Need structure in your classroom? Try didactic teaching 🧑🏽‍🏫

Are you a teacher navigating different teaching methods? Curious about the didactic approach and how it could work for you?

This structured, teacher-centered method can help you clarify concepts and cover a lot of content in a session. But when should you use it? And how?

Explore the benefits, limitations, and strategies of the didactic teaching method to decide if it’s the right fit for your classroom!

In didactic teaching, instructors deliver the training using structured lesson plans, select the topic and prompts, give feedback to students, and evaluate them.

If we think of a class as a dialogue between teachers and students, the instructor initiates the conversation and decides its content.

Use it for:

Learning languages: Grammar and vocabulary need structure and repetition. Teachers can use this model to plan when, how, and how often to work on them.

Complex subjects: STEM subjects involve learning multi-step processes and abstract concepts. This didactic approach helps teachers break down complex concepts for the learners.

Don't use it for:

Creative subjects: Arts or creative writing are tools for individual expression, requiring a student-centered methodology, where learners are at the center.

Philosophy: This subject benefits from debates, discussions, and individual interpretations of texts and dilemmas. The teacher facilitates learning rather than directs it.

Before the class

1. Create a lesson plan: Lesson plans define the structure of a class. They include:

• An objective

• The lessons' content

• A list of activities

• An evaluation rubric

Let's understand this better through an example of a language teacher preparing for a grammar lesson.

• Objective: A sentence that shows what we will learn: We will be able to identify and use the simple perfect tense.

• Lesson content: A Prezi presentation covering the "what" and "how" of the present simple tense.

• Activities: Interactive grammar exercises like filling in the blanks and completing sentences, followed by working with partners to create a quiz for their classmates!

• Evaluation rubric: A grid to measure students' success in learning the structure. Did students do very well, quite well, or need reinforcement?

2. Prepare additional materials: Stationery, printouts, or the software required in the computer.

During the class

Follow the lesson plan you created. They share the objective, present the content, and guide students to practice the new knowledge and skills.

During the lesson, you could:

• Take notes

• Observe students

• Step in for support

• Ask evaluation questions

• Adjust difficulty

After the class

Gather the activities and:

• Check for mistakes

• Extract data from the results

• Prepare further revision activities

• Mark the progress of students

Photo by RUT MIIT on Unsplash

Lectures follow the didactic teaching model because the teacher structures them.

To make an effective class, you can use these strategies:

Demonstrations

This means showing the steps to perform a task or solve a problem. The demonstration guides the students to reach the solution.

Check out this video about doing demonstrations with an interactive touch:

Modeling

This means showing students a sample or model of how to do something, so they can learn by example.

Check out this video to learn more about modeling:

Presentations

They cover the main points in a lecture. They're a great way to cover a lot of content within one class.

Check out these presentation templates from Canva that you can use in class.

Other strategies are questioning, using slide shows, and asking students to take notes in class.

Check out this resource to support students organize their note-taking in class — with different templates to tackle different subject areas!

You're working on a Spanish lesson plan about animals for your 3rd-grade classroom and want to use the didactic teaching method.

Which ideas can you use in your classroom?

A. Read descriptions of different animals and have a vote to identify the most dangerous one.

B. Read a story about animals, guide students through a reading comprehension activity, and ask them to work in pairs to answer a quiz on interesting facts about animals.

C. Bring a pet to the class, and ask students to come up with rules for taking care of the animal in class.

D. Project a video about animals in a savanna, ask them to complete a quiz about the vídeo, do think-pair-share about animals in danger, elicit answers, and close the session with a reflection task.