The Teaching Continuum

The Wheel for Effective and Efficient Learning

This little book is designed to help instructors become more effective and efficient, that is, their students will learn more and retain more information resulting in better recall. Using the model described in the book will make a huge difference in the amount of information that students both receive and retain both long and short term. Much of the teaching in higher education is neither effective nor efficient in terms of student learning. One of the reasons is because nearly all higher education instructors have had no training background dealing with how to design teaching so that it delivers competent outcomes. In fact, they have had no training in how to teach. Higher education instructors are hired based on their expertise in one or more subjects, with little thought about their teaching ability and training. Many higher education instructors base their teaching on one or more of their teachers, attempting to teach as their instructors taught. This adds up to a vicious circle as their professors likely had no training in teaching either. Couple this with the little understanding of how the human brain works to make sense out of the information that students receive; it is not surpfising to learn that they lose as much as 90 percent of what is covered when they walk out the door of the traditional classroom. The model presented in this book addresses the above issues and builds on parts of previous models developed. It presents a different approach to teaching that is designed to provide more in-depth understanding and recall. It does this by focusing on how a student learns, thinks, and recalls information as well as focusing on the linkage of the design components. All-in-all, the model will help new and not so new instructors develop more effective and efficient teaching skills.