Ideas for effective teaching

I have found that I retain so much more information, permanently with a well narrated ,visually spectacular history or science channel special, instead of a boring book where the information is read,memorized, and forgotten right after the test has been given. So many audio visual programs are out there, also using computer animation to explain to a "captive audience" rather than a still picture with allot of words to memorize from a book. Follow the A/V with an open discussion with the teacher. I wish I had been taught that way then, so I learn that way now. We never stop learning.

This post is interestingly titled. My experience as a parent and as a teacher was that students had So Much homework, the school day was very extended into the evening. To help students to study, I'd recommend that you ask - and them help them figure out - what the days' lessons were about. Even students who are williing to talk about their school day often can't say what they learned in school today.
Every math class should find itself in a group of operations - fractions? Decimals? Solving for the unknown? If nothing else, what chapter of the book are you working in?
The same for every science and social studies class - if nothing else, what chapter of the book are you in? And if there's no book, what topic are you studying?

The brain learns from big to small - our brains need concepts to hang the details on. Paper burns at 451 F true - but why are you learning that? Are you studying combustion? Or paper?

Many kids simple don't know because teachers too often don't tell them or don't emphasize it often enough. "We are studying the Middle Ages" and for the next four weeks. We will learng what life was like then. It was very different. Most of the world was 'agricultural' - most people were poor and grew food and the system of government and social structure were very different from our own."

Kids will come home struggling to remember details because they really don't understand the big picture of what the details are about. I would say for our children if we want to help in an active way to effectively teach them at home what they're not getting in school - talk to them and point out the 'big picture'.