Delivery of Instruction

Journal Entry: Delivery of Instruction

            There are a lot of factors that go into how teacher should teach. Should they be mostly student-centered or teacher-centered? A strict teacher or a goofy one? It depends on a lot of different things such as, class size, teacher’s education, teacher’s beliefs, and the students that make up the class itself.

            My mentor teacher says that she is about 60% teacher-centered and 40% student-centered. She says it is hard sometimes to cut down her instruction time and increase her student’s work time, but it is something that she is trying to improve. She uses mostly demonstration and direct instruction in her classroom. She also says that being student-centered or teacher-centered depends a lot on the students in the class and their abilities. Also the lesson that is being taught makes a difference because it can be difficult to allow kindergarteners to take a lot of responsibility for their education because they have not been taught how to learn yet. Kindergarteners can also have some trouble focusing or getting a job or assignment completed without being reminded to do so.

I think that more student-centered instruction would be useful in secondary education but elementary students need more guidance and not such a great deal of responsibilities at younger ages.