teaching methodology in lesson plan

Teaching Methods and Strategies: The Complete Guide

You’ve completed your coursework. Student teaching has ended. You’ve donned the cap and gown, crossed the stage, smiled with your diploma and went home to fill out application after application.

Suddenly you are standing in what will be your classroom for the next year and after the excitement of decorating it wears off and you begin lesson planning, you start to notice all of your lessons are executed the same way, just with different material. But that is what you know and what you’ve been taught, so you go with it.

After a while, your students are bored, and so are you. There must be something wrong because this isn’t what you envisioned teaching to be like. There is.

Figuring out the best ways you can deliver information to students can sometimes be even harder than what students go through in discovering how they learn best. The reason is because every single teacher needs a variety of different teaching methods in their theoretical teaching bag to pull from depending on the lesson, the students, and things as seemingly minute as the time the class is and the subject.

Using these different teaching methods, which are rooted in theory of different teaching styles, will not only help teachers reach their full potential, but more importantly engage, motivate and reach the students in their classes, whether in person or online.

Teaching Methods

Teaching methods, or methodology, is a narrower topic because it’s founded in theories and educational psychology. If you have a degree in teaching, you most likely have heard of names like Skinner, Vygotsky , Gardner, Piaget , and Bloom . If their names don’t ring a bell, you should definitely recognize their theories that have become teaching methods. The following are the most common teaching theories.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism is the theory that every learner is essentially a “clean slate” to start off and shaped by emotions. People react to stimuli, reactions as well as positive and negative reinforcement, the site states.

Learning Theories names the most popular theorists who ascribed to this theory were Ivan Pavlov, who many people may know with his experiments with dogs. He performed an experiment with dogs that when he rang a bell, the dogs responded to the stimuli; then he applied the idea to humans.

Other popular educational theorists who were part of behaviorism was B.F. Skinner and Albert Bandura .

Social Cognitive Theory

Social Cognitive Theory is typically spoken about at the early childhood level because it has to do with critical thinking with the biggest concept being the idea of play, according to Edwin Peel writing for Encyclopedia Britannica . Though Bandura and Lev Vygotsky also contributed to cognitive theory, according to Dr. Norman Herr with California State University , the most popular and first theorist of cognitivism is Piaget.

There are four stages to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development that he created in 1918. Each stage correlates with a child’s development from infancy to their teenage years.

The first stage is called the Sensorimotor Stage which occurs from birth to 18 months. The reason this is considered cognitive development is because the brain is literally growing through exploration, like squeaking horns, discovering themselves in mirrors or spinning things that click on their floor mats or walkers; creating habits like sleeping with a certain blanket; having reflexes like rubbing their eyes when tired or thumb sucking; and beginning to decipher vocal tones.

The second stage, or the Preoperational Stage, occurs from ages 2 to 7 when toddlers begin to understand and correlate symbols around them, ask a lot of questions, and start forming sentences and conversations, but they haven’t developed perspective yet so empathy does not quite exist yet, the website states. This is the stage when children tend to blurt out honest statements, usually embarrassing their parents, because they don’t understand censoring themselves either.

From ages 7 to 11, children are beginning to problem solve, can have conversations about things they are interested in, are more aware of logic and develop empathy during the Concrete Operational Stage.

The final stage, called the Formal Operational Stage, though by definition ends at age 16, can continue beyond. It involves deeper thinking and abstract thoughts as well as questioning not only what things are but why the way they are is popular, the site states. Many times people entering new stages of their lives like high school, college, or even marriage go through elements of Piaget’s theory, which is why the strategies that come from this method are applicable across all levels of education.

The Multiple Intelligences Theory

The Multiple Intelligences Theory states that people don’t need to be smart in every single discipline to be considered intelligent on paper tests, but that people excel in various disciplines, making them exceptional.

Created in 1983, the former principal in the Scranton School District in Scranton, PA, created eight different intelligences, though since then two others have been debated of whether to be added but have not yet officially, according to the site.

The original eight are musical, spatial, linguistic, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic and most people have a predominant intelligence followed by others. For those who are musically-inclined either via instruments, vocals, has perfect pitch, can read sheet music or can easily create music has Musical Intelligence.

Being able to see something and rearrange it or imagine it differently is Spatial Intelligence, while being talented with language, writing or avid readers have Linguistic Intelligence. Kinesthetic Intelligence refers to understanding how the body works either anatomically or athletically and Naturalistic Intelligence is having an understanding of nature and elements of the ecosystem.

The final intelligences have to do with personal interactions. Intrapersonal Intelligence is a matter of knowing oneself, one’s limits, and their inner selves while Interpersonal Intelligence is knowing how to handle a variety of other people without conflict or knowing how to resolve it, the site states. There is still an elementary school in Scranton, PA named after their once-principal.

Constructivism

Constructivism is another theory created by Piaget which is used as a foundation for many other educational theories and strategies because constructivism is focused on how people learn. Piaget states in this theory that people learn from their experiences. They learn best through active learning , connect it to their prior knowledge and then digest this information their own way. This theory has created the ideas of student-centered learning in education versus teacher-centered learning.

Universal Design for Learning

The final method is the Universal Design for Learning which has redefined the educational community since its inception in the mid-1980s by David H. Rose. This theory focuses on how teachers need to design their curriculum for their students. This theory really gained traction in the United States in 2004 when it was presented at an international conference and he explained that this theory is based on neuroscience and how the brain processes information, perform tasks and get excited about education.

The theory, known as UDL, advocates for presenting information in multiple ways to enable a variety of learners to understand the information; presenting multiple assessments for students to show what they have learned; and learn and utilize a student’s own interests to motivate them to learn, the site states. This theory also discussed incorporating technology in the classroom and ways to educate students in the digital age.

Teaching Styles

From each of the educational theories, teachers extract and develop a plethora of different teaching styles, or strategies. Instructors must have a large and varied arsenal of strategies to use weekly and even daily in order to build rapport, keep students engaged and even keep instructors from getting bored with their own material. These can be applicable to all teaching levels, but adaptations must be made based on the student’s age and level of development.

Differentiated instruction is one of the most popular teaching strategies, which means that teachers adjust the curriculum for a lesson, unit or even entire term in a way that engages all learners in various ways, according to Chapter 2 of the book Instructional Process and Concepts in Theory and Practice by Celal Akdeniz . This means changing one’s teaching styles constantly to fit not only the material but more importantly, the students based on their learning styles.

Learning styles are the ways in which students learn best. The most popular types are visual, audio, kinesthetic and read/write , though others include global as another type of learner, according to Akdeniz . For some, they may seem self-explanatory. Visual learners learn best by watching the instruction or a demonstration; audio learners need to hear a lesson; kinesthetic learners learn by doing, or are hands-on learners; read/write learners to best by reading textbooks and writing notes; and global learners need material to be applied to their real lives, according to The Library of Congress .

There are many activities available to instructors that enable their students to find out what kind of learner they are. Typically students have a main style with a close runner-up, which enables them to learn best a certain way but they can also learn material in an additional way.

When an instructor knows their students and what types of learners are in their classroom, instructors are able to then differentiate their instruction and assignments to those learning types, according to Akdeniz and The Library of Congress. Learn more about different learning styles.

When teaching new material to any type of learner, is it important to utilize a strategy called scaffolding . Scaffolding is based on a student’s prior knowledge and building a lesson, unit or course from the most foundational pieces and with each step make the information more complicated, according to an article by Jerry Webster .

To scaffold well, a teacher must take a personal interest in their students to learn not only what their prior knowledge is but their strengths as well. This will enable an instructor to base new information around their strengths and use positive reinforcement when mistakes are made with the new material.

There is an unfortunate concept in teaching called “teach to the middle” where instructors target their lessons to the average ability of the students in their classroom, leaving slower students frustrated and confused, and above average students frustrated and bored. This often results in the lower- and higher-level students scoring poorly and a teacher with no idea why.

The remedy for this is a strategy called blended learning where differentiated instruction is occurring simultaneously in the classroom to target all learners, according to author and educator Juliana Finegan . In order to be successful at blended learning, teachers once again need to know their students, how they learn and their strengths and weaknesses, according to Finegan.

Blended learning can include combining several learning styles into one lesson like lecturing from a PowerPoint – not reading the information on the slides — that includes cartoons and music associations while the students have the print-outs. The lecture can include real-life examples and stories of what the instructor encountered and what the students may encounter. That example incorporates four learning styles and misses kinesthetic, but the activity afterwards can be solely kinesthetic.

A huge component of blended learning is technology. Technology enables students to set their own pace and access the resources they want and need based on their level of understanding, according to The Library of Congress . It can be used three different ways in education which include face-to-face, synchronously or asynchronously . Technology used with the student in the classroom where the teacher can answer questions while being in the student’s physical presence is known as face-to-face.

Synchronous learning is when students are learning information online and have a teacher live with them online at the same time, but through a live chat or video conferencing program, like Skype, or Zoom, according to The Library of Congress.

Finally, asynchronous learning is when students take a course or element of a course online, like a test or assignment, as it fits into their own schedule, but a teacher is not online with them at the time they are completing or submitting the work. Teachers are still accessible through asynchronous learning but typically via email or a scheduled chat meeting, states the Library of Congress.

The final strategy to be discussed actually incorporates a few teaching strategies, so it’s almost like blended teaching. It starts with a concept that has numerous labels such as student-centered learning, learner-centered pedagogy, and teacher-as-tutor but all mean that an instructor revolves lessons around the students and ensures that students take a participatory role in the learning process, known as active learning, according to the Learning Portal .

In this model, a teacher is just a facilitator, meaning that they have created the lesson as well as the structure for learning, but the students themselves become the teachers or create their own knowledge, the Learning Portal says. As this is occurring, the instructor is circulating the room working as a one-on-one resource, tutor or guide, according to author Sara Sanchez Alonso from Yale’s Center for Teaching and Learning. For this to work well and instructors be successful one-on-one and planning these lessons, it’s essential that they have taken the time to know their students’ history and prior knowledge, otherwise it can end up to be an exercise in futility, Alonso said.

Some activities teachers can use are by putting students in groups and assigning each student a role within the group, creating reading buddies or literature circles, making games out of the material with individual white boards, create different stations within the classroom for different skill levels or interest in a lesson or find ways to get students to get up out of their seats and moving, offers Fortheteachers.org .

There are so many different methodologies and strategies that go into becoming an effective instructor. A consistent theme throughout all of these is for a teacher to take the time to know their students because they care, not because they have to. When an instructor knows the stories behind the students, they are able to design lessons that are more fun, more meaningful, and more effective because they were designed with the students’ best interests in mind.

There are plenty of pre-made lessons, activities and tests available online and from textbook publishers that any teacher could use. But you need to decide if you want to be the original teacher who makes a significant impact on your students, or a pre-made teacher a student needs to get through.

Read Also: – Blended Learning Guide – Collaborative Learning Guide – Flipped Classroom Guide – Game Based Learning Guide – Gamification in Education Guide – Holistic Education Guide – Maker Education Guide – Personalized Learning Guide – Place-Based Education Guide – Project-Based Learning Guide – Scaffolding in Education Guide – Social-Emotional Learning Guide

Lesson Methodologies

Jabberwocky

Methodology is the way(s) in which teachers share information with students. The information itself is known as the content ; how that content is shared in a classroom is dependent on the teaching methods.

The following chart lists a wide variety of lesson methodologies appropriate for the presentation of material, which I will discuss here. Notice how these teaching methods move from Least Impact and Involvement (for students) to Greatest Impact and Involvement.

As you look at the chart, you'll notice that lecture, for example, is a way of providing students with basic knowledge. You'll also note that lecture has the least impact on students as well as the lowest level of student involvement. As you move up the scale (from left to right), you'll note how each successive method increases the level of impact and involvement for students. At the top, reflective inquiry has the highest level of student involvement. It also has the greatest impact of all the methods listed.

Knowledge is the basic information of a subject; the facts and data of a topic. Synthesis is the combination of knowledge elements that form a new whole. Performance refers to the ability to effectively use new information in a productive manner.

Across the bottom of the chart are three categories: knowledge, synthesis, and performance. These refer to the impact of each method in terms of how well students will utilize it. For example, lecture is simply designed to provide students with basic knowledge about a topic. Reflective inquiry, on the other hand, offers opportunities for students to use knowledge in a productive and meaningful way.

Now let's take a look at each of those three major categories and the methodologies that are part of each one.

How do you present basic information to your students? It makes no difference whether you're sharing consonant digraphs with your first-grade students or differential calculus with your twelfth-grade students; you must teach them some basic information. You have several options for sharing that information.

Lecture is an arrangement in which teachers share information directly with students, with roots going back to the ancient Greeks. Lecture is a familiar form of information-sharing, but it is not without its drawbacks. It has been overused and abused, and it is often the method used when teachers don't know or aren't familiar with other avenues of presentation. Also, many lecturers might not have been the best teacher role models in school.

Often, teachers assume that lecturing is nothing more than speaking to a group of students. Wrong! Good lecturing also demonstrates a respect for the learner, a knowledge of the content, and an awareness of the context in which the material is presented.

Good lectures must be built on three basic principles:

Knowing and responding to the background knowledge of the learner is necessary for an effective lecture.

Having a clear understanding of the material is valuable in being able to explain it to others.

The physical design of the room and the placement of students impact the effectiveness of a lecture.

Lecture is often the method of choice when introducing and explaining new concepts. It can also be used to add insight and expand on previously presented material. Teachers recommend that the number of concepts (within a single lesson) be limited to one or two at the elementary level and three to five at the secondary level.

It's important to keep in mind that lecture need not be a long and drawn-out affair. For example, the 10-2 strategy is an easily used, amazingly effective tool for all grade levels. In this strategy, no more than 10 minutes of lecture should occur before students are allowed 2 minutes for processing. This is also supportive of how the brain learns (see Effective Learning and How Students Learn ). When 10-2 is used in both elementary and secondary classrooms, the rate of both comprehension and retention of information increases dramatically.

During the 2-minute break, you can ask students several open-ended questions, such as the following:

“What have you learned so far in this lesson?”

“Why is this information important?”

“How does this information relate to any information we have learned previously?”

“How do you feel about your progress so far?”

“How does this data apply to other situations?”

These questions can be answered individually, in small group discussions, or as part of whole class interactions.

The value of the 10-2 strategy is that it can be used with all types of content. Equally important, it has a positive effect on brain growth.

Lectures are information-sharing tools for any classroom teacher. However, it's critically important that you not use lecture as your one and only tool. You must supplement it with other instructional methods to achieve the highest levels of comprehension and utility for your students.

Reading Information

With this method, you assign material from the textbook for students to read independently. You may also choose to have your students read other supplemental materials in addition to the textbook. These may include, but are not limited to children's or adolescent literature, brochures, flyers, pamphlets, and information read directly from a selected website.

Related Resources

Collaboration Between General and Special Education Teachers

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[2023] The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Methods and Strategies: Expert Advice for Classroom Success

June 11, 2023
Instructional Coaching

As educators and teachers, we understand that finding the right teaching methods and strategies is crucial for classroom success. With so many different options out there, it can be overwhelming to determine which approach is best. That's why our team at Teacher Strategies™ has compiled the ultimate guide to teaching methods and strategies, filled with expert advice and tips to help you find the best approach for your classroom.

Introduction

The importance of teaching methods, lecture method, discussion method, demonstration method, cooperative learning method, inquiry-based method, project-based learning method, flipped classroom method, personalized education method, the pros and cons of different teaching methods, direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, personalized learning, flipped classroom, interactive, self-discovery, instructional methods in education, quick tips and facts.

The success of any classroom largely depends on the effectiveness of the teaching methods and strategies employed by their teachers. Using outdated or ineffective methods can bore and disengage students, while innovative and engaging approaches can inspire learning and foster student success. The goal of this guide is to help you find the best teaching methods and strategies to suit your unique classroom and teaching style.

The right teaching method can make all the difference in student success. Effective teaching methods ensure that information is being delivered in a way that's engaging and meaningful. Not all students learn the same way, and using a variety of teaching methods can help ensure that every student is able to understand and retain information. Additionally, using innovative teaching methods shows students that you care about their learning and are willing to try new approaches to help them succeed.

Different Types of Teaching Methods and Strategies

Lecturing is a popular method of teaching that involves the teacher providing information to the students through a verbal presentation. This method is best suited for delivering large amounts of information in a relatively short amount of time, and it allows students to take notes and ask questions. However, lectures can be a passive form of learning for students and are not always the most engaging method.

The discussion method involves encouraging student participation through group discussions and debates. This method is excellent for developing critical thinking skills, encouraging student engagement, and promoting collaboration. However, it can be difficult to manage and may not be ideal for every subject.

The demonstration method involves teachers demonstrating how to complete a task or solve a problem. This method can be useful for subjects that require hands-on learning, such as science or art. However, it may not be effective for all students and may require more time for preparation.

Cooperative learning involves students working together in groups to achieve a common goal. This method promotes teamwork and collaboration, and can help to develop communication skills. However, it can be difficult to manage and may not work best with all students.

The inquiry-based method involves students exploring a topic or problem on their own, using critical thinking skills and problem-solving strategies. This method promotes self-directed learning and can be highly engaging for students. However, it requires a high level of preparation and may not be suitable for every subject or classroom.

Project-based learning involves students working on a long-term project to achieve a goal or solve a problem. This method promotes creativity, critical thinking, and teamwork. However, it can be difficult to manage and may require more time for preparation.

The flipped classroom method involves students learning material at home through a pre-recorded lecture, while the in-class time is spent on hands-on group activities and projects. This method allows for more personalized learning and fosters student engagement. However, it requires a high level of preparation and may not work best with all students.

Personalized education involves tailoring the learning experience to the individual student's needs, strengths, and interests. This method can be highly effective for engaging students and encouraging critical thinking. However, it requires a high level of preparation and may not be suitable for every subject or classroom.

