Delivering Instruction to the Traditional Learner

Introduction

Teaching traditional learners encompasses a broad range of activities from goal-setting goals to effective classroom presentations to student assessment. Teachers must formulate their course goals and learning objectives and must decide how their students will achieve them during the course analysis phase. Next, teachers design the course materials and development the modalities for delivery of the instruction. Implementation of the course is a lengthy process that includes delivery as well as assessment of the learning outcomes. Evaluation purposes are two-fold: to ensure student understanding and also to initiate course revisions. These elements of effective teaching are common to all instruction, to all learners, to all learning situations. For the traditional learner, however, there remain many unique considerations.

Traditional teachers must be able to offer a number of different modalities of teaching (verbal, written, kinesthetic, etc.) to address students with various learning styles. Successful students have been encouraged to think critically and apply the theories and concepts offered in class to real-life situations.

Effective traditional teaching begins well before the teacher enters the classroom. Actually, it begins before the teacher even becomes a certified educator. University and college teacher preparation programs remain focused chiefly on the traditional teacher. They groom their candidates via a series of courses that cover a generally accepted curriculum of fundamental teacher preparation courses (Table 1). Some of the most critical issues affecting education are represented in the four-year curriculum, and include the five pillars of education.