Choosing Teaching Strategies

"Mastery model" accommodates variation in learning pace; works well where mastery of specified material is desired.

Large groups (200+) are a managerial challenge.

Person is active participant throughout learning process.

Procrastination is problem for persons without high motivation.

Effective in cognitive domain.

Doesn’t routinize peer interaction; therefore probably less effective for attitude change.

Person gets immediate feedback, help on individual basis.

Unit structure de-emphasizes interrelatedness of subject matter unless extreme care is taken in designing materials.

Allows easy application of variety of instructional media.

Tutorial

Allows instructor to be responsive to each participant.

Inefficient, takes much time.

Learner interacts and participates.

Tutoring one’s peers results in greater learning for the tutor.

Highly effective for attitude change and high-level cognitive mastery, long-term retention

Rate of transfer of specific content relatively slow and unreliable.

Promotes much interaction with peers.

Large class requires careful planning and management.

Motivation comes from peers, not the instructor.

Methodology requires a "trained" instructor or facilitator.

Participants learn to collaborate to solve a problem.

Difficult to evaluate the progress of an individual separately from the progress of the group.

Easy to implement, good compromise with many of advantages of large groups, small groups, and individualized instruction.

Not as cost-effective as small groups, individualized instruction, or lectures in situations for which these formats are best suited.

Makes for congenial learner-learner interaction without need for facilitator trained in group activities.

Groups must be small for effectiveness.

Leader can make "lecturette," and small size allows for questions by participants and tailoring of presentations to their reactions and needs.

Requires motivated, interested participants for lively sessions.

Learners are often active participants, making presentations on specific topics.

Especially useful for workshops or groups meeting informally or infrequently.

Careful, lucid presentation of material.

No better than a given instructor on a given day. Can’t accommodate individual differences well (so participant attention often wanders).

Participants see professional mind at work.

Learner is passive.

Effectively conveys "low-level" information and skills.

Conveys "high-level" information and skills poorly.

Accepted format by educational community (teachers and students).

Limited opportunity for questions (and one person’s questions often not of interest to others).

Economical.

Practice opportunities relatively limited; feedback often slow.

Person gets bona fide taste of professional life, a chance to experience the responsibility and variety of pressures to which professional is vulnerable.

A supervisor needed for each participant; time-consuming.

Participants learn not every problem is solvable, that failure is a necessary companion to success in any scholarly endeavor.

Participant is additional person dependent on support facilities of lab or department.

Participant has opportunity for hands-on "learning by doing."

...to illustrate how at least one person is able to wrestle with a large amount of information and integrate
and make sense out of it.