No method is perfect, and understanding the pros and cons of each approach is essential. Here are a few pros and cons of each method:

Pros: Fast delivery of information, cost-effective, and easy to implement.
Cons: Passive form of learning, not suitable for all subjects, and requires the right environment to be successful.
Pros: Encourages critical thinking, promotes collaboration, and engaging for students.
Cons: Difficult to manage, can be hard to keep students focused, and not suitable for all subjects.
Pros: Useful for hands-on learning, can be visual and engaging.
Cons: Limited in effectiveness, may be costly, and time-consuming to prepare.
Pros: Promotes teamwork, communication, and critical thinking skills.
Cons: Can be difficult to manage, may be uncomfortable for some students, and not suitable for all subjects.
Pros: Promotes critical thinking and creativity, fosters engagement and self-directed learning.
Cons: High level of preparation, may not work with all students, and can be difficult to manage.
Pros: Promotes critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork.
Cons: Can be challenging to manage, may be time-consuming to prepare, and not suitable for all subjects.
Pros: Allows for personalized learning, fosters student engagement, and promotes critical thinking and collaboration.
Cons: Requires a high level of preparation, not suitable for all students, and can be difficult to manage.
Pros: Tailored to individual needs and interests, fosters student engagement and critical thinking.
Cons: Requires a high level of preparation, not suitable for all students, and can be challenging to manage.

What are the 5 Teaching Approaches?

There are five main teaching approaches that educators can use in the classroom. Understanding each approach can help you determine which is best for your classroom:

Direct instruction is a teacher-centered approach that involves lecture, demonstrations, and other activities designed to deliver large amounts of information to students quickly. This approach is best suited for subjects that require a lot of factual information and can be less engaging for students.

Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered approach that promotes self-directed learning through questioning and investigation. This method promotes critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.

Cooperative learning involves students working together in groups to achieve a common goal. This approach promotes teamwork, collaboration, and communication skills.

Personalized learning tailors the learning experience to the individual student's needs, strengths, and interests. This approach can be highly engaging for students and encourages critical thinking and self-directed learning.

The flipped classroom approach involves reversing the traditional classroom model, with students learning material at home through a pre-recorded lecture, while the in-class time is spent on hands-on group activities and projects. This approach allows for more personalized learning, fosters student engagement, and promotes critical thinking and collaboration.

The Four Types of Instructional Methods

Instructional methods are the specific techniques or strategies used to deliver information to students. There are four main types of instructional methods:

Expository instructional methods involve lecturing, reading, or demonstrating to impart information to students. This method is best suited for subjects that require a lot of factual information.

Interactive instructional methods involve activities that require students to be actively engaged in the learning process. This method promotes critical thinking and problem-solving.

Mastery instructional methods involve teaching a skill or concept until the student has mastered it. This approach requires targeted instruction and assessment to ensure that students have a strong foundation before moving on to the next topic.

Self-discovery instructional methods involve encouraging students to explore a topic or problem on their own, using critical thinking skills and problem-solving strategies. This method promotes self-directed learning and can be highly engaging for students.

Instructional methods are essential in education, as they define how information is delivered to students. Different methods work best for different subjects, and some may be more effective than others depending on the teacher, curriculum, and goals of the lesson. As teachers, it's essential to approach instruction with an open mind, experimenting with new methods and techniques as needed.

Understand your students' learning styles to determine which teaching methods will work best.
Not all teaching methods work for every student or every subject – experimenting with different approaches can help you discover what works best for your classroom.
Use a combination of teaching methods to keep students engaged and interested.
Technology can be an effective tool for engaging students and delivering information in new and innovative ways.

What are the different types of teaching methods?

The different types of teaching methods include: lecture, discussion, demonstration, cooperative learning, inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, flipped classroom, and personalized education.

What are the 5 teaching approaches?

The 5 teaching approaches are: direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, personalized learning, and flipped classroom.

What are the four types of instructional methods?

The four types of instructional methods are expository, interactive, mastery, and self-discovery.

What are some teaching methods and strategies?

Effective teaching methods and strategies include using technology, personalized learning, inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, and project-based learning.

What are instructional methods in education?

Instructional methods in education are the teaching techniques and strategies used to deliver information to students.

By understanding the different teaching methods and strategies available, you can develop a tailored approach that best suits your classroom and students. Experiment with different methods and techniques, and use technology to your advantage. With the right approach, you can inspire learning and foster student success. As a recommendation, we suggest starting with a mix of cooperative learning, project-based learning, and personalized education. Surveyed teachers have claimed these approaches enhance student engagement, collaboration, and critical thinking. Remember to always approach teaching methods with an open mind, and be willing to try new approaches to discover what works best for your students.

[1] https://learn.org/articles/Edutopia_An_Online_Community_for_Teachers_and_Students.html [2] [3] https://www.knewton.com/ [4] https://www.epa.gov/students [5] https://arapahoe.extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/05/Denver-STEM-resources-for-parents-and-teachers_.pdf [6] https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-importance

Marti is a seasoned educator and strategist with a passion for fostering inclusive learning environments and empowering students through tailored educational experiences. With her roots as a university tutor—a position she landed during her undergraduate years—Marti has always been driven by the joy of facilitating others' learning journeys.

Holding a Bachelor's degree in Communication alongside a degree in Social Work, she has mastered the art of empathetic communication, enabling her to connect with students on a profound level. Marti’s unique educational background allows her to incorporate holistic approaches into her teaching, addressing not just the academic, but also the emotional and social needs of her students.

Throughout her career, Marti has developed and implemented innovative teaching strategies that cater to diverse learning styles, believing firmly that education should be accessible and engaging for all. Her work on the Teacher Strategies site encapsulates her extensive experience and dedication to education, offering readers insights into effective teaching methods, classroom management techniques, and strategies for fostering inclusive and supportive learning environments.

As an advocate for lifelong learning, Marti continuously seeks to expand her knowledge and skills, ensuring her teaching methods are both evidence-based and cutting edge. Whether through her blog articles on Teacher Strategies or her direct engagement with students, Marti remains committed to enhancing educational outcomes and inspiring the next generation of learners and educators alike.

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TEAL Center Fact Sheet No. 8: Effective Lesson Planning

Planning ahead to identify a course of action that can effectively help learners reach their goals and objectives is an important first step in effective instruction. Lesson planning communicates to learners what they will learn and how their goals will be assessed, and it helps instructors organize content, materials, time, instructional strategies, and assistance in the classroom.

About Effective Lesson Planning

Planning ahead to identify a course of action that can effectively reach goals and objectives is an important first step in any process, and education is no exception. In education, the planning tool is the lesson plan, which is a detailed description of an instructor’s course of instruction for an individual lesson intended to help learners achieve a particular learning objective. Lesson plans communicate to learners what they will learn and how they will be assessed, and they help instructors organize content, materials, time, instructional strategies, and assistance in the classroom. Lesson planning helps English as a second language (ESL), adult basic education (ABE), adult secondary education (ASE), and other instructors create a smooth instructional flow and scaffold instruction for learners.

The Lesson Planning Process

Before the actual delivery of a lesson, instructors engage in a planning process. During this process, they determine the lesson topic (if states have implemented content standards, the topic should derive from them). From the topic, derive the lesson objective or desired results —the concepts and ideas that learners are expected to develop and the specific knowledge and skills that learners are expected to acquire and use at the end of the lesson. Objectives are critical to effective instruction because they help instructors plan the instructional strategies and activities they will use, including the materials and resources to support learning. It is essential that the objective be clear and describe the intended learning outcome. Objectives can communicate to learners what is expected of them—but only if they are shared with learners in an accessible manner. Instructional objectives must be specific, outcome-based, and measurable, and they must describe learner behavior. Heinich, Molenda, Russell, and Smaldino (2001) refer to the ABCD ’s of writing objectives:

A udience – learners for whom the objective is written (e.g., ESL, ABE, GED)
B ehavior – the verb that describes what the audience will be able to do (e.g., describe, explain, locate, synthesize, argue, communicate)
C ondition – the circumstances under which the audience will perform the behavior (e.g., when a learner obtains medicine from the pharmacy, he or she will be able to read the dosage)
D egree – acceptable performance of the behavior (i.e., how well the learner performs the behavior)

Learner assessment follows from the objectives. Based on the principles of backward design developed by Wiggins and McTighe (1998), instructors identify the lesson objective or desired results and then decide what they will accept as evidence of learners’ knowledge and skills. The concept of backward design holds that the instructor must begin with the end in mind (i.e., what the student should be able to know, understand, or do) and then map backward from the desired result to the current time and the students’ current ability/skill levels to determine the best way to reach the performance goal.

The WIPPEA Model for Lesson Planning

The WIPPEA Model, an acronym that stands for W arm-up, I ntroduction, P resentation, P ractice, E valuation, A pplication, is a lesson plan model that represents a continuous teaching cycle in which each learning concept builds on the previous one, serving as an instructional roadmap for instructors. The WIPPEA lesson plan model is adapted from the work of Hunter (Hunter, 1982). This six-step cyclical lesson planning approach has learners demonstrate mastery of concepts and content at each step before the instructor proceeds to the next step. In the following list, TEAL Center suggestions for incorporating each of these elements are included in italics.

Warm-up – Assesses prior knowledge by reviewing previous materials relevant to the current lesson. Introduce an activity that reviews previously learned content (e.g., for a vocabulary lesson, the warm-up may be a quick matching exercise with words previously learned and their definitions), and also include an activity that focuses on the topic to be taught.

Introduction – Provides a broad overview of the content and concepts to be taught and focuses the learners’ attention on the new lesson. Introduce the purpose of the lesson by stating and writing the objectives for learners and discussing the lesson content and benefits by relating the objective to learners’ own lives. Assess learners’ prior knowledge of the new material by asking questions and writing learners’ responses on a chalkboard or flip chart.

Presentation – Teaches the lesson content and concepts. Create an activity to introduce the concept or skill (e.g., introduce new vocabulary by asking learners to work in groups to identify words related to taking medications) and then introduce information through a variety of modalities using visuals, realia, description, explanation, and written text. Check for learner understanding of the new material and make changes in lesson procedures if necessary.

Practice – Models the skills and provides opportunities for guided practice. Introduce a variety of activities that allow learners to work in groups, in pairs, or independently to practice the skills, concepts, and information presented. Integrate technology into activities as available.

Evaluation – Assesses each learner’s attainment of the objective. Include oral, aural, written, or applied performance assessments. For example, ask learners to fill in the blanks on a cloze activity using the four medicine warning labels that were discussed in class. For lower level learners, provide a word bank at the bottom of the worksheet. Omit the word bank for more advanced students.

Application – Provides activities that help learners apply their learning to new situations or contexts beyond the lesson and connect it to their own lives. Choose activities that learners can relate to or have expressed concern about. For example, have learners read the label of a medication they or a family member may use at home to make certain they understand the meaning of the words on the label. Gather feedback from learners in follow-up classes and help them assess what additional support, if any, they may require.

The following graphic integrates the WIPPEA process with backward design in a lesson planning wheel. In this cyclical approach, teachers assess prior knowledge, provide a broad overview of the content/concepts to be taught, introduce vocabulary, teach content/concepts, check comprehension, combine the content and vocabulary through guided practice, evaluate student performance, and provide an application activity. Instructional strategies vary depending on the lesson content and skill areas and the needs of the learners.

Planning for differentiated instruction requires various learner profiles to inform the process (See TEAL Center Fact Sheet No. 5. on Differentiated Instruction). Students demonstrate mastery of concepts/content in each step before the teacher proceeds to the next step.

The relationship of the objective to the evaluation keeps the lesson focused and drives instruction. By keeping the end in mind (backward design) and creating the evaluation activity at the beginning of the lesson, the teacher has a clear destination for the lesson and a roadmap to get there. Instructors can then select materials and activities that will best prepare students to successfully complete the evaluation activity in the lesson. The process is repeated for each learning objective. Lesson planning is an ongoing process in which instruction flows from one objective to the next. This cyclical process is repeated for each learning objective.

How Does Lesson Planning Benefit Learners and Instructors?

Instructors and learners benefit from thoughtful lesson planning. It provides a framework for instruction, and it guides implementation of standards-based education. Lesson planning establishes a road map for instructors of what has been taught and what needs to be taught. It allows them to focus on one objective at a time and communicate to learners what they will learn in each lesson. Because lessons incorporate ongoing assessments that determine how well learners understand concepts and skills, instructors are able to make mid-course changes in instructional procedures or provide additional support to learners. Additionally, the practice and application components of the lesson help learners use the new skills and knowledge in educational and other settings, thus promoting generalization and relevance.

Barroso, K., & Pon, S. (2005). Effective lesson planning, A facilitator’s guide . Sacramento, CA: California Adult Literacy Professional Development Project, American Institutes for Research.

Heinich, R., Molenda, M., Russell, J., & Smaldino, S. (2001). Instructional media and technologies for learning (7th ed). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Hunter, M. (1982). Mastery teaching . El Segundo, CA: TIP Publications.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Authors: TEAL Center Staff

Adapted from CALPRO Professional Development Module, Effective Lesson Planning, by Barroso, K. & Pon, S. (2004). AIR: Sacramento, CA.

About the TEAL Center: The Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL) Center is a project of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), designed to improve the quality of teaching in adult education in the content areas.

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The Complete List of Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods: Not as Simple as ABC

Teaching methods [teacher-centered], teaching methods [student-centered], what about blended learning and udl, teaching methods: a to z, for the love of teaching.

Whether you’re a longtime educator, preparing to start your first teaching job or mapping out your dream of a career in the classroom, the topic of teaching methods is one that means many different things to different people.

Your individual approaches and strategies to imparting knowledge to your students and inspiring them to learn are probably built on your academic education as well as your instincts and intuition.

Whether you come by your preferred teaching methods organically or by actively studying educational theory and pedagogy, it can be helpful to have a comprehensive working knowledge of the various teaching methods at your disposal.

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The teacher-centered approach vs. the student-centered approach. High-tech vs. low-tech approaches to learning. Flipped classrooms, differentiated instruction, inquiry-based learning, personalized learning and more.

Not only are there dozens of teaching methods to explore, it is also important to have a sense for how they often overlap or interrelate. One extremely helpful look at this question is offered by the teacher-focused education website Teach.com.

“Teaching theories can be organized into four categories based on two major parameters: a teacher-centered approach versus a student-centered approach, and high-tech material use versus low-tech material use,” according to the informative Teach.com article , which breaks down a variety of influential teaching methods as follows:

Teacher-Centered Approach to Learning Teachers serve as instructor/authority figures who deliver knowledge to their students through lectures and direct instruction, and aim to measure the results through testing and assessment. This method is sometimes referred to as “sage on the stage.”

Student-Centered Approach to Learning Teachers still serve as an authority figure, but may function more as a facilitator or “guide on the side,” as students assume a much more active role in the learning process. In this method, students learn from and are continually assessed on such activities as group projects, student portfolios and class participation.

High-Tech Approach to Learning From devices like laptops and tablets to using the internet to connect students with information and people from around the world, technology plays an ever-greater role in many of today’s classrooms. In the high-tech approach to learning, teachers utilize many different types of technology to aid students in their classroom learning.

Low-Tech Approach to Learning Technology obviously comes with pros and cons, and many teachers believe that a low-tech approach better enables them to tailor the educational experience to different types of learners. Additionally, while computer skills are undeniably necessary today, this must be balanced against potential downsides; for example, some would argue that over-reliance on spell check and autocorrect features can inhibit rather than strengthen student spelling and writing skills.

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Diving further into the overlap between different types of teaching methods, here is a closer look at three teacher-centered methods of instruction and five popular student-centered approaches.

Direct Instruction (Low Tech) Under the direct instruction model — sometimes described as the “traditional” approach to teaching — teachers convey knowledge to their students primarily through lectures and scripted lesson plans, without factoring in student preferences or opportunities for hands-on or other types of learning. This method is also customarily low-tech since it relies on texts and workbooks rather than computers or mobile devices.

Flipped Classrooms (High Tech) What if students did the “classroom” portion of their learning at home and their “homework” in the classroom? That’s an oversimplified description of the flipped classroom approach, in which students watch or read their lessons on computers at home and then complete assignments and do problem-solving exercises in class.

Kinesthetic Learning (Low Tech) In the kinesthetic learning model, students perform hands-on physical activities rather than listening to lectures or watching demonstrations. Kinesthetic learning, which values movement and creativity over technological skills, is most commonly used to augment traditional types of instruction — the theory being that requiring students to do, make or create something exercises different learning muscles.

Differentiated Instruction (Low Tech) Inspired by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), enacted to ensure equal access to public education for all children, differentiated instruction is the practice of developing an understanding of how each student learns best, and then tailoring instruction to meet students’ individual needs.

In some instances, this means Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with special needs, but today teachers use differentiated instruction to connect with all types of learners by offering options on how students access content, the types of activities they do to master a concept, how student learning is assessed and even how the classroom is set up.

Inquiry-Based Learning (High Tech) Rather than function as a sole authority figure, in inquiry-based learning teachers offer support and guidance as students work on projects that depend on them taking on a more active and participatory role in their own learning. Different students might participate in different projects, developing their own questions and then conducting research — often using online resources — and then demonstrate the results of their work through self-made videos, web pages or formal presentations.

Expeditionary Learning (Low Tech) Expeditionary learning is based on the idea that there is considerable educational value in getting students out of the classroom and into the real world. Examples include trips to City Hall or Washington, D.C., to learn about the workings of government, or out into nature to engage in specific study related to the environment. Technology can be used to augment such expeditions, but the primary focus is on getting out into the community for real-world learning experiences.

Personalized Learning (High Tech) In personalized learning, teachers encourage students to follow personalized, self-directed learning plans that are inspired by their specific interests and skills. Since assessment is also tailored to the individual, students can advance at their own pace, moving forward or spending extra time as needed. Teachers offer some traditional instruction as well as online material, while also continually reviewing student progress and meeting with students to make any needed changes to their learning plans.

Game-Based Learning (High Tech) Students love games, and considerable progress has been made in the field of game-based learning, which requires students to be problem solvers as they work on quests to accomplish a specific goal. For students, this approach blends targeted learning objectives with the fun of earning points or badges, much like they would in a video game. For teachers, planning this type of activity requires additional time and effort, so many rely on software like Classcraft or 3DGameLab to help students maximize the educational value they receive from within the gamified learning environment.

Blended Learning Blended learning is another strategy for teachers looking to introduce flexibility into their classroom. This method relies heavily on technology, with part of the instruction taking place online and part in the classroom via a more traditional approach, often leveraging elements of the flipped classroom approach detailed above. At the heart of blended learning is a philosophy of taking the time to understand each student’s learning style and develop strategies to teach to every learner, by building flexibility and choice into your curriculum.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) UDL incorporates both student-centered learning and the “multiple intelligences theory,” which holds that different learners are wired to learn most effectively in different ways (examples of these “intelligences” include visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, etc.). In practice, this could mean that some students might be working on a writing project while others would be more engaged if they created a play or a movie. UDL emphasizes the idea of teaching to every student, special needs students included, in the general education classroom, creating community and building knowledge through multiple means.

