Teacher Presentation Styles

In my many years in the classroom, I have experienced a plethora of teachers who presented to the classroom with different styles.  Some styles were very effective while others, well not so much.  Most teachers and professors I have experienced fall into these general categories:

The Brilliant Bore
This teacher clearly knows their material.  There is no hesitation to the flow of material being brought forth.  Typically, though, there is also no inflection to that voice, constantly droning on about material.  At times it seems like some soothing white noise helping you off to sleep.  When you can actually focus on the lecture, you learn a lot.  That's easier said than done though.

The Rambler
Lots of material is presented.  The material may not be organized in any manner whatsoever.  It may not flow smoothly from one topic to the next.  But it is there.  The trick for the student is to filter what is important, what is an irrelevant tangent, and how to connect the dots.

The Animated Talker
This style follows a very traditional model, with some combination of lecturing and note taking.  Yet, there is a certain flair to this style.  Something draws the students in, whether that is by adding a little humor to the lecture, going off on rants that may not be pertinent, but are entertaining, or keeping involved by asking specific questions.

The Arm Cramp Inducer
Make sure to have multiple pens ready for each class and over the course of the year you will probably need multiple notebooks to keep up with this teacher, who spends the entire class pouring through notes.  While some teachers and professors offer notes or powerpoint slides so the students can focus on listening, teachers in this style want to "keep you involved" by requiring you to take notes throughout the lecture - all 45 / 50 / 75 / 120 minutes of it.

The Interrupting Question
This teacher really means well - they want to get students involved and discussing the material.  Unfortunately, their only approach to doing that is by briefly pausing their lecture to say, "well, what do you guys think?" at a time that makes it very unclear what the student is supposed to be generating an opinion on.   Not only is the question itself very vague, the timing makes it even more difficult to provide significant insight, often leaving the crickets to break the long, awkward silence.

All these styles are well and good, and certainly these are some approaches that are more effective in my opinion than others.  Yet, the approach I would like to take is one that I have not commonly seen, but has always left a very positive impression.

The Game Changer
I say game changer because this presenter typically does very little presenting.  Rather, this teacher tries to get students involved in discovering the material on their own as much as possible.  Not only does it make the student an active participant in their learning experience, but by self-discovery, students often develop a deeper understanding of the material.  This approach requires signficant planning in order to find or create effective lessons in which students can come to understand material on their own, but I believe it causes a better learning experience for the student.