Changing Teaching Styles and Leadership

Another moment, on which I have reflected upon, was on the Carnedd’s in Snowdonia. The area in which I am reflecting on was teaching navigation to my group. On departure we set off from the mini bus, and I was hoping to set the group sections to navigate along the route. Having made a route card the previous evening after consulting the group, I thought that this would be perfectly achievable.

However I was under the assumption that the group had been navigating previously with another leader. This was soon proven wrong to me as we set off, as three members of the group had done little to no navigation previously. This left me with the task of teaching them from scratch upon the mountain, causing my timing of the route to be far out.

As I began to teach I realised that I would have to use a range of teaching styles to convey the information. Looking at Mosston and Ashworth’s teaching style spectrum (1986) we can see how there are many different teaching styles which are all useful in different situations.

 

A.)   Command Style

B.)    Practice Style

C.)    Reciprocal Style

D.)   Self-Check Style

E.)    Inclusion Style

F.)    Guided Discovery Style

G.)   Divergent Style

H.)   Individual Program/ Learner’s Design

I.)      Learner Initiated

J.)     Self Teaching Style

Moving from the styles A-E, I managed to teach basic navigation to the group, however it took me most of the day reflecting as we went to start to using all the styles.  I found that to begin with I was using more of the command and practice style, but as we progressed I began to use more of the reciprocal, self check and inclusion styles. 

This in turn made me subconsciously change my leadership style (Lewin, 1930) from a more delegative/participative style where the group would of had more control over their own outcomes to a more authoritarian/ participative style. Where I gave more instructions and had to increase my authority on points of navigation. Because of all the time spent navigating we where two hours later than my route card had suggested are time of arrival would be.

From looking at how this day went in future I feel I should have been more aware that this may have become an issue for the group’s day out. Next time I will be sure to fully gage the group’s navigational experience before setting on the hill, perhaps even getting them to make the route card with me, which in turn would allow me to assess their abilities and cover basics. I think I will also allow more time when writing the route card to allow for teaching time upon the hill and also perhaps change my leadership style to begin with a more authoritarian style which then changes into a participative/delegtive style nearing the end of the day.

References:

Mosston and Ashworth, (1986) The Spectrum of Teaching Styles. From Command to Discovery.White Plains; Longman.

Lewin, K, (1930) Leadership Styles. [online] Available: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm [date accessed: 9 December 2011]