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In addition to the many philosophical and pedagogical approaches to teaching, classroom educators today employ diverse and sometimes highly creative methods involving specific strategies, prompts and tools that require little explanation. These include:

Appointments with students
Art-based projects
Audio tutorials
Author’s chair
Book reports
Bulletin boards
Brainstorming
Case studies
Chalkboard instruction
Class projects
Classroom discussion
Classroom video diary
Collaborative learning spaces
Creating murals and montages
Current events quizzes
Designated quiet space
Discussion groups
DIY activities
Dramatization (plays, skits, etc.)
Educational games
Educational podcasts
Essays (Descriptive)
Essays (Expository)
Essays (Narrative)
Essays (Persuasive)
Exhibits and displays
Explore different cultures
Field trips
Flash cards
Flexible seating
Gamified learning plans
Genius hour
Group discussion
Guest speakers
Hands-on activities
Individual projects
Interviewing
Laboratory experiments
Learning contracts
Learning stations
Literature circles
Making posters
Mock conventions
Motivational posters
Music from other countries/cultures
Oral reports
Panel discussions
Peer partner learning
Photography
Problem solving activities
Reading aloud
Readers’ theater
Reflective discussion
Research projects
Rewards & recognition
Role playing
School newspapers
Science fairs
Sister city programs
Spelling bees
Storytelling
Student podcasts
Student portfolios
Student presentations
Student-conceived projects
Supplemental reading assignments
Team-building exercises
Term papers
Textbook assignments
Think-tac-toe
Time capsules
Use of community or local resources
Video creation
Video lessons
Vocabulary lists

So, is the teacher the center of the educational universe or the student? Does strong reliance on the wonders of technology offer a more productive educational experience or is a more traditional, lower-tech approach the best way to help students thrive?

Questions such as these are food for thought for educators everywhere, in part because they inspire ongoing reflection on how to make a meaningful difference in the lives of one’s students.

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In our free guide, you can learn about a variety of teaching methods to adopt in the classroom.

The Complete List of Teaching Methods eBook Cover

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Welcome to this free course on 'General Teaching M...
Information that is not to miss
Alternative format
Tell us what you think of this course
Acknowledgements & references
Course guide
TOPIC 1 - QUIZ
TOPIC 2 - QUIZ
TOPIC 3 - QUIZ
TOPIC 4 - QUIZ
TOPIC 5 - QUIZ
Introduction
1.1 DEFINITIONS, TYPES & PROCESSES OF LEARNING
What is learning
Behaviourism
Constructivism
Social-constructivism
Cognitivism
Conclusion on learning theories
1.2 LEARNING STYLES
Introduction to learning styles
Overview of learning styles
Interpersonal learners
Intrapersonal learners
Kinesthetic learners
Verbal learners
Visual learners
Logical learners
Auditory learners
Identifying learning styles
1.3 LEVELS OF COGNITION
Introduction to Bloom's taxonomy
How Bloom’s Taxonomy is useful for teachers
2.1 FOUNDATION AND RATIONALE
Introduction to Active Teaching and Learning
Defining Active Teaching and Learning
Rationale for Active Teaching and Learning
2.2 METHODS, TECHNIQUES & TOOLS
METHODS FOR ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
Problem-based learning
Project-based learning
Learning stations
Learning contracts
TECHNIQUES FOR ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
Demonstration
Presentation
Brainstorming
Storytelling
TOOLS FOR ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
Low cost experiments
Charts and maps
Student portfolio
2.3 BARRIES IN INTEGRATING ACTIVE TEACHING
Identifying Barriers
3.1 INTRODUCTION TO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION
Defining classroom management
The role of the teacher
Defining classroom organization
Classroom seating arrangement
Overview of classroom seating arrangement styles
Benefits of effective classroom management and organization
3.2 STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
The teacher as a model
Desired learner behaviour
Rewarding learners
Types of rewards
Reinforcing learners
Delivering a reinforcement
3.3 LESSON PLANNING
Definition of a lesson plan

Components of a lesson plan

4.1 INTRODUCTION TO ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
Definition of assessment
Formative vs. summative assessment
Assessment for learning
Assessment vs. evaluation
4.2 CLASS ASSESSMENT TOOLS
Assessment rubrics
Self-assessment
Peer-assessment
4.3 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Definition of reflective practice
The reflective cycle
5.1 CONCEPT OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Introduction to teaching and learning materials
Purpose of teaching and learning materials
5.2 TYPES OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Traditional and innovative resources
Screencasts
Educational videos
Educational posters
Open Educational Resources (OERs)
5.3 CHOOSING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Integrating instructional materials
Factors to consider when selecting instructional materials

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General Teaching Methods

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A lesson plan is a step-by-step guide on what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. A teacher’s lesson plan includes many components, watch the video below to discover the key components of a lesson plan:

Overview of key components:

The course subject, class and the topic.

Learning outcomes What should be achieved at the end of the lesson.

Learning materials

The materials needed to deliver the lesson.

Lesson phases

A lesson has a middle, beginning and end.

Learning activities

Types of activities learners will need to engage in.

Active Teaching and Learning

Methods, techniques and tools to make learning meaningful and interactive.

Estimation of how much time each of the activities will take.

Differentiation

Differentiation in instruction to address different learning styles.

Lesson plan template

Click on the below link to view and download a lesson plan template for lower secondary education and get an overview of all its necessary components to be considered prior to teaching. Note that the structure of a lesson plan is determined by the demands of the curriculum of a specific context. It is therefore necessary to observe that this lesson plan can be modified to suit a context.

Lesson plan template

Definition of a lesson plan TAKE QUIZ 3

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Instructional Methods: Activities to Include in Your Lesson Plans

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Lesson Plans

Each student has his or her own learning style. In order to create an effective lesson plan that meets all of these different needs, teachers, tutors, and home school parents should include a variety of instructional methods. This article outlines several useful teaching methods.

No two children are exactly alike. This is true in the classroom as well as out. Each student, after all, has his or her own unique learning style. While some students learn by seeing, others learn by hearing and others learn by doing.

In order for a teacher to be effective she must be able to reach her students using methods that work best for them. Mixing things up in this fashion will also help alleviate boredom, engaging students, and helping them truly retain their lessons.

Here are a few instructional methods to consider:

Direct Teaching

Direct teaching is the most common form of teaching. It occurs when a teacher addresses the class using whatever means they choose, relaying the information to students as a group. Lessons are well organized, and this method is effective for teaching specific facts and skills, but the format of this type of teaching can stifle creativity.

Cooperative Learning

Group projects not only give children the opportunity to learn by doing, but allow them to work with, teach, and learn from their peers. While some students do not work well in groups, others excel in them.

As one might guess, a lecture is simply a lecture. While some incorporate other media, many simply involve a teacher orally relaying a message. Teachers can engage students and test their understanding by injecting group discussion into the lecture, which breaks up the monotony of a speech.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming occurs when a teacher introduces an issue and asks the students to reach a conclusion on their own, through a moderated, guided thought process. While this works well in courses that emphasize critical thinking and creativity, it is not appropriate for math, science, and other analytical subjects.

Videotapes/ Slides/ Digital Presentations

Including new media in your lessons will not only encourage your students to focus, but will appeal to senses regular lectures do not stimulate. They also allow the teacher to metaphorically break out of the classroom and enter the real world, allowing cameras to take students places teachers simply cannot.

Role Playing

The essence of learn by doing, role playing allows the students to act out a lesson and test their skills and knowledge. This method allows students to assume the roles of others and appreciate another point of view, but some students may feel self-conscious or threatened, so be sure to take the needs of such students into account.

Guest Speakers

Guest speakers allow students to learn from those who have first-hand knowledge in the discipline of interest. These guests can not only share real-world information about a subject that students' ordinary instructors have not had the opportunity to acquire, but also breaks up the daily routine, inspiring student engagement.

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List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)

teaching strategies definition and examples, detailed below

Use this list of 107 classroom teaching strategies for your lesson plan or teaching portfolio. This can help demonstrate pedagogical knowledge and the ability to apply theory to practice.

Or, try some of these strategies out when you’re low on ideas and looking for a fresh way to teach in the classroom. Note that these are just some examples of teaching strategies – I’m sure there are even more out there!

Tip: Bookmark this page so you can come back to it every time you need some new teaching strategies!

Teaching Strategies Examples (List)

1. flipped instruction.

Description

Flipped classrooms involve asking students to complete the reading, preparation and introductory work at home. Then, during class time, the students do practice questions that they would traditionally do for homework.

Flipped instruction enables the teacher to offload the direct instruction elements of education like Introductions to homework. This enables teachers to spend more time on student-centered differentiated support .
Students may not complete their assigned pre-class homework, which will undermine the lesson.

Theoretical Link

Social Constructivism / Socio-Cultural Theory : The teacher can spend more time supporting students in a student-centered environment.

Assign a video introducing a concept for homework.
Spend the first 10 minutes of the lesson assessing students’ comprehension of the video
Jump straight into student-centered practice tasks
Walk around the class helping students who need additional support for the rest of the lesson

See my full article on Flipped Classrooms Pros and Cons.

Related Article: 25 Teaching Styles Examples

2. Play-based learning

Students learn cognitive, social, and physical skills during play tasks. Tasks can be teacher-led with specific goals (e.g. volume transfer in a sandpit) or unstructured student-led play.

Engagement: students may be more engaged during active play-based learning compared to teacher-centered instruction.
Cognition : students get the opportunity to learn through discovery and trial-and-error, helping to build neural pathways
Social: students play together, developing communication, groupwork, and negotiation skills.
Physical: play engages fine and gross motor functions , helping to improve physical abilities.
Many traditionalist, including many parents and potentially your head teacher, may consider play to have no educational or academic benefit.
Parents may frown upon this method for older students, despite its benefits across age groups.
Many people consider that the risks of injury during play-based learning are too high.

( Read More: Pros and Cons of Play Based Learning )

Social Constructivism. Students learn through social interaction and building knowledge in their minds through trial and error.

Play is also encouraged in all 5 Contemporary Early Childhood Perspectives (Froebel, Reggio Emilia, Forest Schools , Steiner-Waldorf Schools, and Montessori).

Use modelled instruction to show students how to play with developmentally appropriate resource-rich toys and puzzles. Consider puzzles that require mathematical skills that link to current curriculum outcomes.
Provide students with the puzzles and allow free unstructured play time
Mingle with the students, helping them with prompting and guiding questions
End the lesson with a whole group discussion of what they learned during the lesson.

See my full article on Play Based Learning Pros and Cons .

3. Project-based learning (PBL)

Project-based learning requires students to spend an extended period of time (e.g. a week or more) on a single project to gain in-depth knowledge about the task. The projects should be personally meaningful and give students freedom to go in-depth on areas of interest.

Students have the opportunity to become ‘experts’ on topics. By going deep on a topic, students may become very knowledgeable and feel empowered.
A balance is struck between ensuring students focus on curriculum-linked projects and giving students the freedom to explore the details of a topic that are of personal interest.
Students tend to have increased freedom using this approach. So, students need to learn self-regulation skills before beginning the task.

Constructivism in the Classroom : Students work independently using their own intellect and resources to learn. By doing personal research, students ‘construct’ knowledge in their minds and apply that knowledge to the project to demonstrate their knowledge.

Teacher assigns students a research question, such as “What are the key characteristics of mammals?”
Students work in small groups to come up with an idea for a poster, diagram, or presentation project on the topic.
Teacher approves or asks for amendments of students’ proposed projects.
Students are provided a series of lessons over a 2-week period in computer labs and in resource-rich classrooms to complete their project.
Teacher checks-in intermittently to ensure standards are upheld and to stimulate students to improve upon their projects.
The project concludes with students presenting their project to their parents.

4. Authentic Learning

Authentic learning involves having students learn about concepts in real-life (or near real-life) environments. Similarly, authentic assessment refers to assessments in real-life (or near real-life) environments

By learning a task within its context, a student will understand its value for them outside of the classroom.
Engagement: students may be more engaged in a task if they understand its practical application rather than just its theoretical purpose.
Cognition and Memory: Students may find it easier to recall information if they can reflect on an instance in which they applied the knowledge to a real-life task.
Authentic learning tasks are difficult to set-up from within a classroom.
It is debatable whether so-called ‘authentic’ environments are genuinely authentic. A mock supermarket experience for practicing counting money, for example, lacks the potential for environmental distractions of a real-life situation.
Some information is by its very nature academic and theoretical rather than practical, and this information is still of value to students.

Constructivism: Authentic learning environments are designed for students to be active learners who ‘construct’ knowledge through personal experience.

An ESL teacher provides students with a set of conversational tasks to complete during a day’s field trip to the city.
Students complete the tasks in the ‘real world’ by walking around the city asking for directions, buying lunch, etc.
Class comes together at the end of the day to discuss and reflect on their experiences of applying their knowledge in the ‘real world’.

5. Discovery Learning

Discovery learning involves allowing students maximum freedom within a resource-rich environment to ‘discover’ answers to challenges. It requires students to build upon prior knowledge and use resources available in the environment to increase their own knowledge.

Discovery learning is often held in contrast to teacher-centered approaches, as students are not ‘told’ information; instead, they must discover knowledge for themselves..

Students generate knowledge for themselves rather than being told what is right and wrong.
By discovering truths, students will have a firmer understanding for the reasoning behind why something is true.
Too much student freedom may distract students from the learning outcomes.
This can be a time-consuming technique as students discover information at their own pace. It can therefore be difficult to implement in education systems that are packed with curriculum outcomes that must be met.

Construcitivism: Students generate their own knowledge through engagement with their environment rather than having truths ‘told’ to them by an authority figure.

Teacher places the appropriate resources in the classroom to allow students to discover truths themselves. These resources may include science experiment stations, newspaper articles, etc.
Teacher transparently presents the lesson objectives to the students, i.e. “What is heavier – sand or water?”
Students are given minimal guidance, but sent to the learning stations to try to answer the prompt themselves.
Teacher provides minimal guidance, recognizing that making mistakes and trying the ‘wrong thing’ is also a part of the discovery experience.
Students get together at the end of the class to discuss what they ‘discovered’.

6. High Expectations

Setting high expectation involves requiring students to put in maximum effort during their lessons. HIgh expectations does not mean expecting all students to meet a certain standard. Rather, it means expecting each student to try to beat their own personal best.

High expectations are necessary to ensure students continue to strive for improvement. Without high expectations in the classroom, students can become lazy and lose respect for education.
Teachers need to be aware that sometimes students have ‘off days’ where they cannot succeed at their normal level. This may be due to health, hunger, or environmental factors .
Teachers need to balance high expectations with compassion for their students. Try not to let burnout occur due to strenuous demands.
Measure students’ prior knowledge to ascertain their current developmental level.
Have students aim to achieve at or above their current ability in a given task.
If students underperform, provide formative feedback and insist they readdress their work to make edits and improvements.
Allow students to progress to subsequent tasks only when their work has met or exceeded the minimum standard you set for that individual.

See my full article on High Expectations in the Classroom .

7. Parent and Community Engagement

Parent and community engagement involves bringing students together with their community. It can involve bringing parents and community members into the classroom, or bringing students out into the community on field trips.

By engaging with the community, students come to see themselves as a member of their community.
It can help students to get to know important members of their community to give them a sense of belonging, and help them see (and, in the future, seek) support networks.
By bringing role models into the classroom (especially minority and female role models), students can come to see that they could potentially become female firefighters, politicians of color, etc.
Students can learn from more than just one teacher to get a variety of perspectives.
Safety concerns often require teachers and community members to fill-in forms and complete background checks before community engagement can occur.
Finding members of the community willing to work with teachers can be difficult.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: Students learn within family and community contexts (children’s ‘first teachers’) in order to respect and carry-on culturally engaged learning.

Teacher does networking to find community members willing to come into the classroom.
Teacher finds relevant curriculum links that community members can help them teach about.
Teacher and community members meet to discuss a lesson idea.
Community members and teachers team-teach in the classroom.
Students are given the opportunity for one-on-one time with community members.
Students present the results of their lesson to community members before community members leave.

8. Unconditional Positive Regard

Unconditional positive regard involves teachers consistently and unconditionally viewing students as capable and competent. When students make mistakes, fail, or misbehave, it is the teacher’s role to continue to let students know that they believe in the student and their abilities.

Empowering: when students are given unconditional positive regard, they know that their teacher believes in their ability to constantly do better.
Shows Empathy and builds Trust: children come to learn to respect and trust their teacher when they know their teacher is always on ‘their side’.
Teachers need to ensure that they still let students know that inappropriate behavior or lack of effort is unacceptable. The teacher should follow-up their discipline with comments about positive regard.

Humanist theory of Education : Humanist Carl Rogers invented this approach. He believed unconditional positive regard was necessary for building students’ self-confidence.

“Even though you did not do well today, I expect that you will come to school doing better tomorrow.”
“The quality of your work does not match your potential. Let’s talk about some strategies for improvement before you go away and do it again.”

See my full post on the Humanist approach to Education .

9. Modeled Teaching

Modeled teaching is an instructional strategy that involves the teacher ‘showing’ students how to do a task. The teacher shows the task while also breaking it down into small steps. This helps students to see how to complete the task.

A very effective way to introduce new topics.
The teacher maintains control when introducing a new idea to ensure students have appropriate understanding and safety knowledge before trying for themselves.
Shows that learning can occur passively – students can learn simply by watching.
Not appropriate as a standalone strategy. Students need to eventually try things alone to show competency. Therefore, consider matching modeled teaching up with the I Do, We Do, You Do method

Bandura’s Behaviorism: Bandura blends behaviorism with constructivism by showing that learning can occur through observation only.

See my full post on Behaviorism in Education , which has a segment on Bandura’s modelled instruction approach.

10. I Do We Do You Do Method

The I Do, We Do, You Do method is a scaffolding strategy that provides gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student. It involves three steps: (1) I Do: Teacher models the task; (2) We Do: Student and teacher do the task together; (3) You Do: Student attempts to complete the task alone.

