Teaching Tips: Effective Teaching For Teens
Being a teenager is one of the most difficult stages of our life. Teenagers often face difficulties since they are in the stage of life when they are trying to figure out their identity and trying to fit in. If being at this stage is difficult, imagine dealing with more than a dozen teenagers in a classroom speaking in a language they potentially cant even understand and talking about a topic they wouldn’t care about even if it was in their own language.
If you are a new teacher, then adjusting or dealing with teenagers could be very difficult but also a challenging and rewarding experience. Some new teachers would say that teenagers could “smell fear.” When you are teaching teenagers, first impressions are very important. You should try your best to appear professional, knowledgeable in your field, confident and that you are there to help them.
Of course, you should also project and appear that they could approach or ask for your guidance and advice, you are not just their teacher for that particular academic subjects. You are also their life coach and example. You can act goofy sometimes, and you can inject humor into your classes. But be sure that you would make them understand that there are limitations, when they have to get down to their lessons then that should mean business.
When teaching teenagers you could incorporate pop culture into your lessons to make it more interesting. Some experts said that a teen’s attention span could last as short as 5 minutes. But with numerous and different kinds of media around us, the attention span of teens is continuously decreasing. What better way to capture your student’s interest other than using medium that they really like. For example: songs, sports and other kind of entertainment. So it would be great if you would also be updated with new trends in culture.
Aside from using online different kinds of media form for instruction, you could also use or maximize having fillers or icebreakers in class. This would snap them out of the daydreaming and put them back into their lessons. You can even include interactive activities or games, you just have to make sure that rules and objectives are clear. This would help in avoiding any kind of misunderstanding between students and teachers.
Although, teenagers do not accept it easily, making them work with others would make it easier for them. When breaking teenagers into groups, you just have to have a plan that would allow you to monitor them easily and aside from that encourage them to do collaborative work.
Some teachers would just teach or instruct their students, not fostering any kind of active participation. It would be surprising for some teachers that teenagers would know a lot about something. So, allow your students to bring their knowledge into the classroom. It would surprise you that they can share a lot and educate their classmates about numerous things.
When asking them to work on a project, give or allow them time to explore their creativity and express themselves. You can display the projects inside the classroom. Just like when you are teaching at any level, positive reinforcement means a lot. So give them a pat on the back for a job well done. You can use positive and encouraging words rather than use words that single out their weaknesses and tend to humiliate them in front of the classmates and peers.
Teaching, regardless of any level, is a very rewarding experience. But do not get too depressed if your expectations are not met or they are not responding in the manner that you hope that they would. They may not say it, but you may be leaving a huge impact on their lives.
Any other pointers that would help people with teaching Teenagers?