SPECTRUM OVERVIEW

In the Spectrum of Teaching Styles the focus is on teaching behavior - what the teacher actually says and does with learners.

A teacher's intent or desire is fine and good, and important, for if a teacher enters a teaching-learning situation without intent, there is little chance the learning goal will be reached. However it is the teacher's behavior which creates the learning environment, which presents the task or challenge to the learner, and to which the learner responds. How does the teacher translate intent into congruent action - into effective teaching behavior? The Spectrum of Teaching Styles provides a systematically developed array of alternative teaching behavior models (we call them "teaching styles") all emanating from the same conceptual framework, that can help the teacher craft behavior which is congruent with intent.

A teaching style in this context has nothing to do with a teacher's personality or philosophy - it has to do with a teacher's in-class behavior.

All teachers can learn to effectively use all teaching styles along the Spectrum. It is the learning goal or objective that should dictate choice of teaching style. Each teaching style along the Spectrum creates a different learning environment or context which is more or less effective in promoting the learning conditions required for a given learning goal or objective. In our view the teacher who has mastered more teaching styles, and feels comfortable using them in different contexts, is the more "pedagogically" complete and potentially more effective teacher.

Teaching styles along the Spectrum were evolved from a decision making framework (the anatomy).

Teaching styles were identified by and defined in terms of who - teacher or learner - makes which specific decisions within the learning context. This decision-making approach is what makes the Spectrum unique. At one end of the Spectrum is a teaching style in which the teacher makes all decisions while the learner attempts to follow the teacher’s commands and directions as closely as possible. At the other end of the Spectrum is a teaching style in which the learner makes all decisions and the teacher’s role is one of consultant. Between these two teaching styles, there are a myriad of other styles all emanating from and defined by this same decision making framework. Teaching styles emerge as different configurations of decision making evolve. This decision-making approach is what makes the Spectrum comprehensive and logical.

No one teaching style is universally good or bad.

As alluded to above, each teaching style creates a particular learning climate and set of conditions which either support or are incongruent with the particular learning objective or goal at hand.

The "anatomy of any style" is the decision-making framework mentioned above that undergirds the Spectrum.

The anatomy organizes decisions temporally into three categories or sets - planning and preparation (pre-impact), implementation (impact), and assessment and feedback (post-impact).

An "episode", in Spectrum terms, is a period of time during which the teacher and learner are within the same teaching style working on a particular educational objective.

So, within any class period in school, there may be one or more episodes- typically there are or should be several episodes in a class period. Each episode has its own anatomy - pre-impact, impact, and post-impact decisions. It sounds confusing but it really isn't. It is like multi-tasking. So, it is possible, indeed this happens all the time, for the teacher to be making pre-impact decisions in one episode while, at the same time, being engaged in impact decisions in a second episode, within the same class period. The concept of "episodic" teaching is extremely useful in both theoretical and operational terms. In theoretical terms the episode helps to clearly identify the exact pattern of teaching and learning behavior for a defined length of time. In operational terms the episode helps both the teacher and the learner to more clearly direct the flow of the content lesson and understand their roles during that defined period of time.

How many teaching styles are there along the Spectrum?

Theoretically there are an infinite number of teaching and learning styles. The Spectrum authors, however, identified nine "landmark" styles, each with significantly different educational objectives. However, between all landmark style there is an array of styles that bridge one landmark style to the next. The landmark styles are like mileposts along a highway. A milepost tells you exactly where you are. The milepost 245 tells you that you are 245 miles from some starting point. We can identify where any teaching/learning behavior "falls along" the Spectrum by identifying who makes which decisions. What if in a landmark style one decision that was supposed to be is omitted? First of all, this omission may not be at all a bad or undesirable thing. It may be intentional in order to accomplish specific learning objectives. All non-landmark styles, in our terms, are teaching options that can be associated by their decision structure and located "under the canopy" of a particular landmark style. The Spectrum is not a closed system that excludes teaching and learning options but rather it embraces deliberate decision making options that lead to specific learning objectives.