens day-to-day on a small scale, but how often to you end up making major changes to or even completely overhauling your usual delivery style(s) because they don't seem to be working with a particular group of students? Also, how do you decide when such a change is necessary?
Teaching styles stay the same with your personality. Accessing ea class is key. Example;part time,older night class students working full time w/ families tend to absorb more so, read and study. They want all that is offered to develope their new field. We teach on a higher mature level.
Full time, day students for the most part are coming out of high school. Not a wealth of life experince yet. The responsibilty, accountablity of life is not a serious concern yet. So, an instructor needs to see this and instruct at a level so all understand and "learn".
I think rather than adapting teaching styles for a class, one has to look at the students in the class and ascertain their learning styles. While I agree that in a lab class, you need to use hands on (kinesthetic) techniques, there is still the need to read and write effectively and some students learn more effective using those methods. I try to incorporate several teaching styles in every class to "get to" every student. Students need also to gain competence from different learning methods, not just those with which they are most comfortable.
By starting out using multiple methods, there is usually no need for a wholesale change. Of course there are classes when you find students just aren't getting it that it is necessary to re-think your processes. One method of re-thinking would be to discuss with the class what works for them most effectively.
