During student teaching it was easy to design instruction based on elements key to effective teaching because if you succeed in this your lesson plan tended to work out well. Some elements key to effective teaching that I worked on throughout the semester included consideration of learner characteristics, motivational strategies, learner goals and objectives, teaching strategies, pacing, and assessment of learning. Perhaps none were more valuable to me that teaching strategies and pacing.
While I was able to include many of those key elements daily, I found that teaching strategies and pacing were the two most prominent issues at hand during my placements. Both elements applied to both schools I worked at for different reasons.
At the elementary school, I needed to incorporate very welcoming, encouraging teaching strategies in order to excite the students enough to want to participate, but also keep them in line enough to be able to give directions. If you were too hard on the young ones, or used teaching strategies that were not relatable to them it could quickly upset them and cause an issue or distraction not only with them, but for the rest of class.
While at the middle school, I dealt with different degrees of readiness and willingness to learn. Participation was a big issue at the middle school, stemming from even the simple act of changing for class. I needed to use certain teaching strategies that grabbed the students' attention and held their focus. Team based learning and other such methods really made the students feel like they were in charge which often inspired them to want to continue to participate for the duration of class.
When it comes to pacing, middle school students often needed a nicely paced lesson in order to insure they would not quickly get bored and stop participating in a lesson or activity. The elementary students on the other hand, needed a well paced lesson so they would not get too distracted or caught up in a game. I often needed to stop the game to reiterate the rules, and be sure they were trying to work on their form when learning something new.
In both cases, pacing and teaching strategies were very valuable assets to my success as a student teacher and really aided me in efficiently teaching lessons I had planned.
One example would be when I was teaching at the elementary school, I needed to make frequent pauses in a game of Sharks and Minnows in order to remind the students what skill sets we were working on and the rules of the game they may have forgotten.