Technology has significantly changed the development of many different industries, and the education field is not an exception. Many educators start realizing that it’s not just enough to know your subject perfectly to be a good teacher. You should also understand today’s student needs, implement the new teaching methods and improve the toolkit, which should now include much more than just a blackboard and chalk. 

In this article, we’ll discover some of the best modern teaching methods that are actually driving results in the classroom. Keep on reading to find out the effective teaching practices that will help you to build happy, motivated classrooms and enhance the academic performance of your students!

3 Major Challenges for Modern Teaching Approaches

Times change and the ways we teach and learn change accordingly. Today, in the era of global digitalization, modern teachers faced lots of challenges that can be transformed into opportunities:

• Remote learning. Regardless of the fact that the shift to remote learning exposed inequality in classrooms, it has also provided new opportunities to enhance student engagement with interactive tools and digital materials. So, a lot of teachers across the globe have realized that teaching is not only limited to a student’s book and blackboard!
• Advanced edtech innovations. The new technologies in the education field forced teachers to reconsider their standard teaching methods and empower those with the modern tools implemented, like a virtual classroom, digital materials, and more. Thus, the educators were able to finally combine classroom learning with real-world digital skills. 
• Fresh insights and solutions about education and pedagogy. The teachers have now discovered the modern practices for improving the current teaching methods to perfectly meet the students’ needs, including social-emotional learning, personalized learning, and more. 

Being a teacher implies being proactive within the educational field: trying new ways for students to learn, discover, stay interested, and be motivated for studying. In the next part, we’ll introduce some of the effective teaching methods that will surely help you to improve your teaching style. 

Best Modern Teaching Methods You Should Try Today

Apart from obtaining the essential skills for teachers, such as deep knowledge of a subject, understanding the basics of student learning, excellent communication, and social skills, educators should also mind the new teaching methods that can help students to stay engaged and study better. 

Below you’ll find the most popular teaching methods that have already become essential in today’s educational process. 

Flipped Classrooms

Ideal for: Late elementary students and up

We’re more than sure that everybody at least once in their life was asking a classmate to explain the information discovered during the lesson, as it’s more clear and distinct compared to a teacher’s language. In fact, you can make use of this hack as a teacher too!

Also known as blended learning, the “flipped classrooms” method allows students to become teachers and share the information as they see fit. Not only does this encourage students to absorb information on their own time but also helps to improve their research skills, understand how to use the information sources, and present the topic accordingly. 

For instance, students can be assigned to research and introduce a topic with the use of any technology that is convenient and easy-to-understand to them. This way significantly enhances the student engagement and learning process, while also improving other soft skills like storytelling and presentation. 

Digital Tools Utilization

Ideal for: Students of all ages

With more and more innovative tech solutions introduced today, you’re no longer limited to the chack and whiteboard. For instance, with the modern digital tools in education you can make use of the following approaches:

• Presentations. This format can greatly work for both classroom and online teaching, yet is a great chance to enhance the engagement of students with the help of visuals: images, GIFs, videos, etc. Even if the file format is rare or not compatible with modern devices, you can always change it with modern software tools: for instance, convert IFO to MP4 file, or even digitalize the old videotape formats for your presentation. 
• Online Whiteboard. If you lack the classroom blackboard on your online lesson, it still can be accessible with the edtech software! Simply put, the online whiteboard is a canvas on which teachers can make diagrams, share pre-made templates and charts, make sketches, write, etc. What is more, the whiteboard can be also used by students to re-share the content, do interactive exercises, carry out assignments, and more. 
• Pre-Recorded Video Lectures. Unlike the common live online classes, this content will ideally fit for revision purposes or else to clear students’ doubts. Additionally, this can greatly eliminate the work of repeating the information if the students do not understand it. 

All in all, these are only a few cases where you can use digital tools in teaching to enhance the educational process. Nevertheless, with any of this software implemented, you’re sure to improve the quality of student learning, as well as the level of their engagement. 

Game-Based Teaching

Ideal for: Students of all ages, depending on the game

Game-Based Learning or GBL is a modern teaching method that implies using the power of games to define and support learning outcomes. In other words, teachers use game elements to teach new and motivate students to study. 

Some of the benefits this approach provides include: 

• Better student engagement
• Immediate rewards and feedback
• Healthy competition
• Higher interest in the subject

At present, nearly all the students understand games, especially digital ones. The advanced edtech tools can successfully make use of that and turn the love for games into a love of learning, regardless of the subject it’s been used for. 

Student-Centered Learning

Ideal for: Students of all ages

Unlike traditional classroom learning, this approach implies involving students in decisions about their learning, while teachers can guide them in the process. Basically, it helps to raise some interest in “why the material is important” and “how it can help” in everyday life. 

For sure, the Internet, as well as other digital technologies, has opened up a lot of different ways to get information and interact with it. This means students now are more skillful and acknowledge the ways they can (and want) to get the information while learning. Student-centered learning allows to:

• Use the tools students need to engage with the target topic
• Make connections between topics, conduct the deep research and utilize the problem-solving skills
• Link the lessons to their personal experience outside the school

Personalized Learning

Ideal for: Students of all ages, elementary and up

Another great educational approach that has already proven its efficiency is personalized learning – the one that tailors learning around individual students’ needs, interests, and abilities. Based on the specific needs of a student, it allows to define and analyze the strong and weak sides of a learner, and build a teaching strategy targeted at building the critical skills that will help the student to succeed. 

This approach can help to improve the academic performance within a certain subject, as well as obtain some more specific soft skills like motivation, reliability, self-advocacy, and many others – and that is why it can perfectly fit the students of all ages. 

Collaborative Learning

Ideal for: Elementary students and up 

Collaborative learning is the category in which students are working on a common task together to boost group performance and amplify learning. Similar to flipped classrooms, they’re going to implement the research skills to find answers to a specific topic or create a final product to which each of the members has equally contributed. 

While collaborating, students can also learn the new material in the process, or else share the knowledge they’ve obtained in the lessons with the minimal guidance of a teacher. Additionally, this enables students not just to better understand the material but also to interact with other classmates for a better outcome, which is exceptionally important for building valuable teamwork skills. 

Wrapping Up

Now that you know: there are many advanced methods that can help you to become a good teacher, as well as develop students’ interest in your subject: it can be game-based learning, or flipped classrooms approach, student- or teacher-centered learning, and even your own style with the use of multiple digital tools. 

Whatever approach you’ve decided to implement as a result, we’re more than sure that it helps you to transform the boring lessons into an exciting journey for your students.