Speaking with a colleague today, a thought about didactic teaching methods became apparent.
Didactic teaching requires personalised preparation. Whole-class interactive teaching (one of Geoff Petty’s recommended methods) works. Yet to engage a class with diadactic teaching requires:
a) Some social engineering outside of your control
b) Personalised expositions aimed at their experiences and mood.
The reason why ‘didactic teaching’ has been termed ‘chalk-and-talk’ is because without any kind of personalisation (and a clear-idea of what the students are to learn and remember), it is a lazy and ‘easy’ way to teach. Even with the most able to students, knowing where you want them to focus their interpretations will ‘short-circuit’ their learning and get them away from them relying upon on osmosis to learn.
So, you want to teach didactically? You better be thoroughly prepared!
