INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES:

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

By: Lindsey Goy

Presentation

• Benefits: The teacher is able to explain the new material and even showcase some examples of the topic. Students are able to ask questions right away if they are not understanding what is going on.

• Disadvantages: The students become bored and uninterested. They will begin to be distracted and stop listening to the teacher.

Demonstration

• Benefits: Students will get to see in person what they are going to be learning and participating in later on. The students become excited and ready to jump into the topic right away.

• Disadvantages: Students may become rowdy while waiting to have their turn to try what the teacher is showing them, or they may loose interest if the topic does not involve them doing anything hands on or interesting.

Drill and Practice• Advantages: Students begin to remember the material

because it is being repeated to them over and over again. This method will help them learn quickly.

• Disadvantage: The student may loose the new material soon after being tested on it. The material was seen as being short term not long term because it was shoved at them and did not spark their interest as much.

Tutorial• Advantages: students can work at

their own pace and come to their own realizations in their own time. They can comprehend what they are taking in because they have a visual breakdown of what activities to perform.

• Disadvantages: the students may need to hear someone telling them what they are learning in person, rather than reading the information alone. They may have a hard time comprehending what they are reading or listening to.

Discussion• Advantages: the students are able to put their

thoughts out there so that other students can feed off one another. This creates a large discussion pool and promotes creative thinking.

• Disadvantages: if the students do not know where to begin the discussion, they may be too shy to speak up, or vice versa, the class could become rowdy. Discussions may also tend to lead off topic after awhile.

Cooperative Learning

• Advantages: students can get hands on and keep interest in the subject. They will also develop good social skills in the process and be able to collaborate together to create great brainstorming and project outcomes.

• Disadvantages: some students are not comfortable working in groups. Groups can also sometimes create a individual who takes over and does all of the work, not allowing others to participate, and it may give slackers a chance to get out of participating by hiding behind his/her group members.

Games• Advantages: students feel like they aren't really

learning, but just having fun; therefore they let loose and let learning in! They begin to realize they are learning a lot of the material and fast. Games also keep students attention.

• Disadvantages: students may focus more on the points in the game rather than the questions and become over-active or even upset if they do not win the games– causing classroom arguments and disruptions.

Simulations

• Advantages: these let the students get as close to the real world as possible. Simulations create an environment that the students can learn from their mistakes and understand by using hands on models.

• Disadvantages: students may make small mistakes on the models and think its not a big deal to go out in the real world and make those mistakes, when in real life they could be life or death. Students tend to rely on the fact that it is just a stimulation, and they know there aren't real consequences.

Discovery• Advantages: discovery incorporates a lot of the

teaching styles by having students work on their own, with others, and then through discussion. The students learn the material on their own and are proud to share their results with one another.

• Disadvantages: students may not know how to begin working like this on their own. They may need teachers and other classmates to give them ideas to spark their imagination in the beginning on how to discover the topic they are given.

Problem Based Learning

• Advantages: in this style the students not only find the answer to the problem but different students can find different answers. In the end, they can share their different answers and discuss together which methods the class believes in most effective. It creates a great opening for innovative thinking and classroom involvement.

• Disadvantages: students may become intimidated by this teaching method because it means they have to go out of their safe zones to figure out the answer. Some students may be too shy to speak their thoughts.

ALL IN ALL…All of these styles of teaching are effective in their own ways. Once

teachers get the gist of which style goes with which of subjects,

the classroom will never be boring again!

Thank you to the following websites:

• ucwbling.chicagolandwritingcenters.org• www.studywheels.com• weddbook.com• catechesisinthethirdmillennium.wordpress.com• angelascultural.blogspot.com• www.getworksheets.com • www.metrowestdailynews.com• www.uh.edu• www.vcu.edu