Students are provided an appropriate balance of support and freedom.
Teacher has ample time to assess students’ abilities to make adjustments to their pedagogy as they move through the 3 steps (particularly in step 2)
In large groups, students may fall behind at Steps 2 and 3.

Sociocultural Theory: Students learn through social interaction with a more knowledgeable other (see: Lev Vygotsky).

Teacher asks all students to sit on a mat at the front of the class.
Teacher models the steps required to complete the day’s task (I Do).
Teacher re-does the task. This time, instead of telling the students the steps, the teacher asks students to raise their hand and tell the teacher what to do next (We Do)
Teacher asks students to complete the task in small groups. Teacher walks around providing support (We Do)
Students complete the lesson by doing the task alone. Teacher only intervenes for the few students who are still struggling (You Do)

See my full guide on implementing the I Do, We Do, You Do method .

11. Guided Practice / Cognitive Apprenticeship

Students follow along with their teacher as an ‘apprentice’. By working side-by-side, they learn the subtle little things (‘ tacit knowledge ’) required to know in order to master a skill.

Students get very close one-to-one interaction with an expert, helping them learn.
By learning-by-doing, the student learns not only the theory but also the skills required to complete tasks.
An approach predominantly used for young children in Indigenous communities, which is not applicable on a wide scale in Western mass education systems.
Requires one-to-one support, which is not often available.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Rogoff studied Guatemalan Indigenous teaching methods to come up with this approach. It fits under the socio-cultural theory because its emphasis is on social interaction between master and apprentice.

Common in trade schools for students studying to be mechanics, engineers, etc.

See my full guides on the Guided Practice teaching strategy and cognitive fexibility .

12. Scaffolding

Scaffolding involves providing support to students while they cannot complete a task alone. Then, when the student can complete the task alone, the teacher withdraws their support.

Students feel supported while learning tasks that are just outside of their grasp at the present time.
A clear way of guiding students towards new skills.
May require a lot of one-to-one support, which can be difficult to provide in a classroom environment.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Scaffolding was invented by Jerome Bruner ( not Vygotsky).

The teacher models a task before students try it themselves.
The teacher provides the student with a visual aid (the scaffold, in this instance) that breaks the task down into small parts.
After 15 minutes of practice with the visual aid, the aid is withdrawn and the students try the task alone.

13. Direct Instruction (a.k.a Explicit Teaching)

Direct instruction (also known as explicit teaching) is a teacher-centered approach that involves the teacher using simple straightforward language to explain concepts to students.

Provides clear and direct knowledge to students
Is sometimes the only way to teach something, particularly when introducing a new idea.
Students cannot consolidate their knowledge with direct instruction alone. Explicit teaching should be followed-up with other teaching strategies that involve more active learning so students can practice and demonstrate their knowledge.

Behaviorism: Traditionally, direct instruction was embraced by behaviorists who believed in teacher-centered teaching. Today, it is used in most teaching approaches.

14. Repetition (Rote Learning)

Repetition involves giving students time to retry tasks over and over again until it is consolidated in their minds. The information should be safely in a student’s long-term memory before moving on.

Repetition commits information to memory, and is often one of the only ways to ensure something is truly remembered long-term.
Repetitive rote learning that lacks contextual background is hard to remember. Sometimes, giving context through doing tasks through real-life scenarios can be better for memory long-term.
Repetition can disengage students and demotivate them.
Doesn’t account for social and cognitive aspects of learning.

Behaviorism: Repetition is central to a behaviorist approach. Pavlov, a famous behaviorist found that he could teach his dog through repetitively associating a bell with food. The dog came to learn through repetition that the bell meant ‘food’.

See my full post on Behaviorism in Education.

15. Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition builds on simple repetition. Spaced repetition involves gradually increasing the space between times you repeat something. Repetition of a task should be very common. Over time, the task should be re-examined less and less often.

The idea behind spaced repetition is that the concept being learned is re-engaged with just before it is forgotten so that it is consistently recalled into memory and gradually sedimented into long-term memory.

Provides long-term support to ensure students remember information over a sustained period of time.
Perfect for revision and standardized test preparation.
Can be disengaging and boring for students who tend to prefer active learning.

Behaviorism: Spaced repetition was invented by behaviorist theorist Ebbinghaus in 1885.

Provide students with a sprinkle of review tasks as a part of their weekly homework.
Start lessons (or set aside some time each week) with revision of tasks from months previously to jog students’ memory.

16. Prompting

Prompting involves providing students with nudges, guides and questions that will help them to move closer towards an answer. A prompt is a suggestion to a student that they pay attention to a particular aspect of a task that will help them get closer to the answer.

Prompts are used regularly by teachers to get beyond blocks in student learning. Without prompts, students may never develop or improve.
It is hard to know exactly how much prompting to give and at what stage. Students need time to think things through and make mistakes. Too much prompting too soon can prevent students from thinking for themselves.

Social Constructivism: Social constructivists believe teachers have a role in helping students to build knowledge in their minds. Teachers’ interventions can help spur knowledge development.

A teacher might ask a question to get the student to look at the task from a different perspective.
A teacher may point at a section of a diagram and ask them about that section.
A teacher might start a sentence and ask a student to finish it.

17. Differentiation

Differentiation is a teaching strategy that requires teachers to change their teaching styles and educational materials to meet the diverse needs of students within a classroom. It generally involves grouping students into several sub-groups in the classroom based on ability, skillset or learning preferences.

Enables the teacher to more effectively address the diverse needs of students in a large classroom.
Ensures learning is more personalized in the hope that no child will be left behind in a lesson.
Differentiation is often used as an excuse to dumb down a task – differentiated instruction should be paired with high expectations to ensure all students are working to their maximum potential.

Socio-cultural Theory: This approach acknowledges that all students have different social and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, each student requires a personalized learning approach. It realizes that one size fits all will not work because all students are different.

Separate students into three ability groups: Advanced, Middle, and Lower. The advanced students can be provided with project-based learning tasks to complete while the teacher works with the middle and lower groups to provide additional support.
Provide students with a range of tasks that addresses the same learning outcome. Students can choose between different tasks depending on their learning preferences.

18. Manipulatives

Manipulatives are physical educational toys (or: ‘tools’) which are used to support learning. Providing students with physical manipulatives during learning enables them to visualize their learning in a 3D space.

Students can learn more actively when they have manipulatives than when learning through teacher-centered direct instruction methods.
Helps students who need to visualize information to learn.
Creation of physical models helps students to form mental models (‘ cognitive schemata ’).
It can be expensive to gather enough materials for all students in a classroom.
Providing students with toys can distract them from the task. Strong classroom management skills are required.

Constructivism: Constructivists including Freidrich Froebel and Maria Montessori have advocated for the use of educational toys to help students to explore and discover in student-led active learning contexts.

Base Tens ‘Dienes Cubes’ are cubes that can be bunched into singles, groups of ten, groups of 100, and groups of 1000 to help students visualize the decimal system of counting.
Colored beads can be used to help students in early childhood learn to recognize patterns.
Froebel’s Gifts are 9 manipulative toys that students can use to solve developmentally appropriate puzzles.

19. Prior Knowledge Assessment

Prior knowledge assessment entails assessing students’ knowledge at the beginning of a unit of work in order to teach students at an appropriate level. If prior knowledge does not take place, teachers may teach content at a level that is either above or below a class’s optimal learning level.

Ensures the content being taught is at an appropriate level.
Respects the fact that students come into the classroom with pre-existing knowledge.
Identifies misconceptions students may have about a topic.
Enables teachers to take into account students’ cultural knowledge when preparing a unit of work.
Ensure you assess prior knowledge well in advance so you can plan lessons based on prior knowledge. I’ve assessed prior knowledge at the start of a class before and realized the lesson I planned was completely useless!

20. Student-Teacher Conference

A student-teacher conference is a one-on-one discussion between a student and a teacher to take stock of a student’s needs. The conference usually involves a discussion of both strengths as well as areas for improvement. The conference should conclude with a list of goals for the teacher and student to mutually strive toward.

An opportunity for both the teacher and student to express concerns and anxieties
Helps students to feel ‘seen’, valued and cared for by the teacher
Hard to achieve in every lesson. Teachers could consider systematically conferring with one or two students per lesson until all students are met with.
There is a power imbalance in the student-teacher relationship which may prevent students from speaking candidly.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Interactions between teachers and students are important to learning within the socio-cultural approach.

Print a list of your students with a column for ‘achievements’, ‘goals’ and ‘struggles’. Over the course of a week, meet up with your students and discuss with them what they’ve achieved in the current unit of work, what their goals are, and what the barriers are to achieving those goals.

21. Fill-In the Gaps (Cloze Passages)

A simple teaching strategy that involves asking students to fill-in an incomplete piece of text. This can happen verbally (starting a paragraph and asking students to complete it) and in writing (a traditional cloze passage).

Helps students to jog their own memories by prompting them slightly.
Enables teachers to quickly assess students’ knowledge (just-in-time assessment).
Cannot be a consistently used strategy as students also need to learn through more challenging approaches such as discovery learning and project-based learning.
Paper cloze passages involving a story in which the key phrases are removed.
Prompting questions like: “Can you finish this sentence? The first king of England was …”

22. Peer Assisted Learning (PAL)

Has the teacher step aside and allows students to take charge of the learning environment.

Students can often explain concepts to one another in a clear way because they’re on the same level and closer in their learning journey than the teacher, who probably learned the content years ago!
Peer assisted learning is not the same as the students doing the teaching. Students should continue to view each others as partners in learning.

Socio-Cultural Theory: students learning through collaborative discussion fits firmly into the sociocultural theory of education .

Invite students from a grade level above to come into the classroom and act as moderators of discussions on topics of interest.
Pair stronger students with weaker students. Have the stronger students demonstrate their knowledge by supporting the weaker students. I find this works really well because children can often explain things in a clear language that other children can understand.

23. Poster Presentations

A poster presentation is a great way to demonstrate knowledge at the end of a lesson or unit of work. Provide the students with posters, pens, and printing materials if required.

A fast, effective way of presenting knowledge to the class.
Allows students to practice demonstration skills.
Ends up with a physical product that can be photographed and added to the student’s portfolio to prove that outcomes have been met.
Can be a lazy way to achieve presentation of knowledge. Ensure the focus remains on the content and not the coloring-in or drawing pretty pictures.
Not useful for all lessons: when students can create a working model, diagram, etc. this would be preferred.
Have students work in groups to write up their knowledge in a visually engaging way.
Then, have each group verbally present their poster to the class.

24. Two-Minute Presentation

Two Minute verbal presentations, like posters, are an effective way of having students demonstrate their knowledge at the end of a lesson or unit of work. Each student gets two minutes to present their knowledge on a topic to the rest of the class.

An effective, fast way of doing summative assessment.
It is an inefficient use of other students’ time having them listen to 20 other two-minute presentations when they could be engaging in higher-order learning during that time. Students find it very boring and frustrating to sit through the assessment of other students.
Use the two-minute presentation method for the final lesson in a series of lessons on one topic.
Have students read over their notes from previous classes and write a summary of the top 10 points.
Have students prepare their two-minute presentations by adding the notes to palm cards. With 10 points, students have about 12 second per point!
Ensure students have time to practice with one another and instruct them on how to take additional notes on their palm cards for points they forgot during practice.
If each student has a different topic or angle to present engagement may be enhanced during the class presentations.

25. De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats

De Bono’s 6 thinking hats strategy asks students to look at an issue from multiple perspectives. It can be used for groups or individuals. Depending on the hat a student is provided, they have to think from a different perspective.

The Six Hats

White hat: Provide the facts.
Yellow hat: Explore the positives.
Black hat: Explore the negatives (devil’s advocate).
Red hat: Express your feelings and intuitions . Include concerns, dislikes and likes.
Green hat: Be creative. Come up with new ideas and alternatives.
Blue hat: The manager who ensures all the hats are sticking to their lane.
Helps students to think outside of their own perspectives.
Encourages students to attack an issue from many different angles.
Teachers group work skills if used in a group.
I often find it’s hard to get groups of 6, so sometimes one student has to use two hats.
Introduce a contentious topic with a video or reading.
Distribute hats to the students.
Have students spend some time brainstorming what they would say on the issue from their perspective. If you have a large class, group all the white hats together, red hats together, etc. to work in groups for this part.
Then rearrange students into groups where there is one colored hat per group (groups of 6 is ideal, or 5 with one person taking the role of blue hat as well).
At the end of the class, have a whole group discussion summing up our points and list the details of the topic on the white board. Hopefully students will see that the issue is a very complex one!

26. Pop Quiz

A pop quiz is a short test that takes place with no prior warning. The quiz can be formative or summative. Link the quiz to rewards to keep students motivated to do well and be prepared at any moment.

Can be motivating for students who enjoy the challenge of competing with themselves or others.
Keeps students on their toes which encourages ongoing review and homework on the part of the students.
May worry some students who are unprepared.

27. Democratic Vote

Taking a democratic vote is a progressive education strategy that attempts to empower students in the classroom. Have students vote on what or how they will learn within the classroom. This can be done at a small scale in a lesson plan by asking students to vote on how a lesson will progress, for example.

Can empower students, giving them a sense of ownership over the classroom.
Can build trust and rapport between the students and the teacher.
Helps the teacher take the pulse of the class and understand what they want and need.
Teachers may lose their power and control over the class if they overuse this approach.
Just because the majority supports something, it doesn’t mean it’s best. A small group of students may fall behind and have their voices drowned out by the majority.

Progressive Education: Progressive educators such as Alfie Kohn advocate for empowering students through increased democracy in the classroom.

See my full post on Citizenship Education .

28. Non-Verbal Gestures

Using non-verbal gestures are powerful ways to help students learn, as well as to manage the classroom. Educators can explicitly teach signs or use gestures common in society.

Teachers can give individual students instant feedback that is subtle and does not disrupt the rest of the class.
Students feel acknowledged when small gestures are used just for them.
It is a non-intrusive way of prompting students.
Cultural sensitivity required. Different cultures ascribe different meanings to non-verbal gestures.
Nods of approval can let a student know you have recognized their good work without disrupting the flow of the lesson.
Pointing can be used to direct students’ attention toward prompts around the room or on worksheets that may help stimulate thinking.
Tapping a watch can remind students to pay attention to time limitations of a lesson.

29. Environmental Manipulation

Environments have a strong impact on learning. Temperature, lighting, seating plans , colors and posters on the walls can all affect learning.

A non-intrusive way of supporting learning.
Helps students feel more comfortable in the classroom.
Your classroom has limitations which may prevent the ideal environmental settings.
Different students may work better in different environments (e.g. heat settings)

Humanism: Teachers pay attention to the conditions required for creating an optimal learning environment.

Classical Conditioning (Behaviorism): Students are ‘conditioned’ by cause-and-effect mechanisms that are subtle and that they aren’t even aware of.

For more, see my full post on behaviorism in education.

When a class is too loud, try subtly turning off the fan. It’s amazing how often this small environmental manipulation can quiet down a class.
Ensure the classroom is not too dark. A dark classroom can impede reading, especially for students who do not have perfect eyesight.
Heat and noise can both prevent learning.
Calm colors on the walls can help students relax into the learning environment.

30. Associative Learning

Associative learning takes place when several ideas are introduced to a student that are mutually reinforcing. In the classroom, this means presenting students with several stimulus materials that help a student to recall a fact.

Is very effective during revision for an exam.
Has questionable long-term benefits as at this stage the concept is not yet solidly consolidated in long-term memory. The recall of information is dependant on other associated information.

Behaviorism (Pavlov’s Dog): Most famously, Pavlov managed to get a dog to associate the ringing of a bell with food. The dog would salivate whenever the bell rang, whether or not there was food around.

Cognitive Constructivism: while associative learning is most commonly associated with Pavlov, constructivists also have an explanation. The more associations someone has with a topic, the more neural pathways are created connecting ideas. This helps improve memory recall.

31. Cooperative Learning (Group Work)

Cooperative learning is a teaching strategy that involves having students work together rather than in competition. Usually, this takes place in small groups where the success of the group is dependant on the students working together to achieve a common goal (also known as positive interdependence). See more: Cooperative learning examples .

Minimizes destructive competitiveness in the classroom which may undermine a collaborative and collegial atmosphere.
Requires students to talk to one another which can help them learn from each other’s perspectives.
Students need to be explicitly taught group work skills before participating.
Some students may become lazy and let others do the work for the whole group.

Sociocultural Theory: Learning is stimulated when students converse with one another. They get to see others’ viewpoints which may help each student build upon or challenge their existing views.

32. Agenda Setting

The teacher presents the students with the agenda at the start of the day. The use of visual aids may be helpful here, allowing students to see a timeline of the day’s events on the board at the front of the classroom.

Very effective for students with autism who often feel calmed knowing there is some structure to their day.
Helps relax students into a day or even a lesson by giving them certainty about what’s to come.
Any benefits that may arise lack scientific backing.
Download a card set of images that represent different lesson types and activities. Use this card set to lay out a visual timeline for the students every morning.

33. Team Teaching

Instead of one teacher delivering a lesson to a group of students, several teachers get their classes together to teach one lesson to a larger group.

Teachers can be more flexible. One teacher may take the role of presenter while the other acts as a support with students falling behind.
Teachers can share the workload, particularly for preparation.
Large groups may lead to some students falling behind without the teachers realizing.
There is the potential for more noise distractions and subversive behavior in large groups.
Teachers need to have the same work ethic for this to be effective.
Large class sizes required.
Consider having one teacher take the lead on all mathematics lessons and the other take the lead on all literature lessons. This enables each teacher to become more expert on their topic.

34. Directing Attention

Directing attention involves diverting students away from negative non-learning behaviors and towards positive behaviors by presenting them with engaging learning materials or ideas.

Prevents negative behaviors without confrontation.
Focuses on creating engaging lessons.
Can be done multiple times in one lesson whenever a teacher sees a student is distracted.
Tends to be more effective with younger children than older children.
Use visual aids, worksheets and manipulatives to help direct and maintain students’ attention on something physical. With adults, I use flipchart paper (also known as butcher’s paper) as the prop to direct attention.

34. Visual Aids

Visual aids are any objects used in the classroom to attract students’ eyes and therefore immerse them more into a lesson. Visual aids can have both cognitive benefits (see: cognitive tools) and engagement benefits.

