Teaching strategies: 5 tricks for difficult students

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By Joyanne James. Difficult students are capable of stressing out the most qualified educators who use world class teaching strategies. After teachers give 100% of their efforts, the results in return for problematic students are often very low.

Teachers and parents all over the world can relate to dealing with children who lack focus, show little interest in learning, behave disruptive or simply do not retain information. Teaching strategies to make learning fun can be found on the internet.

But most educators would agree that certain students need a lot more than entertaining lessons. They need teaching strategies that force them to know the information whether they want to do it or not. Here are 5 teaching strategies that guarantee any student will know the work and remember it.

1. Visuals for difficult students

Post the information in the faces of your difficult students. This teaching strategy is very effective for day-dreamers, chatterboxes, and those who sit in a classroom but remember nothing.

Post on the walls projects that cover difficult lessons in great detail. The students should decide on the topics that are considered challenging after being introduced to them.

The teacher can let each student work on one part of the project and have them stick their contributions on one big poster. Since each poster represents the efforts of all the students, having it on display should give each participant a sense of accomplishment.

Do not let these posters become forgotten and seen as part of the classroom décor, visit them often to keep the lessons alive. For online classes, each student will do their own posters covering entire lessons and stick them on the walls of their bedroom.

2. Audio a forceful teaching strategy

Music, voice recordings and reading of notes with instrumentals in the background are effective auditory methods that make information stick. Repeatedly hearing a song on the radio causes you to know the lyrics whether you like it or not.

Ask students to turn notes, formulas, formats, rules and any information worth remembering into songs, raps, dub, hip-hop, poetry or whatever genre of music they prefer.

Students can work in groups to cover different parts of a lesson and record their song as the final project. A day of performance can take place for the teacher to ensure the songs cover the information accurately.

The complete songs can be used in the classroom throughout the term. The teacher can play that audio over and over until students know the information. This strategy can easily work for online classes because the audio can be shared electronically with each other.

3. Kinesthetic teaching strategies a must

Teaching strategies that involve kinesthetic learning are needed for difficult students. These lessons require a lot of effort from the teacher, but it is worth it. When students experience lessons first hand rather than reading about it in a book or being told about it by their teacher, they remember the message for sure.

A teacher can bring the text book information alive in the classroom for any subject. A classroom filled with fruits, props, flashcards, Pictionary, Scrabble, Charades, Monopoly money and scripts that cover the lessons will catch the attention of the most stubborn students.

Have students do role plays or play games that require them to know the information to win a challenge. The teacher can create flashcards for students to match answers with the correct headings.

The creative options are endless and students look forward to learning in an active environment. Even in an online class, this teaching strategy can work as everyone can work together through video conferencing.

4. Relate to real life

Some students act uninterested in learning because they may not see the point of a lesson in the real world. It is necessary for a teacher to explain to students the purpose of teaching something before getting into it.

The lessons should involve projects that encourage them to research published events based on the topics. They can flip through old newspapers to cut out articles and images that relate to lessons. These clippings should be stuck in the pages of a scrapbook under appropriate headings.

Field trips are another way to relate lessons to real life. Visiting a factory, farm, river, zoo and monumental places helps students to see topics beyond the classroom.

They are given the opportunity to meet with persons involved in particular fields and interact with the events stated in the textbook. For online sessions, the experience can be done virtually through watching videos, taking virtual tours or doing live video conferencing with individuals at organisations of interest.

5. Give drills to difficult students

Have fun with your class at least once a week doing drills on difficult topics. This teaching strategy is usually used to prepare students to work fast while under pressure.

It can also be used to lighten the classroom setting on a Friday. Students can test themselves, work together, compete against their peers and have an entertaining day.

Drilling students on synonyms and antonyms is an excellent strategy to improve their diction and help them become expressive in all their subjects.

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