Classroom Delivery Skills

This course covers interpersonal communication and listening skills in an educational setting, along with understanding what motivates students and how to apply that in the classroom. You'll also learn stress management techniques for yourself and your students. The course finishes with conflict management, mediation and negotiation skills, useful whenever disagreements arise in a learning environment. Suitable for those teaching or training others in a classroom setting.

Learn to become a great teacher or teaching assistant. Develop your classroom skills with this in-depth course. Learn about effective communication, active listening, motivation, and how to help learners establish goals and work independently. Get better at conveying the message to students of any age Understand different types of motivation, and how to help students engage with their learning Manage negativity, conflict and stress in the classroom or lecture environment Excellent for youth group leaders, activists, education support staff, and more. Duration: 100 hours Course Content Eight lessons covering: Interpersonal communication in education basic principles of communication verbal and non-verbal communication factors affecting communication self-awareness and communication reactive patterns intent teacher student ratio factors affecting communication in the classroom student diversity student expectations teacher's needs and expectations society and culture communication and education approaches teacher-centred and student-centred learning verbal skills for classroom teaching, questioning, lecturing or giving a talk, elements of lecturing. Listening Skills stages of listening key elements of listening in the classroom obstacles to listening, including anxiety, hearing, lack of interest, bias, selective attention, bias, negativity listening skills active listening empathic listening responding to received communications. Understanding motivation what is motivation? variables of motivation theories of motivation Maslow's theory of motivation unlearned motivators, secondary or learned motivators motivation and anxiety motivation and distress. Motivational factors Incentives, internal and external relational character of incentives enhancing intrinsic motivators social reinforcers as incentives influence of groups on individual motivation social loafing. Applying motivation to education motivation and goals expectations vicious and virtuous cycles practical applications assessing student's current situation dealing with emotions identifying existing barriers to learning establishing goals and priorities locate and apply useful resources. Stress management Flight or fight response long-term problems what happens when a person is stressed stress management program. Conflict management what is conflict? conflict handling techniques anger, dealing with anger in others modifying anger role play conflict management. Mediation and Negotiation what is negotiation? establishment groups community groups joint problem solving approach effective negotiating behaviour mediation mediator's responsibilities facilitation attributes of a good facilitator balance of power power imbalance group work and discussion conflict training exercises. Establish Goals and Priorities Goals give us direction, and help us focus our thoughts and energies where they are most likely to achieve results. They are not the same as dreams, but may and should reflect our dreams, putting them into practical form. Good goals are realistic, achievable, and valued by the person. Even though the purpose of goals is to move a student beyond his or her present level of knowledge or skills, the establishment of goals and priorities must take into consideration the student’s needs, limitations and existing situation. It is not good, for instance, to set the goal of a very high grade for students who started far behind other students. Instead, you might encourage the student to set the goal of completing certain work and learning certain things that will allow the student to see their own progress. While teachers must work towards their own teaching goals (which in many education systems, are set by others), there is always room to accommodate students’ learning goals. It is very useful to spend the first or second session in forming student learning contracts. These can be varied as much as is permissible within the set curriculum to meet students’ individual goals, but should also include the essential curriculum goals. A contract might allow the student to achieve certain goals within a set time they agree to, as well. So while the contract of every student in the class might have some common features, such as required learning outcomes for a semester or a program of study, each might be different, allowing students to study at their own pace and to take more responsibility for achieving their goals. Teaching isn't just about Presenting the Curriculum People learn more than science in a science class; and more than maths in a maths class -if the teacher is really good at their job. To be a good classroom teacher; you need to understand the life skills that your students need to develop; just as much as the factual information that makes up the curriculum you are teaching. The following are universally valuable and most enlightened educators would agree these are fundamental skills that everyone should try to learn, but many fail to learn: 1. Verbal Communication - Good communication involves two parts; a. one involves messages being created and directed to the listener(s) b. This involves the intended person receiving (hearing) what is said. For the communication to be good there must be clarity in what is said, and understanding in how it is received and interpreted. Some people are very good at creating and delivering messages, but poor at receiving them. A good communicator must be both a skilled speaker and a skilled listener. 2. Body Language - ability to read what a person is saying purely by observation, reading their actions, gestures, movement and stance as a guide as hidden gestures to what they are feeling about a subject on which they are communicating. 