Introducing Approaches
In these next modules, we look at some of the approaches and concepts used in adult teaching.
Here are a few things you need to know first. Feel free to skip ahead if you want.
What’s a teaching approach?
- When we talk about teaching, an approach is simply a way of looking at teaching and learning.
Teaching approaches lead to teaching methods, which is the way you teach something. And this involves using activities, strategies, or techniques to help learners learn.
What’s a teaching concept?
A concept is an idea. In this case, it’s an idea about teaching or learning. For us, it’s related to adult literacy and numeracy.
We want you to know some of the key ideas about teaching and learning that relate to your work in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Why are we talking about this?
Any approach to teaching and learning has some theory sitting behind it. This includes the work that you do.
But we’re not going to get deep into education theory. Our goal is this… For you to:
- Know some of the terminology.
- Have a working understanding of what the words mean.
This is a big topic, but we’ve picked key approaches and concepts that are relevant to adult literacy and numeracy in Aotearoa New Zealand.
At every point, what we’re most interested in is our thoughts and answers to this question:
- How does this approach help us make our teaching more learner centred?
This means that it’s the practical application that we want you to focus on.
