Teaching Tips
5. About teaching and learning
Giving feedback – mind your language
Feedback is an important teaching tool. Without feedback, it is difficult for a ringer to understand and modify their ringing. Learners who obtain feedback tend to perform more consistently over the long term.
Using feedback loops to enhance your teaching – IDEAS for teaching handling
One way of using feedback loops to enhance learning is the IDEAS model – Introduction, Demonstration, Explanation, Action, Summary – which helps to identify learning objectives and encourages focused teaching on key points.
Catch, pull and hold on
Ringing terminology is seductive. The more we use it, the less we are aware that to the uninitiated it can mean something completely different. The worst case is when the intended meaning overlaps the perceived meaning. A good example is ‘Hold’. The dictionary says it is to ‘keep fast; grasp’ Is that really what we want? I know a number of ringers who ‘keep fast and grasp’ the tail end with terrible consequences at handstroke, and others who are so worried about not keeping the tail end fast and grasping it, that they can barely ring as they focus on holding the rope...
Engage in some reflective practice
Do you reflect on how you could improve your teaching? Do you take for granted that your teaching is OK? Do you discuss your teaching with others? As you teach more and more, your skills will improve, however it is useful for all teachers and coaches to engage in some degree of reflection. This reflection may lead to a certain openness to new ideas and help to improve your skills as a teacher.
Learning how we learn
Teachers increasingly use research from cognitive psychology to inform how they teach. Cognitive psychology covers the study of the mind, including perception, attention and memory. How can this help you?
Get going with goals
Goal setting has been shown to be one of the most important motivational tools a tutor or coach can use when developing the skills of a participant in an activity. The principles of goal setting are generic and apply across the board to many activities including ringing.
Get GROWing with goals
Using goals when teaching is one of the most effective ways to motivate those learning. What factors will make the use of goal setting work better for your ringers?
Score from successful goals
Discover the various types of goals which can be used and when each type of goal might be useful when teaching ringers. Do you have a long term goal for your ringers or for your band? What do you think of when you set goals for your ringers? How do you plan the actions necessary to achieve long term goals?