Engagement: students are more likely to pay attention if they have something to look at.
Cognition: some students may benefit from visualizing a concept to help them order ideas in their minds.
Visual learning : some learners prefer learning visually than aurally (see: learning styles).
A visual aid needs an educational purpose. Consider why you are using the visual aid before deciding to use it.
Graphic Organizers
Educational toys (see: Manipulatives)

35. Flexible Seating

Allowing students to sit where they choose, rather than having assigned seating, has had a resurgence in popularity in the past decade. A flexible seating classroom often has a range of differently organized workstations, allowing students to select a spot to sit that’s most comfortable for them and which best suits the style of learning that will be occuring in that lesson.

Can reduce sedentary periods of time by allowing students to move around more during a lesson.
Enables students to sit at a table that best suits their learning (computer table, group table, individual table, on a bean bag, etc.)
There is often not enough space at workstations, meaning students end up not actually sitting where they choose.
Often students like to have a spot they can call their own. It helps give students a sense of place and belonging.
This approach is very common in the Agile Learning Spaces and Flexible Classrooms movement.

See my full post on the Common Classroom Seating Arrangements .

36. Formative Assessment (a.k.a Assessment for Learning)

Formative assessment involves assessing students’ learning throughout the learning process, not just at the end. Formative assessments can take place at one point in a unit of work or regularly throughout a lesson.

Allows teachers to adjust their teaching if students are not quite up to where you expected, or if they are exceeding your expectations.
Students get feedback on their progress before the summative assessment, allowing them to adjust.
Gives the teacher a better understanding of their students. If a student fails a summative assessment but the teacher knows the student could do the task at the formative stage, more investigation can take place to see why there is a discrepancy.
Can be time consuming to constantly assess students’ abilities.
Formative assessments often lack the authority of summative assessment pieces.
Formative assessments can be simple stops to get feedback and ongoing questioning of students.
They can also take the form of pop quizzes or student-teacher conferences.

37. Summative Assessment

Summative assessments take place at the end of a unit of work and are often the formal final / overall grading of a student’s knowledge.

Summative assessments are necessary for providing a final grade for a student and are often required by school boards.
Summative assessments give students something to strive toward which may keep them motivated and encourage them to study.
They are seen as too high-stakes and can cause stress for students.
If a student does poorly, the assessment is right at the end, so the teacher and student often don’t have any more time address the problems and help progress the student’s learning.
Standardized tests.
Assessments for student portfolios.
End-of-year exams.
Entry exams.

38. Gamification

Gamification involves implementing elements of gameplay in your lessons. This can be as simple as creating a competition out of a mathematics quiz.

Recently, computer software such as excel and programming languages have been used in the classroom as elements of ‘digital’ gamification.

Don’t confuse gamification with game-based learning, which is discussed next.

Gamification can make boring lessons fun , thereby increasing the engagement and motivation of students.
Teachers must not lose focus on the learning outcomes that must be met. ‘Fun’ is not the goal, it is the means for achieving the goal, which is always learning .
Get your students into two groups and have them compete in a trivia contest based on your lesson content.
Give students table groups and reward tables with points depending oh how well they do.

See my full article on the pros and cons of digital play.

39. Game-Based Learning

Not to be confused with gamification, game-based learning involves the use of actual games (board games, computer games, sports games, etc.) into a lesson.

While gamification involves using elements of gameplay into lessons (points, competitions), game-based learning involves using actual games in a lesson.

Students often love video games at home, so they get excited that they can play them in school as well.
Games can also support cognition by prompting students to complete and practice tasks to win games. See also: cognitive tools.
Parents may feel playing games in the classroom is not acceptable. Make sure parents know your reasoning behind using games.
Ensure the focus remains on the learning outcomes, not just on ‘having fun’.
Minecraft is a very popular computer game that is used in classrooms.
Sim City is a popular game for city design courses.
Use card games to teach counting. I teach ESL students counting using the game UNO.

See my full article on game-based learning as well as my explanations about how to use minecraft and sandbox games in the classroom .

40. Coaching

A coach does not stand in front of players and simply tell them what the ‘facts’ are. A coach stands behind a player. He watches the player and gives feedback on their performance. His job is to encourage, suggest adjustments and be the support network for the player.

Coaching is one of the great metaphors for teaching . A teacher who uses coaching as a strategy tried to emulate the role of the coach: observing and offering support and suggestions for adjustments.

Student-centered : the student is the focus and the teacher is the supporter.
Personalized: each student will get unique feedback based on their performance.
Sometimes the teacher needs to introduce new ideas, meaning coaching may not be as useful as another approach such as modeling or direct instruction.

Sociocultural Theory: In sociocultural theory, teachers tend to encourage active learning and provide social support.

41. Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning involves the teacher presenting a problem for the students to solve by making their own inquiries. It is similar to discovery learning, but is different in that inquiry based learning generally involves the teacher setting out a puzzling problem to solve at the start of the lesson.

Students ‘find’ the answers rather than being given them by teachers.
Answers emerge out of exploration, problem solving and discovery, meaning students learn why something is true, not simply what is true.
Significant support is required to help guide students through their inquiry. Students need to be taught how to inquire and given the right inquiry tools (such as books, appropriate websites, etc.)

Constructivism: Students learn through constructing ideas in their heads rather than being told the facts.

42. Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching involves having students facilitate their own small group lessons. It is usually used in reading lessons.

The teacher first models how to guide group discussions before sending students off to facilitate their own lesson. In groups of four, students usually take the roles of: questioner, clarifier, summarizer and predictor. Students read stimulus materials then self-facilitate a group discussion about the text.

Students learn self-regulation learning skills which are essential for later in their lives.
When students are trained up, the classes work very effectively and the teacher can fade into the background.
Students learn group work, communication and negotiation skills. They also learn how to speak up in a group.
Students learn to be mature even when the teacher isn’t looking. By taking on responsibility as ‘teachers’, students should rise to the challenge.
Requires a lot of pre-teaching so students have the required skills for these sorts of lessons to work.

Sociocultural theory: working in groups, communicating and sharing ideas help stimulate thinking and encourages students to challenge their own ideas in order to improve them.

Example (Modelled off the I Do, We Do, You Do approach)

The teacher should model the four roles required in front of the whole class, with several volunteers to act as the demonstration group.
The teacher assigns groups and the four group roles: questioner, clarifier, summarizer and predictor.
When students do the activity in small groups for the first time, explicitly walk the students through the steps. Use a bell or similar audible cue to cycle students through the group work steps.
Allow the students to work in independent groups – walk around and help groups who are struggling.

43. Blended Learning

Blended learning involves a mix of online instruction and face-to-face learning. This strategy can be employed by giving students part of their instruction as homework online and part of it in class. It differs from flipped learning because a flipped classroom involves at-home instruction and in-class practice. Blended learning can have both practice and instruction occuring at home and/or in class

Gives the teacher flexibility to teach partially during homework time and partially in class.
Students need access to technology at home unless the at-home parts are only reading and printouts.
Usually only suitable for university students who are short on time. Blended learning allows them to do some of the learning in their own time.
Used regularly for distance learning students and rural and remote students.
Used regularly at university level.
If using this method, I recommend taking a look at the flipped learning model for some ideas of how to split your distance and in-class segments efficiently.

See my List of 10 Pros and Cons of teaching Online .

44. Growth Mindsets

A growth mindset focuses on teaching students that they have the power to improve and succeed if they put their effort into it. The opposite would be students refusing to try because they don’t think they have the power in their own hands to succeed.

Teaching growth mindsets is all about modelling positive behaviors. Include growth mindset in your lesson plans by finding points in the lesson to discuss specific strategies to move toward success, strategies for studying, and positive thinking.

Focuses on helping students see that they have ‘ agency ’ (in other words, they are capable of improving their lives)
Motivates students to improve their own lives
Many students have many barriers to success. If you ignore those barriers and simply say ‘you can work harder’, this will make students feel disempowered. Teachers need to show students the pathways to success.
Ensure the content is actually achievable for your students.
Break down tasks into manageable chunks so that students know the steps toward success. Then, use encouragement to motivate students to put in their effort.
Celebrate success to show students that they are competent and capable.

45. Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching is an instructional strategy that involves ensuring students’ cultures are integrated into lessons. This includes celebrating students’ cultural backgrounds when relevant and using learning styles that are dominant within your students’ cultures.

Includes children from cultures that have been traditionally marginalized within the classroom.
Minimizes the impact of Westernization of education.
May make new students from cultures that are different to the majority in the class to feel a sense of inclusion and belonging in the classroom.
Helps all students see the world from a variety of perspectives and learn to respect pluralism.
Teachers need to be sensitive to cultures different to their own.
Teachers should consult parents and community members about best strategies for the cultural needs of the students in the class.

Sociocultural theory: sociocultural theory believes

Have role models from minority backgrounds come into the classroom to share their backgrounds.
Consult with parents about ideal teaching methods within their culture.
Avoid nonverbal gestures that have different meanings in different cultures.
Another example: eye contact is considered respectful in Western cultures but acts of defiance in Indigenous Austealian culture.

46. Teaching to Mastery

Mastery learning and teaching is a strategy for ensuring all students meet a certain standard of understanding or ability before moving on.

Teachers set a benchmark of knowledge 9r ability for students to meet. Then, all assessment in this method is formative, where students are given feedback and as much time as possible to improve before progressing.

Students are not left behind and gaps in their knowledge are not overlooked.
Students may feel less stressed or rushed with this approach.
There is no talk of inability or failure in this method as teachers and students keep working away at the task until success is achieved.
There is not enough time in traditional school systems for this approach.
The difference in abilities between students means some students will get a long way ahead while others remain a long way behind.

Humanism: there are elements of unconditional positive regard in this approach (see Carl Rogers).

An example.may be that all students must get 80% on a test to progress to the next unit of work.
This approach is common for getting a “handwriting license” in primary / elementary school.

47. Stimulus Materials and Props

Stimulus materials are tools that a teacher provides during lessons to spur students into engaging with the lesson or thinking more deeply about the content provided. They include videos, educational toys (manipulatives), worksheets, visual prompts, objects from outside the classroom, and so on.

Without stimulus materials, the classroom feels empty and detached from real life. Bring stimulus materials into the classroom to help students make stronger connections to things going on outside.

Provides something for students to focus on which can focus students’ minds.
Helps students to learn actively if they have the opportunity to touch and manipulate the props.
Can inspire and draw-in students at the start of the lesson.
Stimulus materials can be very expensive.
Students can get distracted playing with the materials rather than listening to their peers or the teacher.
Students need to learn to share materials.

Constructivism: constructivists encourage the use of props so that students can ‘learn by doing’ and be ‘hands on’ in their learning.

Place several props into a bag. Have the students put their hands in the bag and see whether they can guess what the props are.
Place an unusual prop related to your lesson in the middle of the classroom. Get the students to guess what it is before beginning the lesson.

48. Service Learning

Service learning involves having students meet learning outcomes while contributing to and ‘giving back to’ their community. This often involves volunteer work, internships and placements within the community where assistance is needed.

Students can increase their sense of belonging within the community.
Connections between learning and life are made explicit in this sort of learning.
Learning moves from the theoretical to the practical.
Students can come to see how they are connected to a wider ecosystem, and that they have an important part to play in serving that ecosystem for the good of all.
It can be hard to place all your students in a service learning placement if there are many students to allocate.
It may be impractical given safety and security requirements.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: EST highlights that people are situated within community from whom they get their values and beliefs. By being more connected to the community, students learn who they are and how they’re connected to a society and culture that surrounds them.

Prepare your students in the classroom. Consider having organizers or community members come into the classroom to tell the students what to expect.
Have students write preparatory notes about what the intend to learn, who they intend to speak to, and what their day-by-day goals will be whilst doing the service learning.
Have students complete their service learning / voluntary work in groups or individually.
Meet with the students intermittently during the service learning and have student-teacher conferences on how it is progressing. Intervene where needed.
Have students come together at the end of the project to reflect on what was learnt and how their understanding of their place in the community has evolved. Discuss possible future involvement and engagement in the community to emphasize that community involvement is an ongoing project.

49. Situated Learning

Invented by Lave and Wegner, situated learning involves learning by being embedded within a professional environment and slowly picking up the ways of doing and speaking within that context.

It has similarities to other instructional strategies outlined in this article such as service learning and cognitive apprenticeships. However, its defining feature is the slow absorption of knowledge through prolonged exposure to an authentic professional setting.

Students learn the most important practical information required for a job.
Students learn the ways of speaking and behaving that are required within a professional situation.
Not practical as a teaching strategy in classrooms. It works best as an apprenticeship model for new graduates from university.

Sociocultural theory: the situated learning approach emphasizes the importance of learning from ‘more knowledgeable others’.

50. Sixty-Second Strategy

The sixty second strategy involves having students review one another’s work in three steps which take 60 seconds each. The steps are: respond, reflect and review. This usually takes place after a student presentation where the students give a cumulative 3 minutes of feedback and reflection on the presentation.

The goal is not just to give feedback to the presenter, but for the listeners to also think about how they would have done the presentation and what their own thoughts on the topic are.

Students learn how to give feedback to others in positive and constructive ways.
It is a great way for students to actively engage with other students’ presentations.
Students need to know how to be positive in feedback and not be hurtful.
Have the student who is presenting their work give their presentation.
The students who watched the presentation have 60 seconds to write their thoughts on the topic that was presented.
Next, the students have 60 seconds to write down feedback on the presenter’s work.
Then the students have 60 seconds to provide positive affirmation and praise.
At the end, have the students share their feedback with the presenter in small groups so that the environment is not so intimidating for the presenter.

51. Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up

Thumbs down, thumbs up is a simple strategy for getting immediate feedback from students. During a lesson, pause after each step to get instant thumbs down, thumbs up feedback on whether students understand the previous step.

If there are thumbs down, the teacher should ask those students if they have direct questions or whether they might want that section to be covered again in different language or more slowly.

Enables the teacher to gauge students’ reactions in real time.
Gives the students an opportunity to give the teacher feedback immediately so that they don’t fall behind or become frustrated.
If the majority of students give thumbs up but only one or two give thumbs down, this is not endorsement to move on. Rather, the teacher should make sure no students fall behind.

52. Summarizing and Paraphrasing

For this teaching strategy, either the teacher or student summarizes something someone previously said in their own words in order to ensure they understanding each other without any misconceptions.

In having a student repeat the teacher’s statement in their own words, the teacher can see whether students actually understand something.
In repeating a student’s statement in different language, the teacher can see whether they truly understand what the student means.
The biggest risk here is in the teacher ‘putting words in the student’s mouth’. This may give the student a free pass.
The teacher explains a concept, then asks the student to repeat it without using the same words. A pause of a few minutes between the teacher’s explanation and the student’s response can be helpful in preventing the student from directly copying the teacher’s language. As time passes, the meaning should stay but the exact words should be forgotten.
Alternatively, the student makes a statement, and the teacher translates it in their own words and finishes with “Is that what you meant?”

53. Demonstration

Demonstration involves showing the students a practical example of something that is being learned in class.

The difference between demonstration and modeling is that a demonstration usually:

does not involve explicit explanation of all the steps, and
is usually not followed by students having a go themselves.

Demonstration (rather than modelling) may be necessary when the concept being demonstrated is dangerous or requires expertise.

Having something complex or theoretical demonstrated can be exciting to link theory to practice.
Demonstrations may require expensive field trips or inviting experts and expert equipment into the classroom.
A demonstration could be as complex as going to watch a space rocket launch or as simple as a ranger demonstrating how to use bear spray.

54. Role Modelling

Role modelling involves demonstrating the requisite behaviors or ideal way of acting within a learning environment. Role modelling has the intention of positively influencing students into copying the teacher’s positive learning behaviors.

Students are socialized into behaving and learning in socially appropriate ways.
A teacher who sets personal high expectations for their own learning will have those high expectations flow on toward the students.
A teacher needs to be aware that all of their behaviors rub off on students. This means they need to ‘put on their happy face’ despite what’s going on in their private lives.

Bandura (Social learning theory): Albert Bandura believed that observation was important in influencing how people will behave and learn. See his famous Bobo doll experiment where children were more aggressive toward a doll when they observed an adult being aggressive toward it.

Male teachers may role model positive masculinity, such as politeness and respect to all people regardless of gender.
A teacher can be a role model my demonstrating engagement and volunteering within the community, insisting on respectfully welcoming guests when they enter the classroom, or having high regard and respect for reading, learning, and apologizing.

55. Predicting

Predicting involves asking students to make predictions or ‘guestimates’ before a study is undertaken. The teacher may make a prediction for the students to respond to, or ask students to make predictions themselves.

It stimulates students to think about the logical flow-on effects of the things they are learning about (such as in science: gravity, momentum, etc.)
Students are asked to think forward rather than simply react in the learning environment.
At the start of a lesson (before introducing too much information), ask students what they think will happen during the lesson.
Show the students a diagram or comic strip demonstrating sequence of events with the last few events missing. Have students fill-in the gaps.

56. Intentional Mistakes

The teacher inserts intentional mistakes into their teaching materials (such as misspellings in their presentations) or their speech in order to:

Check students’ depth of knowledge,
Make memorable teaching moments, or
Keep students critically engaged.
It keeps students on their toes throughout the lesson, particularly during the boring parts.
It can make learning into a game if you let the students know to look out for the mistakes in advance. You could also offer a reward for the person who identifies the mistake.
It can lead to critical discussion about common mistakes that students make in a topic.
You may risk having students believe you had made the mistakes intentionally.
Students may believe the mistakes are truths and end up believing things that are untrue.
Create intentional spelling errors in your worksheets and powerpoint presentations.
Mispronounce a word and see if students realize.
Flip two words in a sentence and see if anyone realizes.

57. Reflection-in-Practice / Immediate Feedback

Immediate feedback is any feedback that takes place during a lesson rather than after a lesson or exam has been completed.

There are two primary types of immediate feedback: feedback from students to teachers, and feedback from teachers to students.

The feedback’s purpose should be to make impromptu changes during the lesson before it is too late.

Teachers can adjust their teaching methods in the moment to ensure the lesson is a success.
Students can adjust the ways they are going about completing a task to ensure it is successful.
In large groups, one-to-one feedback can be difficult.
Teachers need to be able to think on their feet to make immediate adjustments.

