Getting your teaching style right for both your material and audience is tricky in real life, perhaps trickier in Second Life. No single teaching style is correct for every topic, circumstance or student. Nonetheless, teachers can always look to improve their teaching in such a way that they get more satisfactory results; they can do this is by being aware of the common teaching styles, learning which of these styles best suits them and the teaching environment, and by working a little flexibility into their personal style to allow for the individual student's learning style.


Academia typically lists these teaching styles:

• Direct instruction: The instructor delivers the material the students require in the form of lectures, accompanied by examples and problem solving. It is an efficient way to transmit facts, but does not stimulate higher-level thinking or creativity.
• Indirect instruction: Students are presented with materials and asked to come to their own conclusions. Students take an active role in their learning.
• Discussion: An interactive dialog between the teacher and members of the class. All participants need to be able to listen to whatever is said within the given topic, no matter how poorly thought out.
• Cooperative learning: This style fosters independence within the classroom, and encourages students to collaborate on projects. It boosts cognitive thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Self-directed Instruction: Students are supported in teaching themselves and in independent thinking.
  

I attended Arwen Epin's Hairmaking 101 class. Her class was a mixture of direct instruction, indirect instruction and self-directed instruction. Much of the material was designed to be learned by rote and then practiced in class; for the remainder of the class, students were asked to take what they had learned in the first part and apply it creatively, in effect teaching themselves the creative process.

First the class was directed to create basic shapes that would become individual locks of hair in the finished piece; the information was delivered at a rapid pace from pre-prepared notes, spoken by a speaker box rather than cut and pasted. The class kept up well during this part, and based on the objects they produced, learning by rote agreed with them, their prior knowledge of prim work serving them well.

Unfortunately Epin suffered an inventory failure, and some people failed to receive all their class materials, but this was soon rectified. Due to restrictions on class size (Epin limits her classes to twelve), not everyone who fronted up was able to receive a package, which is quite reasonable.

Next, a scripted object was used to more easily create a full head of hair from one of the basic shapes. Epin several times encouraged anyone having difficulties to IM her. At this point, some people started to fall behind the cracking pace.

Then Epin encouraged her students to make a fringe, using the components they had created and their own creativity. Some students were much faster at this than others.

After a flexible portion of hair was created and attached, the basic hair was finished.

The class lasted for two hours, an hour over time; it seems that one hour is simply not enough time to present material in this fashion and have people create their own examples. The class was very quiet - without a lot of tangential chatter or interruption; in a sense this is great, it allows student to concentrate on the material. On the other hand, there is much to be said for student interaction in the learning process, even if it is just encouragement from or about other students.

Despite some glitches grammar and spelling the students seemed to understand her instructions quite readily.

It might be good to see this class broken into several smaller classes: basic component making, followed by a construction and finishing class for basic hair, and then advanced classes requiring more ingenuity from the students and perhaps more group participation, but scheduling these sorts of things globally can be difficult.

I would definitely recommend that you attend this class if you are looking to extend your basic prim-working skills; even if hair is not your thing, there's much to be learned here. Epin is also keen for students to fill out feedback sheets to allow her to improve her classes, and to know what to add or change for more advanced material.


The class is free; please be on time to receive the class materials and be a part of the group. This class will be run again Thursday 24 May at 3:30pm SLT (US Pacific).