The teacher’s ability to teach students using a variety of different teaching methods is one of the most important and vital strategies that a U.S. history teacher can use to help encourage students to connect and relate history with events going in the present. The changing in teaching methods from the traditional lectures and note-taking classroom to a more modern, hands-on and interactive classroom is something that has greatly affected the student’s ability to learn and retain information. The traditional teaching method has several problems that greatly inhibit the student’s ability to learn, such as only teaching students the surface level. Teaching on the surface level means that they are only being taught the general information instead of being taught the material in great detail. The traditional teaching method only requires students to memorize the information for a short period of time to take the quizzes and test and then it is often never talked about again, which is a huge problem because it doesn’t enable the students to really retain and learn from the events that have happened in the past. For example looking back at the fourteen year old female that was taught in the traditional classroom, she was having trouble learning and connecting to the material, which is why she was unable to be successful in the classroom.
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Mixed MethodThe mixed method refers to the idea that all students learn differently and the teacher should teach the class using a mixed variety of methods that relate to each learning method (sensing or intuitive, visual or verbal, active or reflective, and sequential or global) so that every student has the ability to learn in the form that works best for him/her (Park, Crocker, Nussey, Springate, & Hutchings, 2010).
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Documentary FilmsDocumentary films are something that have been used in the classroom for generations, but the overall effectiveness of the films varies depending on how the films are being shown. For example, if the documentary film is just turned on in front of the class and the students are only required to watch it, then the overall effectiveness of the film is minimized (Marcus & Stoddard, 2009). However, if the teacher requires the students to fill in guided notes or answer questions from the film, then the overall effectiveness of the film is raised substantially (Marcus & Stoddard, 2009).
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