David Schon’s ‘Reflection in Practice’: According to Schon, successful practitioners reflect in practice rather than just on practice. Reflection in practice requires practitioners to reflect on what they’re doing while they’re doing it.

Asking for a thumbs up / thumbs down from students to see if they understand something.
Looking over the shoulder at children’s work to see how they’re coming to their conclusions.
Accepting ‘hands up’ questions at any point during an explanation or lecture.

58. Whole Group Class Discussion (a.k.a Circle Time)

A whole group class discussion gets all students in the class talking to one another in one group. When I use this strategy, I try to get students sitting in a conversation circle. The benefits of students sitting in a circle include:

There is a neutral power structure with no one at the head of the discussion.
All students can see one another.
Whole class discussions encourage all students to develop the confidence to share their own views publicly.
If the whole class gets into it, there can be a lot of great back-and-forth.
Often, the loudest and most confident students dominate the discussion.
Some students are too shy to speak up.
It is easy to embarrass a student, so be careful to be sensitive.
Use a speaking stick so only one person speaks at a time. The only person who can speak is the person with the speaking stick.
Use discussion circles so that all students can see each other when talking.
If conversation is slow to start, consider asking individual students direct questions.
Use open-ended questioning to force students to answer in full sentences.

59. Concentric Circles

Concentric circles is a method that builds on the whole group circle time discussion. Students sit in two concentric circles with the inner circle facing the outer circle. The students in the inner circle should be paired one-to-one with a student in the outer circle (like speed dating).

The teacher poses a question and the pairs are given 60 seconds to discuss the problem. Then, the students from the inner circle rotate one person to the right so they are facing a new partner for the next question.

Disagreements about pairing and students working with their friends are resolved because each student gets a turn working with another student.
Students get to learn and communicate with other students they don’t usually spend time with.
Discussion can help students see perspectives that they did not come up with on their own.
There needs to be an even number of students in the class so each student has a partner to work with.

Sociocultural theory: students learn by interacting with others to help them test, challenge and extend their own ideas.

60. Hot Seat

One student takes the role of a character from a book, history, etc. They dit in front of the class and get interviewed by their classmates. The student must stay in character and answer the questions from the perspective of that character.

Students explore topics from perspectives other than their own, helping them to develop lateral thinking skills .
Students need time to research their character and brainstorm their character’s perspectives on various topics before being put in the hot seat.
Shy students or students who are not confident with the material may be intimidated by this instructional strategy.
This strategy can be linked up with strategies like De Bono’s thinking hats where students would answer questions from a particular perspective.

61. Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are visual aids in the classroom designed to help students visualize and conceptualize ideas and their relationships with other ideas. Examples of graphic organizers include flowcharts, mind maps and venn diagrams. Use them to help students think more deeply about topics.

Very useful for students who are visual learners.
Provides a framework for deeper and critical thinking.
Provides structure to help students who are unsure of how to proceed with critical thinking.
Don’t stick to just one framework as the frameworks narrow the scope of thinking in exchange for depth. Mix up your graphic organizers.

Cognitive Constructivism: cognitive constructivists such as David Jonassen believe graphic organizers help students to share their cognitive load with the organizer, helping them to organize and sort ideas in their heads more effective.y

Flow charts
Venn diagrams
Concept maps
Network or family tree
Spider diagram
Compare-contrast matrix
Series of events chain
Character charts

62. Think Pair Share

This is one of the simplest, most frequently used, but also most effective classroom teaching strategies. Students think about a topic on their own. Then, they pair up with a partner and discuss, compare and contrast their thoughts together. Thirdly, the pair share what they discussed with the whole class.

Moves students from individual thinking to social thinking in a clear process.
Helps students to vocalize their own thoughts in small and large groups.
Helps students to see other people’s perspectives by encouraging communication, compare and contrast.
Students need the confidence to speak up in front of the whole class. I have found some students like to have the comfort of flip chart (butcher’s) paper as a prop when presenting their discussions to the class.

Sociocultural theory: learning through conversation allows students to see diverse perspectives and therefore improve on their own perspectives.

Step 1: Think. Students are given 2 minutes to think about the topic on their own and take 5 bullet points on their own.
Step 2: Pair. Students get together in pairs (or groups of 3 if appropriate) to compare and contrast their own ideas. Students discuss the ideas and come up with a collective group of ideas.
Step 3: Share. Each group shares their own thoughts with the whole class. As each group presents, other classmates can challenge ideas or take additional notes to add to their own group’s thoughts.

63. Group Roles

Assigning group roles for students who are doing small group work is another simple instructional strategy to try. There are many group role types to be found online. I tend to use the roles of: timekeeper, moderator, notekeeper, and collector. All students should be equal discussion contributors, and this is managed by the moderator.

Helps to structure the activity, give students certainty in what they are doing, and reduce the uncertainty from group work.
Encourages communication to get students hearing other students’ ideas and perspectives
Students must be explicitly taught the group roles and need time to practice them.

Sociocultural Theory: By communicating with peers, students widen their perspectives and (with more knowledgeable peers) have their knowledge scaffolded.

Ensure you model the group roles before beginning the activity. Consider using a fishbowl method by having a sample group sit in the middle of a circle modeling the roles to the rest of the class.
For the class’s first attempt at group roles, structure it very clearly by getting the students to follow a clear step-by-step guide. Slowly release responsibility to students when they are ready.

64. Barometer

The barometer method gets a measure of students’ opinions by asking them to stand on a line from 0 to 10 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = unsure or conflicted, 10= strongly agree).

Students tend to find this a non-intimidating way of sharing their opinions.
Can be a good way of getting students talking. Once they stand on the line, you can ask them to explain why they stood where they did.
It may be beneficial to prevent students from taking a neutral “I don’t know” stance without sufficient defence of this position.

Critical theory : The barometer could be paired with critical theory if students critique assumptions in society with a focus on the perspectives of marginalized groups.

Introduce a complex or controversial issue through a book, video or class discussion.
Ask students to stand on an imaginary line from 0 to 10 representing their opinion.
Place students into three groups based on their position in the line: agree, unsure and disagree. Have the three groups present their 5 best arguments to the class.

65. Cognitive Tools

Cognitive tools are educational technologies designed to promote thinking beyond what a student can do without the technology. This might include using wearable technologies to help students map out their own movements to then test their knowledge of geography, use of excel sheets to create financial estimations, etc.

Educational technologies can help us do things we couldn’t do without them.
Can engage students who love computers and technology in learning tasks.
Teachers must ensure technology use is focused on helping students learn more or at a higher level of critical thinking than if they didn’t have technology.

Cognitive Constructivism: this approach, invented by david Jonassen, emphasizes that computer technologies should be used to extend and promote higher-order cognition.

See my full article: Examples of Congitive Tools in Education .

66. Anticipation / Guestimation

Anticipation and guestimation is an instructional strategy designed to get students thinking about the consequences or flow-on effects of actions. Teachers ask students to make predictions based on limited knowledge about a topic

Students often have to use mathematics and logical reasoning to succeed in this task.
Students are required to be resourceful and seek clues that will show them the possible consequences of action.
It is important to strike a balance between giving enough information to make informed guesses and not too much information that the students can deduce the full answer.

67. Silent Conversation

A silent conversation is a way of getting students to communicate without having them speak up in front of the class. Students write their responses to a prompt on sheets of paper but cannot speak while doing so. They should then also write responses to one another’s points so that they are ‘conversing’ through writing.

Students who are shy to speak up my be more willing to participate, especially if their written response can stay anonymous.
It can often be easier to respond in writing than speaking because students have time to reflect and think about the wording of their response before writing it.
Only one student at a time can write their response. Consider what other students will be doing during this time.
Students must be competent writers.

Sociocultural theory: we learn and extend our knowledge through social interaction. By seeing others’ points, we can improve or amend our own.

One way to do this is to have a flip chart paper sheet (butcher’s paper) on a wall with a discussion prompt written above. Have students walk up to the paper intermittently thought a lesson to write responses to the prompt. After the first few students write their responses, the rest of the students must respond not to the prompt but to the answers written by previous students – how can they add to or challenge what someone else has already said?
The second common way of having a silent conversation is to pass a piece of paper around the class and have students write their responses to conversation chains on the piece of paper.

68. Devil’s Advocate

A devil’s advocate is someone who argues for an opposing point of view in order to stir up an argument and poke holes in other points of view. The devil’s advocate does not necessarily need to believe the points they are arguing. Either the teacher or students can be the devil’s advocate I’m this teaching strategy.

Encourages students to see their own blind spots or misunderstandings.
Helps students to see a diversity of points of view.
Improves students’ debating skills.
Students and parents may interpret you devil’s advocate position as an attempt to teach unsavory views in the classroom.

Critical theory: A devil’s advocate can help students with skills desirable within critical theory, like seeing views of people who are not commonly heard in society and the capacity to critique dominant narratives in society.

The teacher can note in their lesson plan moments when they believe there are opportunities to play devil’s advocate role promote debate.
The teacher can give students debating points where one person acts as devil’s advocate and another as the person defending the dominant perspective.

69. Strategic Pauses

Strategic pauses are one of the most important tools in a teacher’s toolbox of teaching strategies. A strategic pause is a gap between statements to let a point sink in or linger, or to give students a moment to think about an answer before the teacher moves on.

An excellent classroom management strategy
Encourages students to think and not rely on teacher prompting
Emphasizes important points
Can leave students confused
Requires follow-up and knowledge testing

Cognitive load theory: Too much information at one time can cause a student to lose track. Time is required for the mind to interpret, sort, stack, save and withdraw information in their mind (‘create cognitive schemata’).

Pause after a question for 10 seconds before discussing the answer.
If the class has started getting unsettled, often a pause in the teacher’s speaking is enough to settle them again and remind them to re-engage with the learning materials.
Slow speech with sufficient pauses between ‘chunks’ of information (seeL ‘chunking’ strategy) can help students arrange information in their minds appropriately.

70. Chunking

Chunking involves presenting information in manageable ‘chunks’ to allow students to sufficiently process information before moving on to the next section of a lesson or task.

Teachers should present only a manageable amount of information to students before giving them a chance to consolidate the information and practice their new knowledge.

Without giving sufficient time to consolidate information before giving new information to a student, the student will struggle to keep up with the information and old information may fall away before it is secured into their memory.

Less students will be left behind, confused and disillusioned in the classroom if they are given consolidation time.
There is often not enough time in a crowded school curriculum to chunk information well enough.
It is hard to tell how much is ‘too much’ information, and how long is long enough before knowledge is consolidated into memory.

Cognitive Overload Theory: If students are given too much information, their mind becomes ‘overloaded’ and they are unable to process more information. We only have a limited amount of working memory space in our minds. See: John Sweller’s cognitive overload theory .

Only teach two or three key points per lesson.
Provide a lot of discussion and practice time before moving on to presenting new information.
Consistently use formative assessment and reflection in action during the lesson to see when is the ideal time to move on.

71. Snowball Discussions

Snowball discussions are another twist on the think-pair-share method. For snowball discussions, students start in pairs and share their thoughts and ideas together. Then, the pairs join up with another pair to create a group of four. These four people share thoughts together, compare notes, debate ideas, and come up with an agreed list of points on a topic.

Then, groups join up again to make groups of eight. The groups of eight compare points and perspectives, then join up to create groups of 16, etc. until it ends up being a whole class discussion.

An effective strategy for promoting discussion between students. It can be useful for getting students to compare how different groups of students approach points from different perspectives.
The class group needs to be large (20+) for enough rounds of this strategy to happen.

Sociocultural theory: social interaction helps students see perspectives that are not their own and challenge their own views. This helps them pick holes in their own points and improve their misconceptions.

72. Homework: Knowledge Consolidation

Yes, homework is a teaching strategy! A traditional approach to homework sees it as an opportunity for students to consolidate information that was taught in class. Studying for upcoming exams is often also an important part of homework.

Other homework strategies like flipped classroom are possible – see the flipped classroom discussion earlier in this article.

Help students to consolidate information learned in class.
Ensures students have an opportunity to keep information fresh in their minds and be reminded of information learned in previous months.
Excessive homework can impede students’ rights to enjoyment, sports and extracurricular activities out of school.
Students often do not have support at home if they get stuck.

Behaviorism: repetition over time helps memory retention.

73. Active Listening

Active listening involves using strategies to pay close attention to what someone is saying. Teachers can explicitly model active listening by giving students strategies like pointing their bodies at the speaker, keeping their eyes on the speaker, nodding when they agree, and putting hands up to ask questions or clarification.

Active listening encourages respect in the classroom.
It could help students to remember better because it minimizes distractions.
Students may be more likely to contribute questions if they are paying more attention.
Some students (such as students with autism) need stress balls, fidget toys, etc to help them concentrate.

Examples that show active listening include:

Facing the speaker square-on
Eye contact
Asking questions
Repeating, paraphrasing or summarizing the speaker’s statement.

74. Connect, Extend, Challenge

The “connect, extend, challenge” teaching strategy is a three-step strategy designed to get student thinking about how their knowledge is progressing.

In step 1, students ‘connect’ what they’re learning to their prior knowledge. In step 2, students think about how the new knowledge ‘extends’ what they already knew. In step 3, students reflect on what ‘challenges’ they still face: what is still confusing to them?

This is a framework that gets students to explicitly think about how they are progressing in their learning.
The clear steps give students guidelines to help them achieve success.
Requires prompting and scaffolding

Social Constructivism: This strategy has implicit links to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. Students look at how their backgrounds impact their thinking, what level they are at, and what is still sitting in their ‘zone of proximal development’ (.e.g what they need to learn next).

Split a piece of paper into three columns to help students in this task: one column for ‘connect’, one for ‘extend’, and one for ‘challenge’.

75. Create a Headline

While a seemingly simple activity, this instructional strategy gets students to refine the topic they’re exploring down to one simple sentence that catches the essence of the issue.

For this strategy, have students come up with a headline for the lesson as if they’re a journalist reporting on the issue at hand. Get them to think about how it can be catchy, explain the problem at hand, and provide an engaging ‘hook’ to draw readers in.

Helps students identify the key point of a lesson, forcing them to think about what is really important in the lesson.
Some issues are complex and refining it down to one sentence may risk simplification.

To extend this activity, have students write a journalistic piece to go under the headline.

76. Lesson Objective Transparency

Being transparent about a lesson objective is a teaching strategy designed to help students understand the purpose of the lesson. By knowing the objective from the outset, the students are less likely to get confused about the purpose and direction of their lesson.

Students are aware of the purpose of the lesson, which may make it more relevant .
Students can more objectively measure how successful they have been in the lesson.
Lesson objectives are often worded for adults not children, so the wording may just confuse the students at times.
Write your lesson objectives on the first slide of lecture slides if relevant.

77. Open-Ended Questioning

Open-ended questioning involves asking questions that require an elaboration in the response. In other words, it cannot be a question that can be answered with “yes” or “no”.

Students are required to provide explanations and justifications for the points they make.
Teachers get a more detailed appreciation of students’ levels of knowledge .
Make a habit of using open ended questions when talking to students about their work.
Write all assessment tasks with open ended questions.
Pose open ended questions as stimulus prompts.

78. Fishbowl

The fishbowl strategy gets a small group of students to sit in a circle in the center if the classroom with the rest of the class sitting in a circle around the group.

The students in the middle of the circle complete a discussion or task as a demonstration for the students observing.

Teachers can use advanced students in the middle of the group as a way of modeling skills or behaviors for the remainder of the class.
More knowledgeable students can model behavior for less knowledgeable students.
Students get a chance at performing in front of others.
Many students will find doing a task I’m front of their peers intimidating.

Bandura’s observational learning : Bandura argues that students can learn from observing the modeling of others.

Get older students from higher grades to sit in the middle of the fishbowl.
Or, use the fishbowl as the “we do” step in the I do, we do, you do method.

79. Four corners

Use the four corners of the classroom as different stations for answering questions proposed by a teacher.

The stations may have answers like: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. Another example may be periods of time for a history exam: the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Or, the corners may have specific answers in the corners related to the questions being asked.

This activity may be appealing for kinesthetic learners who want to move about to stay engaged.
Provides a visual comparison between different views of students in the class.
When students head to the corners, the teacher needs to ask students to explain their decisions to ensure depth is achieved in the lesson.

Multiple Intelligences: The lesson can help students who are kinesthetic learners.

80. Give One, Get One

This strategy involves getting students to trade ideas with one another.

Students write down their answer or thoughts to a TEACHER’S question. Then, they pair up. The students give their answer to their partner and take their partner’s answer. They discuss the differences between and merits of each answer.

Students then split up and find a new partner to repeat the activity.

Writing down an answer ensures all students participate and that all students provide an explicit response.
Seeing other people’s answers helps students get a broader perspective on a topic.
Pre-plan for what to do when you don’t have an even number of students in the class.

Sociocultural theory: students learn from their peers through discussion. Discussion can help broaden horizons and allows students to see multiple perspectives on an issue.

Present a discussion topic or question to the class.
Have each student write down 3 points on a piece of paper to answer the question.
Pair students up to discuss their answers. Get them to consider similarities and differences as well as pros and cons of each answer.
Have students break apart and trade answers in another pair.

81. Brainstorming

Brainstorming involves asking students to come up with their initial thoughts on an issue. The thoughts do not have to be refined or correct. Instead, the students should use the brainstorming time to get their mind flowing and discussion started. Usually, this activity takes place using flip chart / butcher’s paper.

A good way to start discussion among students, especially if they don’t know each other well or are shy.
The students may need to assign some roles to group members. Consider rotating the role of ‘writer’ between students (usually one person writes an idea for the whole group on the brainstorming paper).
A good way of doing this activity is to place students in small groups and provide them a large sheet of paper to write down all their initial thoughts.
Students can then report all their thoughts back to the class.

82. Expert Jigsaw

The expert jigsaw method teaching method involves having students split into groups of ‘experts’ and then ‘topics’.

First, each ‘expert’ group focuses on a sub-area of a topic to develop their ‘expertise’ as a group.

Once the initial group work discussion has concluded, the ‘expert groups’ split.

The teacher then forms new ‘topic groups’ with one student from each of the original expert groups in the new groups.

The idea is that each group in the second part of the lesson will have an ‘expert’ on a particular area of a topic. Every expert will be able to contribute their perspective to the group

For example, if the topic is dinosaurs, the initial ‘expert groups’ may get together to discuss separate issues: Group 1 will discuss extinction, Group 2 will discuss bones, Group 3 will discuss diets, and Group 4 will discuss geographical locations.