3. Written Communication - Written communication is similar to verbal; except that the delivery and response may not be as immediate; and as such, it is possible for the communicator to take more time to refine what they are trying to communicate. We also tend to write in a different way to the way we speak. If you read textbooks or formal educational books, then the writing tends to have quite a formal style. If you read dialogue or more modern books, they may write in the way that we tend to speak, so there is variation in how we communicate in written form. 4. Problem Solving – Problem solving means using our skills, knowledge and facts to resolve a problem. We start learning to problem solve when we are young, through play. Consider a child who eats sand in a sand pit –they quickly learn that sand is an inappropriate food. As we grow older, we hopefully continue to learn problem solving skills. An example most of us will have experienced is learning to ride a bike. When we start, we may have stabilisers on our bike so that we can keep our balance. But when we get older, the stabilisers are removed; we need to learn how to keep our balance. We learn how to start off on the bike, how to keep going and stay upright. This is learning a new skill, but problem solving learning may involve finding out what the problem is and then how we can resolve it. A simple problem solving task we all often do is putting something into something else. Books into a school bag, photos into a photo album, shopping into a carrier bag and so on. If you pack your school bag in the wrong way, it can be bulky, our books may not fit, so eventually, we (hopefully) learn how to pack it correctly. We learn that we do not put our carton of juice at the bottom under our heavy books, as it may burst all over our books. We learn to put things more tidily to ensure we can fit everything in the bag. We learn also that if we put too much in a bag, the bag may break or tear. This is just a simple example of the type of problem solving that we do ALL the time without even really thinking about it. We do that to live our daily life, but also to learn and educate ourselves. We will develop problem solving skills when we do mathematics at school, or science, or learning how to critique a book and so on. Some people can develop a habit of depending on others to solve their problems for them. For example, if a parent constantly tells their child what to do, they may never learn themselves. An extreme example, but if a parent constantly tells a child not to touch hot water, the child may not truly understand why and could end up badly burned, but if a child touches hot water briefly and realises how hot and painful it is, they learn more quickly not to touch hot water. We are not suggesting pain is the way to learning, but learning through our own experience is more effective learning that being “told” something all the time. With the example above, being told not to eat sand does not really tell the child why. When the child does eat the sand, they realise it tastes horrible and will not do it again. So experience can be a very effective method of learning. If a child does not learn through experience, learning how to do their own maths problems, tie their own shoe laces, learn how to pack their own bag, and so on, they may not learn the necessary problem solving skills that will benefit them later in life. We may deal with very complex and serious problems during our lives and the problems solving skills we learn in smaller problems can be helpful as a way to develop our problem solving skills in larger tasks. 5. Motor Skills – ability to use hands, legs, eyes & the body overall, more effectively; so as to be more physically capable to adapt to challenges in the future. 6. Mathematics – mathematics can seem very abstract at school, but mathematical skills can be essential to enable us to leave an independent life. When we shop, we know how to count out the correct money, check our change, follow a recipe to make a cake, ensuring we have the correct ingredients and amounts, measuring out medicine when a child is ill, working out how much each litre of petrol costs and so on. Some people will use more complex mathematical skills, such as accountants, engineers, mathematicians, scientists and statisticians etc. 7. Computer Skills – in the modern world, many of us use computers in our day to day lives. This may be as part of our work, typing, adding up, and looking at barcodes on products and so on. We may use mobile phones, smaller technological advices. People will have differing levels of skills in terms of how to use their computers depending on what they are required to do as part of their work and daily life. 8. Efficiency – Good learning can help us to work and learn efficiently. Spending five hours on a task that may only take one hour is not very efficient. So we have to learn to work in an efficient way. People will do this in different ways. Some of us may prepare a list and work through the list until we have done everything. Others may prepare a list and prioritize the tasks, working through them in order. Other people may work in a more apparently chaotic fashion until their tasks are done. Good planning can help us to be more efficient in our work, ensuring that we are clear what we have to do and when. 9. Working to Specification – Working to a specification can also be an effective way of learning. Following a diagram to make a set of cupboards or create a computer programme or prepare a report for work. All can help us to follow set guidelines and patterns to enable us to complete a task. 10. Networking – networking is another way in which we can learn effectively from others. Networking often involves meeting up with others face to face or online. Examples may be networks of business; for example, businesses in Town B may meet regularly to network and discuss issues affecting their business. Accountants in a particular state or county may meet regularly to update their knowledge on accounts and network. Networking can be an effective way to find new business associates, create new working relationships, but it can also be an effective way to learn new things. A work associate may know something you do not, so increasing your knowledge. 11. Marketing – marketing is another thing that is useful to learn. By marketing, we can mean advertising a product, ourselves, but marketing can be particularly useful if you are trying to sell something. WHAT NEXT? Register to Study -Go to panel toward top of this page (right column) or Get Advice -Use our FREE COUNSELLING SERVICE to contact a tutor CLICK TO CONTACT US