I’m an old guy who has been long-retired from a very-rewarding career teaching high school students.
It’s funny how everybody thinks they have a pretty good understanding about teaching. This is probably because everybody has spent many years in the school system as students.
It’s both amusing and annoying how wrong they are.
I concede that they probably do know how to recognize strong direct teaching.
Let’s look at a very specific example of direct teaching.
You are attending an evening Jiu-Jitsu class. The instructor calls the group together, and explain what will be covered in the lesson. He then demonstrates the first part of the material with a partner. He does this several times, from different angles, and points out all of the non-obvious movements.
He then sends the group off to partner up and work on that first slice of the material.
After a while, he calls the group back in and explains and demonstrates the next slice. The class goes off to work and drill again.
This is repeated until the material has all been covered, and practiced. Typically, a Jiu-Jitsu class lasts an hour. After that the group breaks apart into those who are heading directly home, and those that want to free-roll, or to work with a partner.
Probably half of the class-time hour is direct instruction and the other half of the time the students are trying to master the material in pairs.
I contend that it is the job of the teacher to have as many of his students as possible learning as much as is they can for every moment of the class. To do this he needs to be working during the practice time.
Let’s assume that the instructor is absolutely wonderful at direct teaching, and that while they are explaining and demonstrating every student is fully engaged and paying complete attention to every second. Full marks for that teacher for half of the class time. What about the other half?
During practice time students display a lot of different styles.
Some want to chat for a while with their partner before getting to work; perhaps about the move, but often about something else altogether.
Others get right down to work, but never seem to do more than a two or three repetitions of the move. They then sit about waiting for the call back for the next demonstration.
Others get promptly down to work, and keep doing repetitions right up until the callback.
It is the teacher’s responsibility to get students of type one or two to work more like those of type three.
The practice segments are usually each around five minutes long. It isn’t like anybody will be getting really tired drilling the technique. Even if they are, they will be resting during next demonstration very soon.
So what should the instructor be doing?
The first thing is that they should not be acting as if it is a time for the teacher to be on a break. They should not leave the training area, or hanging off on the side chatting with cronies.
They should find a pair who is getting promptly to work, and intently watch them from just a few feet away. If they are doing OK, the shouldn’t do anything to interfere. Likely there are a dozen things the students could be doing somewhat better, but this is not a time for interfering. If they are not “getting” it at all or if they ask for help then certainly the instructor should jump in. As long as they are good enough, he should watch for a short time, and then move on to another pair.
If he intently watches you practice, and then moves on without interfering, it can be the greatest morale boost ever. I’ve seen students high-five each other when an instructor who supervises this way has wordlessly moved on.
This kind of teaching method also gets students to work. If the teacher hits a group that isn’t practicing, he stares at them for a short time. Under the instructor's gaze, almost every group rapidly gets going on serous practice. If they don’t, he watches then for maybe 20 seconds, and then moves on to the next student pair. It’s like he has just said that they wasted his time and that they also wasted their own.
When using this tactic an entire class is soon in a pattern of getting starting quickly, and continuing right up until they get called back for the next demo. Nobody starts slow or slacks off early.
It’s like the instructor is silently saying that every student's progress is of great importance. He gets more work out of them without making any kind of verbal direction.
This type of instructor movement through the practice segments also makes him extremely accessible to the students for help. He isn’t off at the side chatting. He is giving this class every minute of the hour that he promised, not just the part where he is up at the front directly teaching.
Not every instructor does this kind of thing. In fact, most do not. In fact, most have never considered it part of teaching at all.