When the ‘topic groups’ converge, they should contain one expert on extinction, one expert on bones, one expert on diets and one expert on geographical locations. The topic group will therefore have a broad range of expert knowledge to discuss and share.

Gives each student a sense that they have something meaningful to contribute because they will be an expert on something when converging in the ‘topic’ groups.
Encourages collaboration and positive interdependence in group work.
Requires forethought and organization by the teacher.

Social Constructivism: social interaction helps students construct ideas in their minds. Each student gets to hear the expert perspective of another student who is a ‘more knowledgeable other’, while also acting as the more knowledgeable other when it is their turn to share their expertise.

83. KWL Charts

A KWL chart is a type of graphic organizer that can be used throughout the course of a lesson to help students keep track of their learning.

The chart can be on a simple piece of paper split into three columns: (K) What I already know; (W) What I want to know in this lesson; (K) What I learned.

At the start of the lesson the students can fill out the first two columns. The first column will help the teacher assess prior knowledge. The second column will help the teacher and students guide the lesson by outlining what they want out of it.

At the end of the lesson, the third column can be filled-in: (L) What I learned in the lesson. This helps students reflect on the lesson to show them that they did actually learn something!

Students can keep track of their own learning.
There is physical evidence of what was learned that teachers can use in students’ final report card comments and teaching portfolios.
It is a good structured tool to help guide a lesson.
It would be good if there was a fourth column for ‘what I still want to know’ so student can leave the lesson with more questions that can be addressed in future classes.
Students sometimes place topics in the (W) What I want to know column that are relevant but not covered in a pre-made lesson plan. This can require the student to get a bit creative in re-arranging their lesson on the fly.

84. SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is a teaching tool used to help students identify their own Strengths , Weaknesses , Opportunities , and Threats .

It is often used at the beginning of a term or unit of work to help students self-identify how best to proceed in their studies.

A SWOT analysis starts with a piece of paper split into four quadrants. The top-left has ‘Strengths’, top-right has ‘Weaknesses’, bottom-left has ‘Opportunities’ and the bottom-right has ‘Threats’.

There are plenty of templates online you could download also.

Students then fill out the SWOT sheet, identifying their strengths and weaknesses (e.g. ‘I am organized’ or ‘I am time poor’) and opportunities and threats (e.g. ‘I have the opportunity to work with my peers to improve’ or ‘I have an upcoming swim meet that will take up more of my time’).

Students are taught to self-assess and plan ahead to avoid upcoming challenges in their lives.
Students can balance affirming statements about their own skills with honest recognition of their weaknesses.
I often find students use generic phrases copied from their neighbors. It’s a good idea to insist on depth of engagement and thinking when doing this strategy .

85. Read Aloud

Read aloud is a strategy that involves the teacher reading a text out loud to students. The strategy relies on the teacher using strategic pauses, pitch and tone changes, pace and volume changes, and questioning and comments. These reading aloud strategies help students to become more engaged in a lesson and get more out of the reading experience.

Can be more engaging than getting students to read to themselves.
By using strategic pauses and asking questions of students, the text can both be read and analyzed at the same time. This may improve comprehension.
I’ve found many pre-service teachers get nervous doing this task. Remember that people of all ages love being read to.

86. SIT: Surprising, Interesting, Troubling

A SIT analysis asks students to list aspects of a lesson that were surprising, interesting and troubling. It is useful following the viewing of a short film or reading a book about a topic that seems bizarre or a fact that is counterintuitive.

Like a KWL chart, you could do this task by splitting paper into three columns: one for ‘surprising’, one for ‘interesting’ and one for ‘troubling’.

Gets students to take a critical stance and make judgements (particularly for ‘troubling’)
Is a good way to take stock of students’ interests in order to create follow-up lessons based on topics the students have already demonstrated concern for.
The ‘troubling’ part is often hard for students to complete – consider explicitly modeling a sample response before asking students to complete it alone.

Critical theory: students can use a SIT analysis to critique the justice or inequality issues presented in a text.

87. Higher Order Thinking

When writing a lesson plan, it’s often a very good idea to note any time you’re encouraging higher order thinking – especially if there’s a column in your lesson plan for ‘teaching strategies’. This help people reading the lesson plan to see that you’ve been intentional about promoting higher order thinking.

Following Bloom’s taxonomy, higher order thinking usually includes tasks that involve verbs like : Judge, Appraise, Evaluate, Compare, Criticize, Assess, Estimate, Deduce, Hypothesize and Generalize.

Helps a teacher to be more explicit in their language and to ensure a lesson is challenging for students.
Ensures students are practicing their critical thinking skills rather than just repeating a teacher’s ‘facts’.
For higher order thinking tasks, it’s important that you don’t give students the answers. Instead, give them hints, pointers and resources that will help them to come up with the answers on their own.

Constructivism: Bloom was a constructivist who believed learning happens when students build knowledge in their mind rather than just copying facts from an authority figure in the classroom.

88. Debating

Getting students to debate an idea is a great way of getting them to build coherent and logical arguments in defence of a position. It requires them to gather, analyze and sort facts before they present them to an audience.

Students learn to identify positive arguments on a topic even if they disagree with it, helping them to see things from multiple perspectives.
Students may require resources to do background research to come up with strong points for or against a position.
Split the class into two groups and assign each group a position for or against a statement.
Give each group 15 minutes to come up with some arguments for their side of the argument. Each student in the group should have one argument to make for the team. The student writes their argument down on a piece of paper.
Line the two groups of students up facing one another.
Go down the lines getting each student to make their point for or against the position. Zig-zag from one group to the next as you go down the line
Once the students have completed, do an anonymous poll of the class to find out which position is most convincing. For the poll, students do not have to vote for their team’s position.

89. Note Taking (Cornell Method)

Note taking involves getting students to actively listen out for key points in a speech or video and synthesize it into key points for remembering later.

A popular framework for not taking is the Cornell method. This involves splitting a page into two columns.

The column on the left is a ‘Cue’ column. In the cue column write key words, phrases or Quotes as if they were headings or headline points to remember.

The column on the right is the note taking column. This column is larger and allows space to add detail and diagrams explaining the ‘cues’ that were written on the left in more detail.

Turns passive learning during a didactic explicit instruction lesson into a more active learning environment.
Helps students organize and synthesize their thoughts.
Helps with studying for exams later on.
Teachers may talk too fast for students to take detailed notes. Remember to use strategic pauses and remind students at strategic times that they need to be taking notes.
Feel free to download cornell method worksheets off the internet. Just look for them on your favorite search engine!

90. Lesson Recording

Recording a lesson involves using either video, audio or Screencast technology to save the lesson for revision later on.

This method is very useful for students with learning disabilities who may require more time to process information. They can rewatch later on and make use of pause, rewind and slow functions during the revision.
Great for when students miss a day so they can catch up.
Whenever you work with technology, be prepared for issues to arise that may delay the lesson.
Use Screencasts when teaching a lesson online.
Screencasts can also save your work when writing on an Interactive Whitenoard. Revision at a later date will show the steps you took in doing the ‘working out’.

91. Word Wall

Word walls are sections on the walls of a classroom where teachers and students can record new vocabulary, quotes or key terms they encounter during a unit of work.

Word walls can be visible evidence of progression through a unit.
Students can refer to the word walls when trying to explain their points and ideas to the class.
During exams, remember to cover the word walls so students can’t cheat by looking over at the answers.
Word walls can be great props for refreshing students’ memories at the start of a lesson. Start the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary learned in the previous lesson.

92. Goal Setting

Goal setting involves explicitly instructing students on how to set short (within a lesson), medium (within a unit of work) and long term (through the year) personal targets for success.

The goals can be for a whole group or individual.

Goal setting gives students something to strive toward.
It is a way of gamifying education. Students can challenge themselves to reach their step by step goals.
It helps students understand where they are headed and what the purpose of the lesson is.
Ensure goals are achievable lo that students do not become disillusioned.
Have students prepare their daily goals at the end of the previous day or start of the current day.
Reflect on medium-term goals weekly.

93. Worked Examples

A worked example is a completed piece of work that students can look to as models for their own work.

A worked example could be a sample of a completed diagram our 3D model, a completed essay or anything else that is a finished product of something the students are about to attempt.

Students feel more secure knowing what they are working toward.
Students can get ideas from the worked sample that they can adapt for their Ken work.
Sometimes students copy the sample too closely rather than using their own thinking. Consider using a sample that requires similar skills and processes but a different end product.
Make sure you spend time discussing the steps it takes from going from nothing to the completed product.
Provide students with past examples of creative writing pieces and discuss the strategies used by the authors.
Show samples that are good and poor. Get students to discuss how the poorer samples could be improved.

94. Multiple Intelligences

Students have different learning styles (or more accurately, different learning preferences ).

One theory proposes that there are eight ‘intelligences’. A student may have one that is dominant and others that are weaker.

The eight intelligences are:

Visual-Spatial : Prefers learning through images and visual arts. Uses diagrams to model relationships between concepts.
Linguistic-Verbal : Prefers learning through storytelling, reading and writing.
Interpersonal : Good at working in social situations, gets energy from social interaction, and can empathize with others easily. Enjoys group work.
Intrapersonal : An introverted person who prefers learning alone. They do a lot of thinking and reading but mostly like to think through things in their own time (see: intrapersonal skills ).
Logical-Mathematical : Sees patterns easily. Enjoys mathematical puzzles.
Musical : Enjoys learning through music, songs and rhymes.
Bodily-Kinesthetic : Learns through movement. Prefers lessons that require moving about.
Naturalistic : Has an affinity with nature. Learns well in calm natural environments.

A teacher can integrate different activities into a lesson plan that appeal to different people’s learning preferences. In this way, they create a more inclusive classroom for multiple different types of learners.

Inclusion: Teachers can use this theory to engage students who do not learn well in traditional lessons.
Attempts to be student-centered and teach in ways that are appealing to students.
In 2004, a detailed study in Scotland found no evidence or scientific toxic basis for the theory that different people have learning styles. Furthermore, it argued that the 8 styles in the multiple intelligences model were a arbitrarily contrived. Thus, learning styles may simply be learning preferences.
It is unclear whether a teacher should create lessons catered to a student’s learning preference or help students strengthen their skills in areas students identify as their weaknesses.
If students are not given a chance to practice all “styles” (not just their preferences) they may miss important skills, such as mathematical skills or literacy skills.

Howard Gardner: The theory of multiple intelligences was invented by Howard Gardner in the United States.

95. Non-Interventionism

Non-interventionism involves a teacher taking the role of ‘unobtrusive observer’ while students learn. The students are left to come to their own conclusions, face up to their own challenges, and ‘struggle’ through the lesson.

The teacher’s intervention may come through changing what they plan for the next lesson based on what they see, or lightly intervening after the students have struggled for some time.

Other reasons for intervention may be for safety or fairness reasons.

Struggling to find an answer is Important for learning. Students can make mistakes and learn why the mistakes are wrong instead of just being told what us correct.
Without a teacher imposing their views, students can come up with creative and thoughtful solutions to problems that the teacher dis not foresee.
Students develop independent minds.
Many parents and mentors watching your lesson may come away with a sense that you were lazy or did not do enough to help the students. This approach needs to be clearly explained and justified in lesson plans (I’d recommend referring to Montessori in your justification) and situations when you would go from observer to intervener should be spelled out in advance.
If students are struggling too much, learning may not occur – there is a limit to this approach!

Montessori Classrooms: The role of the teacher as “unobtrusive observer” was pioneered by Maria Montessori.

Montessori argued that children learn best when placed in resource rich environments and left to explore. Our interventions may impede creativity, self-belief, autonomy and self-discovery.

96. Constructive Alignment

Constructive alignment involves explicitly linking the lesson assessment tasks to the compulsory learning outcomes in the curriculum.

This is an impressive thing to see in a lesson plan.

Use language (including verbs and nouns) from the learning outcome in the assessment task. Furthermore, make sure to provide a criteria for what constitutes pass or fail.

Teachers can easily justify their lesson choices to their boss or assessor.
The assessment tasks are always relevant and focused.
Students can see the relevance of the assessment task to their learning goals.
If the language of the curriculum objectives are complex or obtuse, it may just confuse students to use that language in their assessment task.

Biggs: Constructive alignment was invented by John Biggs who designed this method to ensure all lessons are relevant and move students a step closer to completing all learning outcomes.

97. Zone of Proximal Development

The ‘ zone of proximal development ‘ is a phrase used to explain the ideal difficulty level for a lesson.

A lesson that is too easy won’t help a student progress.

A lesson that is too hard will disengage a student who just won’t be able to do the task.

But a lesson that is difficult but achievable with effort will push a student forward. These lessons that are just hard enough but not too hard are lessons in the “zone of proximal development”.

Students get lessons catered to their own needs.
There is always catered support for any student in the class.
By creating lessons that are always challenging, you are setting high expectations for all students.
Differentiation like this can lead to bug Differences in ability levels across the whole class.
You’re often under pressure to teach content that is too hard for students to meet standardized curriculum requirements

Sociocultural theory: Lev Vygotsky, one of the most famous educational psychologists, invented this approach to help teachers provide lessons that are at the right level for progressing a student’s learning.

Weave the ZDP into a lesson plan by stating that you will assess a student’s current ability then teach them the thing that is the logical next.step.
Another way to do this is create three student worksheets for three different ability levels. State in your lesson plan that you will assess each student’s ability and give them the appropriate worksheet. Each worksheet should build on the previous to help students move through their ZPD one step at a time.

98. Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is the use of praise, stickers, candy or other rewards to show students that they have done a good job.

Teachers can stack positive reinforcements so students can take steps to get small, medium and large rewards to encourage students to keep on trying and working hard consistently.

Students get clear signals to know when they have done well.
Students get encouragement to keep going and keep trying in order to get the reward.
Too much positive reinforcement can come across as insincere and lose students’ respect. Furthermore, students may become desensitized to praise if it occurs too much. Praise ‘scarcity’ makes occasional praise more valuable.
Explicit reinforcements are extrinsic motivation . The best sort of motivation is intrinsic motivation (wanting to do something for the pleasure of doing it). For more, see my full guide on intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation .

Behaviorism: Positive reinforcement is believed to be beneficial for changing behavior over time. See: John Watson’s operant conditioning examples .

Sticker charts
A subtle nod or wink
Certificates and awards

99. Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of a privilege, points or tokens when a student gets an answer wrong.

This is often confused with punishments. For me, negative reinforcements should not punish but be used in limited learning scenarios as part of the learning ‘game’.

An example might be losing points in a gamified lesson so the student is less likely to win against their opponents. Students know it is part of the game and not a punishment designed to distress the student.

Provides very clear messages to students about what is correct and incorrect, helping them to learn quickly.
Parents often do not like any negative reinforces, so be very careful to set clear guidelines and use this strategy in limited circumstances.
Be careful not to embarrass students in front of their classmates.

Behaviorism: Watson brought negative reinforcements into education, arguing that repeated use of them can change students’ behaviors.

Losing points in a class contest.
Failing a level in an educational computer game.

100. Drop Everything and Read

Drop everything and read (DEAR) involves getting students to stop what they are doing and read for 10 minutes.

It is a strategy that helps build students’ literacy skills (especially when students can choose their own book). However, it is also useful for helping students get more depth of knowledge on a topic being taught when you give them all an article or book to read to help them have more knowledge for subsequent parts of the lesson.

An effective way of getting students to spend intense time learning about a topic.
Helps integrate literacy into your daily activities.
There will always be a small group of students who squirm and struggle when asked to read. Consider alternatives like the Read Aloud strategy or using videos instead if DEAR doesn’t work for your class.
Make sure to follow up DEAR time with discussion and comprehension tasks.
Introduce a topic with initial information to engage the class.
Set a 10 minute silent reading task based on the topic.
Discuss what was read with comprehension prompts.

101. Gallery Walk

A gallery walk involves a teacher placing stimulus questions on flip chart paper (butcher’s paper) around the walls of the classroom.

The charts the teacher has put up are stations that students will stop at during the activity.

The teacher places students into groups. If there are 5 stations around the room, the teacher will create 5 groups.

Students get a set amount of time at each station to read the prompt questions. The students can write on the chart paper with their group response and also respond to other groups who have already written their points.

Once all students have rotated through the stations, the students end up back at the station where they began. The teacher the. gives each group 3 minutes to present to the class a summary of the comments written on the paper at their station.

Students get to learn from others and see other groups’ responses.
The students are up and moving about which may help the concentration of bodily-kinesthetic learners.
Some students may not participate fully. Consider getting students to rotate who writes on the paper at each station to mitigate this challenge a little.

102. Metacognition

Note whenever you would encourage metacognition in a lesson within your lesson plan. This will help anyone reading it know that you’ve thought about giving students strategies for “thinking about thinking”.

Metacogntion is about thinking about how you think. Strategies include:

Thinking aloud
Writing your steps to reach an answer
Explaining your thought processes
Reflecting on your learning and considering faster ur more efficient processes
Helps students understand the processes required for thinking deeply about an issue.
Gives students the strategies and skills to learn any task, not just the ones at hand.
Metacognition is difficult because it requires explanation of your thinking. However, it is necessary if people want to know how to think .

103. Case Studies

Case studies are in-depth examples of an issue being examined. A case study should show how an issue or theory looks in real life. Teachers can present case studies through videos, newspaper articles, magazine articles, guests coming into the classroom, etc.

Case studies help students to see how theories and ideas look in real life. This can also help a student understand the relevance of the topic being studied.
A case study may help students make sense of a complex idea by putting it in real concrete terms.
Case studies might not be representative of a generalized issue – they may be outliers or flukes. Pick your case study carefully and discuss whether it is a typical or outlier sample.
A case study of city planning may be an innovative city that has recently been designed.
A case study in mathematics may include looking at the mathematics underpinning a famous bridge’s construction.
A case study during a unit of work on refugees might look at the experiences of one real-life refugee.

104. Mystery Making

Educators can create ‘mystery’ in their classroom by carefully structuring lessons that give ‘clues’ to a mystery that needs to be solved by the students. Ask the students to act as detectives and place clues around the classroom (like a gallery walk). Have students move around the classroom taking notes on the mystery which will reveal an answer after thorough investigation.

