8 Best Teaching Methods I Used This Year 2022

At the end of each school year, I like to ask myself: "What are the best teaching methods I've used this year?" By examining my practice and identifying my best teaching methods, I can ensure they are fully incorporated into next year's lessons. Here are five strategies that proved to be extremely effective in my classroom.

1. Online learning

Teaching online may not have been the norm for most teachers before the COVID-19 pandemic, but there have always been some teachers who prefer to work online. Online tutors often enjoy the freedom of working from home, choosing their working hours, and being their own boss.

But what exactly does teaching online consist of? Essentially, it’s the process of educating others using the internet, whether that’s through individual or group video calls, webinars, or messaging platforms. Normally it’ll be a combination of things to keep students engaged.

If you’re thinking about teaching online, or your current job requires you to teach online, you’ll need to be comfortable with technology and the internet. This is because all of your communication will be online, and you’ll need to create digital resources for your students. These resources might be presentations, lesson plans, worksheets, videos or audio lectures.

The great thing about online learning is that it’s accessible to many people. Not everyone is able to go to school, but more people have access to the internet. Of course, technology can be a barrier to education too, but as the years go by, this barrier is, fortunately, breaking down.

The best place to start if you want to learn how to be an excellent online teacher is our highly rated How To Teach Online: Providing Continuity for Students course. You’ll learn how to successfully move from face-to-face teaching to online teaching so that you and your students get the most out of learning.

2. Student-Centered Discussions

I admit that I do enjoy being the "sage on the stage" in my classroom, but I realize that this does little to engage my students in deep thinking. I want my students to be at the center of their learning.

Previously, when we read a book or short story, I'd ask questions to the whole class. Inevitably, the same five or six students would answer the questions, and I'd assume everyone understood. Now, I create small groups of three or four students, and they answer the questions in those small groups first, ensuring all students have an opportunity to participate.

I've seen an increase in comprehension, speaking and listening skills, and test scores. Implementing student-centered discussions is fairly easy to do—just create thought-provoking questions that dive deep into the content. The rewards are definitely worth it.

3. Making Connections

It is absolutely essential that the teaching methods you use help students make connections to their learning. Real-life connections make learning interesting and relevant for students.

When I teach Macbeth, for example, I have my students focus on the idea of setting goals. They examine how ambition can be both positive and negative, and I have them study recent world leaders to help them understand the real-life implications of this concept.

A history teacher at my school conducts a G20 conference in his classroom, with students representing countries and focusing on specific issues. The students' goal is to explore the problems of each specific region and form relationships with other nations in order to address them. This helps students personally identify with international issues in a way they never could before.

In physics class, students build their own physical models to apply theory to real life. Examine your curriculum and see what relatable applications you can bring into the classroom. Students will be much more engaged, and those real-world connections will help students understand the content and theories you're teaching much better than by simply reading a textbook.

4. Increased Autonomy

After reading the research on student autonomy, I wanted to increase student independence in my classroom. This year, I've allowed my students to pick from several prompts when writing an essay. Because it's important to tie learning to students' personal interests, I permit students to choose their own topics for research papers and to choose which projects they want to explore.

I make sure to still provide my students with clear learning goals, but they are able to make their own choices within that framework. Autonomy helps engage and empower my students, and it enables them to have a voice in their learning.

5. Building Relationships

Building relationships in the classroom is extremely powerful for students' behavioral and academic success. Teachers can help build relationships by meeting with students during office hours and creating team-building projects like student videos.

Further reading: Building a Joyful Classroom

Attending student sporting events and after-school activities also provides a great launching pad for discussion. Finally, I like to have a few minutes of "real talk" each week in my classroom for students to discuss topics that are important to them, and that helps break down walls and build solidarity in the classroom.

6. A Focus on Literacy

I'm always trying to improve my students' reading. Providing students with reading material that interests them and helps them to understand the joys of reading for pleasure. I make sure my classroom is well-stocked with books I know young adults enjoy.

7. Experiential learning

If you haven’t heard of experiential learning before, it’s the idea that learning is a product of experience. If it sounds like something that you might be interested in, we have a whole article that explores how to apply experiential learning in the classroom and beyond.

We can only gain experience from interacting and engaging with the world and people around us. This learning theory comes from David Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, and considers the role of all our experiences in learning, from emotions and cognition, to our environment.

Kolb’s 1984 theory suggests that there are four main stages in the learning cycle:

    Concrete experience. This is when the learner has a new experience, such as riding a bike for the first time.
    Reflective observation. After the concrete experience, the learner must reflect on their actions and watch others perform that action.
    Abstract conceptualisation. The next step involves the learner making sense of their reflections and making a plan for going forward. They might come up with next steps and seek insight from experts.
    Active experimentation. During the final stage, the learner will consider their reflections and previous lessons and then retry the original experience to see if any progress has been made. This will lead to a new concrete experience, and so the cycle restarts.

Experiential learning is a great teaching method because it encourages creativity, helps students learn from mistakes, fosters reflective thinking, and prepares students for future experiences. It can be effective for several subjects, especially during science experiments, sports coaching, and group projects.

Some simple ways to encourage experiential learning in your classroom include encouraging students to assess themselves regularly and reflect on what they’ve learnt. As a teacher, you might want to record yourself teaching or keep feedback journals so that you can reflect on previous lessons.

You can learn more about reflective practices in our open step by the British Council or delve into learning from experience in our open step by the University of South Wales.

8. Game-based learning

If you want to focus on making your lessons more fun, engaging and interactive, then look no further. Game-based learning, also known as gamification, is a great way to engage students, particularly those in primary and secondary education.

The definition of gamification is a strategy that implements game-like elements into non-gaming activities to enhance motivation. Since children are very interested in games, from video games and mobile applications to simple playground and board games, this can be a great place to start.

As we explore in our blog post about gamification in education, playing video games has been linked to dopamine production. So, incorporating some ideas from video games into education can actually have positive effects on the mood of students, making them more determined to succeed.

However, it is worth mentioning that gamification shouldn’t necessarily be used in every context. Sometimes, lessons require more serious discussions. In addition, too much game-based learning is likely to remove some of the fun and increased motivation that children feel.

Here are some of the ways you can incorporate game-based learning into your lessons:

Points systems
Levels and progress bars
Challenges and competitions
Unique rewards
Learning badges

In addition, if I see a strong op-ed piece online or in the newspaper, I'll share it with my students. I've noticed that my students now come to me when they read something compelling and thought-provoking, and they've become stronger readers and writers as a result.

These are the best teaching methods I've utilized this year. How about you? What are the best methods and strategies that have worked in your classroom? Comment below!