Styles of Teaching

     With the semester coming to a close, professors are starting to hand out evaluations for students to complete. As I filled out evaluations for each professor, I began thinking more about each of their teaching styles, and which classes have really been effective in allowing me to learn new information.

     Most students prefer to have a professor who is more laid back, gives less work and is an easy grader. However, in many cases people feel a laid back approach is risky and may result in the student not learning anything. In some cases this may be true, if the professor gives little work and gives students good grades for work that may not effectively show an understanding of the topic.

    This isn’t always true, though. In one of my classes in particular, the professor is very laid back and constantly engages in conversation with the students in the class. He doesn’t seem to worry too much about grading based on whether or not the student fully met the goal of the assignments, instead he gives more credit if he can tell a student put a lot of effort in even if they missed one or two things. The workload overall was less, but we were still tested several times on the material, and because there wasn’t really any added stress due to major assignments during the semester, it was easier for me and other students to relax and take in the knowledge he was giving.

     Most of the professors I have had have been somewhere in between the two extremes. I’m not saying that every professor needs to do things exactly like that one particular class, I just feel one can learn just as much or even more from a class like this, even if the workload isn’t extremely challenging.