Teaching Styles

Teaching Styles and Instructional Uses of the World Wide Web

To say that teachers approach their classrooms differently is no great insight. However, to recognize that this approach profoundly affects the design of a web-based course is crucial to developing effective instructional materials. A web site may replicate a text book or become a working site for problem-based instruction.

A teacher who clearly understands the possibilities and limits of his or her teaching style can make more consistent judgments about how best to use this medium. Below, you will find some suggestions based on the work of Anthony Grasha, professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, whose book Teaching with Style (Pittsburgh, PA: Alliance Publishers, 1996) describes how an understanding of teaching styles and learning styles can help faculty enhance their teaching.  This page contains several links for faculty that use Grasha's categories in planning their distance education courses that have been developed by the CIRT.   You can connect to:

You might also be interested in Social Dynamics of the College Classroom:  Issues and Ideas for Distance Educators.

Teaching Styles: An Overview

Grasha identified five teaching styles that represented typical orientations and strategies college faculty use. He claims that these styles converge into four different clusters that, like colors on an artist's palette, make up the characteristic ways professors design instructional settings. A brief description of each cluster is detailed below. You can find specific details by clicking on the links.

Cluster 1

The expert/formal authority cluster tends toward teacher-centered classrooms in which information is presented and students receive knowledge.

Cluster 2

The personal model/expert/formal authority cluster is a teacher-centered approach that emphasizes modeling and demonstration. This approach encourages students to observe processes as well as content.

Cluster 3

The facilitator/personal model/expert cluster is a student-centered model for the classroom. Teachers design activities, social interactions, or problem-solving situations that allow students to practice the processes for applying course content.

Cluster 4

The delegator/facilitator/expert cluster places much of the learning burden on the students. Teachers provide complex tasks that require student initiative, and often group work, to complete.

For Grasha there are a number of factors which influence which cluster will be appropriate in "painting" the classroom environment. The teacher's response to student learning styles, the students capabilities to handle course demands, their need for teacher to directly control classroom tasks, and their willingness to build/maintain relationships are important elements in determining what teaching style will be adopted in a classroom.

A prototype interactive instrument is being tested at ISU. Take the Teaching Style Inventory to reflect on your teaching style.

Web Instruction

A web site allows the teacher to bring together a collection of passive and interactive media to help students learn specific material. The site may serve as an additional resource for a traditional classroom or as the sole site for a distance education course. Rather than accumulating media choices, however, instructors can begin by analyzing the teaching style they believe will work successfully and selecting appropriate instructional methods. The web tools necessary to develop these methods can be integrated into the web site.

As an example of the possible differences, we have organized this web site to demonstrate how each teaching style cluster would be used to teach someone how to write Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML). You can compare the different design approaches at the Four Corners page.