How Do You Adapt Your Teaching Or Leadership Style?
In the dynamic world of education, teachers and principals often find themselves reshaping their methods to better meet the needs of their students and colleagues. From embracing flexibility in lesson plans to making the shift to active, extroverted leadership, here are six insightful experiences shared by educators on adapting their teaching or leadership styles.
- Embrace Flexibility in Lesson Plans
- Incorporate Collaborative Leadership
- Engage Students with Diverse Activities
- Tailor Curriculum for Student Flexibility
- Adapt to Online Teaching During Crisis
- Shift to Active, Extroverted Leadership
Embrace Flexibility in Lesson Plans
Throughout my years of teaching, there have been many times where I had to make a quick adjustment in my "plans" for the day. When I first started teaching, and for many of my first years, I always thought that I had to stick to the plan. Every minute was accounted for, and I had to cover the content, provide students with practice, assign homework, and assess within my 42 minutes. But I have realized that we don't always need to stick to the plan. We have to be flexible and use those teachable moments to support our students or staff in whatever way they may need. We may not always be prepared, but we do the best we can and learn and grow from the experience together.
Incorporate Collaborative Leadership
As an At-Risk Continuation High School teacher who teaches most all subjects with a primarily direct-instructional leadership style, I focus on directly teaching content and skills to students. However, I noticed that many of my students seemed disengaged and were struggling to connect with the material and failing to connect with me. To address this, I decided to incorporate more elements of collaborative leadership approaches.
For example, I experimented with the following and achieved higher levels of engagement and connection:
1) Encouraged more student-led discussions and group work, which fostered collaboration and critical thinking.
2) Incorporated more creative projects that allowed students to demonstrate their understanding in diverse ways beyond just essays and tests.
3) Provided more individualized feedback and mentoring to help students set and work towards personal learning goals.
By giving up some of my control, I was able to get some buy-in from my students while also learning more about them, creating better relationships, and thereby getting more productive work. Students became more motivated and invested in their learning, leading to improved participation, higher quality work, and better overall school attendance.
Engage Students with Diverse Activities
My format is to "hook" the students upfront with a lecture and discussion to build engagement and a basic knowledge set (only works if you are an engaging teacher whom students like to listen to), then use a variety of activities to use the information in a deeper way, including: research projects, document-based inquiry activities, simulations, videos/documentaries, games, essays, and finally, some kind of assessment. I have found that my students struggle if I didn't front-load the topic with some sort of engaging lecture/discussion format first. If all you do is lecture, the kids will get bored and tired real quick. If you keep the lecture shorter and not every day, the lectures will be a powerful learning tool. If all you do is jump into assignments and activities, students will be lost and disengaged. Granted... I have been teaching for 10 years in alternative high schools with reluctant learners lacking basic grade-level skills.
Tailor Curriculum for Student Flexibility
At Legacy Online School, we realized that our students and parents required flexibility and a curriculum tailored to their needs. This insight prompted us to make adjustments in our approach to better serve them.
Understanding the significance of education, we equipped our teachers with the tools, training, and mindset to tackle this challenge. We emphasized the importance of scheduling flexibility, adapting the curriculum to meet each student's needs.
We implemented training programs aimed at enhancing teachers' abilities in creating learning plans. These plans included lesson materials, personalized feedback, and adaptive teaching methods. Teachers learned how to connect with students by recognizing their learning preferences and adjusting their techniques accordingly.
To support this transition, we introduced feedback sessions where teachers could discuss their experiences and obstacles. This collaborative effort not only helped fine-tune our approaches but also fostered a sense of community and teamwork among the staff.
The outcomes were impressive. Students felt more supported and valued, resulting in increased engagement and academic achievements. Parents welcomed the approach, knowing that their children were receiving an education tailored to their requirements.
Adapt to Online Teaching During Crisis
The best example that I can share is when the teachers had to adapt to a complete online mode of teaching during COVID-19. During this unprecedented time, the leadership styles of educators underwent significant changes to adapt to the unique challenges posed by the crisis. Those were the times when the leadership style also changed from authoritative to affiliative, where teachers needed more hand-holding, positive, and supportive leaders. As school leaders, we had to engage in frequent communication with our teams, soliciting inputs and empowering educators to best serve the students. This helped the team members feel a sense of belonging, freely share ideas and feedback, and work together as a team, helping each other as they progressed.
Shift to Active, Extroverted Leadership
I operate a design practice and teach university students how to design architectural and interior projects. Traditionally, I would have considered myself an introvert and leaned on live sketching to communicate complex ideas. However, I have adapted my style to be more extroverted, repeating concepts more often and implementing an active leadership style involving frequent one-on-one feedback. I now take on the role of the learners' guide, responding to their challenges in real-time, pushing them to think bigger, and encouraging them to have confidence in their ideas.
