Instructional Strategies
Keeping students engaged and motivated to learn is an important responsibility as a teacher, leader and role model. “Believe in your students, be extremely encouraging, make sure your students are the ones who are working, make learning fun, use memory work and recitation, have one-on-one conversations, get parents involved, help your students be more organized, consider whole brain teaching” and consider each student’s learning style are a few ways to keep your students engaged and actively learning. (Teach4theheart, 2020).
Checking for student understanding is important in student learning because as teachers, we must cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. The most effective way to test student understanding is to do it while the lessons are being taught. (Briggs, 2014) There are instructional strategies that promote and support students learning and check for understanding.
There are a few methods you can use to gather evidence to decide if learning took place. To name a few, “self-testing, summarizing, repeating, and explaining to self or others.” (Kurnaz, M and Cimer, S., 2010) It is important for students to understand learning has taken place. You can use instructional strategies to showcase learning that took place.
Resources:
Teach4theheart. (2020). 10 Ways to Motivate Your Students to Learn. Retrieved from https://teach4theheart.com/10-ways-to-motivate-your-students-to-learn/
Briggs, S. (2014). 21 Ways to Check for Student Understanding. Retrieved from https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/21-ways-to-check-for-student-understanding/
Kurnaz, M and Cimer, S. (2010). How do students know that they have learned? An investigation of students’ strategies. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810006105#:~:text=Six%20distinct%20methods%20that%20students%20used%20to%20gather,reasons%20for%20using%20these%20methods%20were%20also%20revealed.
Persaud, C. (2018). Instructional Strategies: The Ultimate Guide. Retrieved from https://tophat.com/blog/instructional-strategies/
Drew, C. (2020). A List of 107 Effective Classroom Teaching Strategies (2020). Retrieved from https://helpfulprofessor.com/teaching-strategies/
Udemy. (n.d.). Instructional strategies: Find the best approach to encourage independent learning. Retrieved from https://blog.udemy.com/instructional-strategies/
Lewis, B. (2019) Scaffolding Instruction Strategies. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/scaffolding-instruction-strategies-2081682
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InstructionalStrategies |
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Strategy |
Description |
Teacher |
Learner |
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Exit Ticket (Active learning instructional strategy) |
Students will write an answer to a question relating to a key concept learned in the lesson that day on a note card so the teacher can see if additional teaching should take place.
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Teachers will review feedback and determine if students need additional support. |
Before the students leave the class they will write an answer to a question relating to a key concept learned in the lesson that day on a note card. |
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Play-based Learning |
Students learn cognitive, social and physical skills during play tasks. |
Play tasks can be teacher-led with specific goals. |
Students engage in play-based learning. |
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Scaffolding |
The goal is to meet students at their ability level and guide them to grow one step at a time. This includes activating prior knowledge, break it down technique and modeling. |
Teacher provides accommodations for students' individual needs. Provides support and high-quality learning. |
Students engage, participate and be active in learning. |
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Interactive Instruction |
Highly interactive strategy that involves discussion and sharing amongst students, explores higher-thinking processes and gives opportunity to develop social skills. |
Teachers will facilitate discussions and manage the group dynamic. |
Students take part in debates, brainstorming sessions, laboratory groups, interviewing, conferencing, jigsaw, cooperative learning and more. |
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Experiential Learning |
Focuses more on activities and requires the students to apply their experience to other contexts. |
Teachers need to provide the environment for learning and encourage the students to be active. |
Students take part in activities, field trips, narratives, experiments, stimulations, games, storytelling and other experiential learning methods.
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