Creates a sense of excitement in the classroom, helping students to engage.
Forces students to use critical, logical and lateral thinking in order to find the answer.
Ensure the mystery is not too far outside a student’s zone of proximal development so that the mystery can be solved.

105. Storytelling

Storytelling in the classroom involves teaching through narrative-style stories rather than telling (‘didactic learning’). Teachers can tell stories by reading books (see: Read Aloud strategy), turning a dry explanation into an allegorical story off the cuff, or bringing people into the classroom who have an engaging personal story to tell.

Stories can draw students into a topic through the creation of a sense of excitement and entertainment.

Steiner-Waldorf Schools: Rudolf Steiner called the teacher the ‘chief storyteller’ whose role is to create a sense of enchantment around learning through stories.

Invite guests into the classroom who have stories to tell.
Use stories that have a moral of the the story, then analyze the moralistic message.

106. Newspaper Clippings

Use newspaper clippings to link topics and theories to current affairs. Teachers can bring in recent newspapers to let students search through them for relevant stories or use old newspapers to search for how a topic was discussed in the past. Alternatively, teachers can get students to search for newspaper articles online.

Teachers could also assign reading through newspapers and bringing newspapers to class as a part of their homework.

Newspaper stories can show students how the topic being discussed plays out in real life.
They also show students how the topic is relevant to the present-day lives of people in the community,
Newspapers are increasingly uncommon – consider adjusting this to use online news sites and printing out articles from the web.
Some topics won’t have relevant news articles associated with them. Do a search in newspapers and online yourself for articles before using this teaching strategy.

107. Self-Paced Learning

Self-paced learning involves.letting students progress from activity to activity in their own time. For this approach, a teacher lays out a list of 10 – 20 lessons that students can work on at their own pace. Students work on the activities while the teacher walks around and gives support.

Students are encouraged to reflect on their own learning development and only move on when they are confident that they have consolidated the knowledge from an assessment.
Less students will fall behind if the teacher doesn’t pressure them to move on.
Teachers have time to work one-on-one with students while students work away at student-led tasks.
Fast students will need extension tasks or personal projects to complete once they have finished and are waiting for slower students.
There is often not enough time for slower students to finish.

These teaching strategy examples are clearly not the only ones out there – there are probably thousands! But, in my time teaching, these have been the most effective and common teaching strategies that I have come across. Use this teaching strategies list for your own lesson plans to demonstrate pedagogical knowledge and depth of understanding of how to educate a range of different learners.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

4 thoughts on “List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)”

this is valuable in my course production of Instructional materials in social studies. maraming Salamat!

Thank you very much for these valuable teaching strategies & techniques which can be used to enliven the classroom atmosphere, encourage students to do their tasks and learn more in the process. God bless!

As a student of Curriculum and Pedagogic Studies and also the Curriculum Lead in my school, this is best of resources I have had on the subject of teaching strategies. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, these are very helpful and remind me that some of my teaching styles are already mentioned here.

Peer Teacher Training in health professional education

Open access
Published: 03 December 2020

Planning, preparing and structuring a small group teaching session

Christie van Diggele 1 ,
Annette Burgess 2 , 3 &
Craig Mellis 4

BMC Medical Education volume 20 , Article number: 462 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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A structured approach is critical to the success of any small group teaching session; preparation and planning are key elements in ensuring the session is systematic and effective. Learning activities guide and engage students towards the achievement of agreed learning outcomes. This paper introduces the central concepts of planning and preparing a small group teaching session. It provides an overview of key theoretical principles in lesson planning, delivery, and how to provide effective feedback in this setting.

A small group teaching session that is well planned provides a systematic approach for both teachers and learners, whether it occurs in the university ‘classroom’, hospital or community ‘clinical setting’. Compared to didactic lectures, effective small group teaching and learning strategies increase student engagement, retention of knowledge, self-directed learning, communication skills, teamwork ability, and peer discussion [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Consequently, small group teaching has become increasingly popular within medical and health professions education. This paper introduces the central concepts of planning and preparing a small group teaching session. It provides an overview of the key theoretical principles in structure, lesson planning, different formats of small group teaching, delivery and provision of effective feedback to learners.

Planning small group teaching

The planning of learning activities is an important part of course design and everyday teaching; curriculum and lesson design must be aligned in order to achieve the intended learning outcomes [ 6 , 7 ]. Specifically, there should be alignment of the curriculum, the subject, learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessment tasks [ 6 , 7 ]. Learning activities should encourage student participation and guide and engage students towards the achievement of set, agreed learning outcomes. They should also provide opportunities to: model thinking and learning strategies, practice skills, build on existing knowledge, learn from a range of sources (including peers) and gain feedback [ 7 , 8 ]. Bloom’s taxonomy (Fig. 1 ) is a useful structure for lesson design. It is used as a tool for classifying lesson objectives and contains six categories that are structured in hierarchical order progressing in complexity as it reaches the highest point [ 6 ].

Bloom’s Taxonomy (adapted from Anderson et al., 2001 [ 6 ])

The learning cycle

The key characteristics of small group teaching are the active involvement of students in the entire learning cycle, and the interactive and social process. Within each pedagogy of small group teaching, students are encouraged to apply and transfer new knowledge through in-depth discussion, collaboration and reflection. This is referred to as “collaborative learning”, since it is centred around interactions between students, their peers and facilitators, rather than a one-way interaction, where knowledge is imparted from the teacher to the student. It is this social, interactive approach that lies at the centre of small group teaching. Planning forms a vital component of the learning cycle (Fig. 2 ) [ 8 ].

Structuring a teaching session

Even though the clinical setting may be busy, it is possible to plan to teach common, recurrent topics, and follow a set structure. We propose the ‘Outcomes-Activity-Summary’ (OAS) method (Table 1 ) as a structure that can be applied for initial planning, whether in the classroom or clinical setting, when unexpected teaching and learning opportunities are more likely to be encountered. Two worked examples, where the OAS method has been applied to planning teaching sessions on ‘childhood asthma’ in the classroom setting (case-based learning) and clinical setting (bedside teaching) are provided in Table 2 .

Designing a formal lesson plan

A lesson plan acts as a map, assisting in guiding a series of activities to ensure students gain the knowledge, skills or attitudes set out within the learning objectives [ 9 ]. It also provides a record of what has been taught and assists in planning and alignment of assessment tasks. Although not all lessons can be planned, especially within the clinical setting, there are steps that can be taken to ensure a theoretical approach in lesson structure. An advantage of a lesson plan is that adjustments can be made to suit the needs of individual learners [ 9 ]. A lesson plan should identify the key aim and outcomes, content, structure and timing of activities and assessment tasks [ 7 ]. The five key steps to consider when writing a lesson plan are highlighted in Fig. 3 and described below [ 7 , 8 ].

Five key steps to designing your lesson or module

Profile of your target audience

Consider who will be participating in the lesson. Consider their background knowledge and learning needs. Also consider the resources that are available to you and to the learners, such as suitable, available patients.

Decide on focused and achievable learning outcomes for the teaching session [ 10 ]. Be clear (in preparation and in conveying to the learners) about learning outcomes, and what can be achieved in the limited time available. Make sure what you teach is relevant to the learners and pitched at the right level, considering the background knowledge of students. Consider environmental factors for the teaching session, such as seating arrangements and suitable lighting. If a patient is involved, make sure they are suitable, able and willing to participate. Although learning outcomes need to align with the curriculum, at the level of the individual teaching session, it is important to consider individual learning needs of participants. Ensure that agreement is reached on specific learning outcomes, which may require adjustment according to these needs and the teaching context [ 10 ]. Each lesson should have 3–6 learning outcomes.

Writing learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are the descriptors or goals students should know, or be able to do, at the completion of the session [ 7 ]. These may include knowledge, skills or attitudes. Whether devised by the teacher, or set by curriculum documents, outcomes should be provided to the students prior to, or at the beginning of the session, to ensure they know your expectations. Bloom’s taxonomy can be used to select appropriate verbs for the intended learning. In order to write learning outcomes there are three items to include [ 6 ]:

a verb pitched at the appropriate stage of understanding or skill level,

the content the verb is intended to address,

the context in which the verb is to be deployed.

For example: A simple knowledge recall objective- Explain the importance of setting learning objectives. An objective that requires higher order thinking- Evaluate the importance of learning objectives.

This involves interaction between the teacher and learner/s. While the adult attention span is short (averaging at 10 to 20 min), active learning styles can significantly increase both attention span and knowledge recall in learners [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Ensure that you deliver the dialogue in a way that is brief, succinct, and relevant – that is, engaging. Address students by their names, ask questions to keep them actively involved, and to check their understanding. Consider including learning activities that vary and use students’ higher order thinking skills. With the current trend towards online learning, Learning Management Systems (LMS) can incorporate different types of content, including simulations, polls, quizzes, scenarios, animations, customised audio, interactive images, branching scenarios, videos, images, slides, and PDFs. Prepare the learning materials, organise the small groups, provide a clear explanation of the learning activities, and timing guidelines.

Formative assessment provides a key driving force for learning [ 8 ]. It reinforces the information and skills learnt, and feedback should provide the learner with information on areas that may need improvement. In order for the assessment activity to be worthwhile learners need clear outcomes, an indication of their performance against these outcomes, and guidance on how to improve. Use effective questioning and assessment to keep learners actively involved throughout the lesson. Types of questions range from low level closed questions, to high order questions that go beyond simple recall, and engage the learner in problem-solving and critical thinking [ 11 ]. Through formative assessment tasks with feedback, learners can check their understanding, identify and address gaps in their knowledge. The learner’s interpretation of the feedback will direct and encourage self-regulated learning, where students monitor their own learning goals, and the strategies they use to achieve these goals [ 12 ].

Briefly summarise what has been covered in the session, and make links to previous learning. If you haven’t already, provide some feedback to students on their learning and any tasks that were done during the session. Ask students to identify the most important point/s, knowledge or skill/s that they have learnt during the session. Ensure you give two or three brief take-home messages, and advice on a self-directed learning task (i.e. an ‘educational prescription’). Make sure you finish on time.

Types of small group teaching

The format of small group teaching activities required to develop the learners’ knowledge, skills and values needs to be considered in curriculum planning and teaching. A range of small group teaching methods have been developed, adopted and adapted within university medicine and health education curricula, according to available resources and student needs. Additionally, many online configurations of small group activities are emerging, particularly with the introduction of social distancing.

Popular methods for small group teaching in the university classroom setting are problem-based learning (PBL), case-based learning (CBL) and team-based learning (TBL), all providing learner-centred instructional approaches [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 13 ]. Common to all three pedagogies, active learning with peer learning and discussion in small groups is based around a relevant, authentic clinical patient case; existing knowledge is activated; and new knowledge is applied to solve clinical problems [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 13 ]. As outlined in Table 3 , there are also some differences between these pedagogies.

While patient case discussions are common in healthcare education, other methods of engaging learners can be implemented within large class settings, to give students a small-group learning experience. Examples include [ 14 ]:

Paired discussion: one-to-one discussion on an assigned topic for 3–5 min. The teacher is able to join in on the discussion

Break out groups: the teacher poses a question and learners (in groups of 2–4) discuss responses before sharing with the whole group

Creation of posters/drawings: for example, a mechanistic flow chart to describe the pathophysiology of the disease process

Group round: generates interest in a topic with each learner having one minute to present their brief response. The order of participation can be selected at random and learners can pass their turn at least one time. For example asking for a ‘brief verbal synopsis’ of a clinical trial at a journal club, where each attempt will get progressively more succinct, clearer, and more accurate [ 14 ]

Brainstorming: can produce a large number of creative solutions in a short period of time. This method encourages learner recall of knowledge and promotes interaction

Role play: can be useful for developing communication skills e.g. interviewing. Sometimes actor patients/clients may be recruited for advanced role plays

Workshops: a mixture of individual and group activities, with brief lectures

Seminars : a report by students or a group of students, or discussion of a paper.

Small group teaching and learning formats in the hospital setting include bedside teaching, clinical tutorials, student-led tutorials [ 14 ] and SCORPIOs (Structured, Clinical, Objective References, Problem-based, Integrated and Organised) [ 15 ]. Within each of these contexts, there will clearly be differences in how small group learning is approached, even though the general principles are similar. Whether in the clinical or the university medical and health education setting, the goals of the small group teaching format are similar. Students want to be able to ask questions and ‘think things through’; check their understanding of material; work as a team and learn from each other; apply content to clinical or ‘real life’ situations; and learn to problem solve [ 16 ].

Learning environment and seating arrangements

Before the commencement of a small group teaching session, consider optimising the seating arrangement. Various seating arrangements have the potential to alter class discussion and interaction [ 9 ]. Each arrangement serves a different purpose and your selection should be based on the type of activity you are planning for your lesson. Below are a series of configurations (Fig. 4 ) depicting some common seating layouts for small group teaching sessions.

Lecture style seating, Group discussion seating, Discussion table seating (adapted from McKimm and Morris, 2009) [ 9 ]

Lecture style seating: is a formal seating arrangement that is good for lecture style delivery, but does limit group interaction. It is clear that the facilitator leads the group with all of the chairs in rows facing the front of the room.

Group discussion seating : allows good group discussion, with the teacher forming part of the group. The teacher is seen as being equal rather than being in a leadership position. All group members have eye contact encouraging participation by all group members.

Discussion table seating: Although the table may act as a barrier for movement, this seating arrangement has the facilitator set within the group of learners. It provides space for working with papers/resources and encourages relaxed discussion between all members. However, some learners may feel less included because eye contact from the teacher may be limited with some seating arrangements.

Delivery of the small group teaching session

Small group teaching design and delivery should be based on key principles that include the introduction to the topic; ground rules; group maintenance role and tasks role; activity; briefing, debriefing; and feedback [ 9 , 13 ]. The flexible nature of small group learning means that the approaches can be tailored to meet the individual needs of students, and focus on the development of specific knowledge and skills. Effective facilitation allows students to develop not only content knowledge, but also critical thinking skills. Strategies to enhance the effectiveness of these teaching sessions include [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]:

Coherence and flow: the lesson should be linked through activities and content that relate and continue on from previously learnt content and skills

Variety : a certain degree of predictability should remain (e.g. teacher, environment), however, the lesson plan should range in activities and topics to ensure student engagement

Flexibility: an effective teacher needs to be able to think on their feet, and modify the lesson at any point to keep student interest, or follow unexpected questions.

There will always be diversity in learning preferences among students in any one group, and it is the facilitator’s role to assist all students to learn [ 7 ]. Consequently, teaching methods should be varied to cater for the different learners. Some learners will engage readily in learning activities, while others may be less motivated, and require greater guidance to form a deeper level of understanding, particularly where activities are specifically designed to use higher order thinking skills.

Feedback in the small group teaching setting

Provision of feedback helps close the gap between current and desired performance, and has the greatest impact on learning when it is immediate. Ensure that your teaching plan includes time for individual feedback to learners. Feedback can be provided by both peer learners and the facilitator. Feedback promotes learning by informing the student of their progress and the specific areas needing improvement; motivating the student to engage in relevant activities to further their learning; reinforcing good practice; and promoting self-reflection. Use of a structured method for feedback, such as Pendleton’s model [ 18 ], illustrated in Fig. 5 , offers the learner the opportunity to evaluate their own performance, and prompts immediate feedback from the observer.

Feedback model (data from Pendleton et al., 1984) [ 18 ]

In order to optimise learning and maximise engagement, teaching activities should follow a recognisable structure and ideally, be planned. Key issues to address when preparing for a small group teaching session include: determining the learning outcomes, designing the learning activities; aligning the learning outcomes with learning activities, the curriculum, and assessment; and ensuring seating arrangements optimise engagement. Students’ learning experiences should encourage active participation, opportunities for practice, and the provision of feedback.

Take-home message

Availability of data and materials.

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Peer Assisted Learning

Objective Structured Clinical Examination

Outcomes, Activities, Summary

Case-based learning

Problem-based learning

Team-based learning

Structured, Clinical, Objective References, Problem-based, Integrated and Organised

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

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This article has been published as part of BMC Medical Education Volume 20 Supplement 2, 2020: Peer Teacher Training in health professional education. The full contents of the supplement are available online at URL. https://bmcmedicaleducation.biomedcentral.com/articles/supplements/volume-20-supplement-2 .

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van Diggele, C., Burgess, A. & Mellis, C. Planning, preparing and structuring a small group teaching session. BMC Med Educ 20 (Suppl 2), 462 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02281-4

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Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning

Stiliana milkova center for research on learning and teaching.

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:

Objectives for student learning
Teaching/learning activities
Strategies to check student understanding

Specifying concrete objectives for student learning will help you determine the kinds of teaching and learning activities you will use in class, while those activities will define how you will check whether the learning objectives have been accomplished (see Fig. 1).

Steps for Preparing a Lesson Plan

Below are six steps to guide you when you create your first lesson plans. Each step is accompanied by a set of questions meant to prompt reflection and aid you in designing your teaching and learning activities.

(1) Outline learning objectives

The first step is to determine what you want students to learn and be able to do at the end of class. To help you specify your objectives for student learning, answer the following questions:

What is the topic of the lesson?
What do I want students to learn?
What do I want them to understand and be able to do at the end of class?
What do I want them to take away from this particular lesson?

Once you outline the learning objectives for the class meeting, rank them in terms of their importance. This step will prepare you for managing class time and accomplishing the more important learning objectives in case you are pressed for time. Consider the following questions:

What are the most important concepts, ideas, or skills I want students to be able to grasp and apply?
Why are they important?
If I ran out of time, which ones could not be omitted?
And conversely, which ones could I skip if pressed for time?

(2) Develop the introduction

Now that you have your learning objectives in order of their importance, design the specific activities you will use to get students to understand and apply what they have learned. Because you will have a diverse body of students with different academic and personal experiences, they may already be familiar with the topic. That is why you might start with a question or activity to gauge students’ knowledge of the subject or possibly, their preconceived notions about it. For example, you can take a simple poll: “How many of you have heard of X? Raise your hand if you have.” You can also gather background information from your students prior to class by sending students an electronic survey or asking them to write comments on index cards. This additional information can help shape your introduction, learning activities, etc. When you have an idea of the students’ familiarity with the topic, you will also have a sense of what to focus on.

Develop a creative introduction to the topic to stimulate interest and encourage thinking. You can use a variety of approaches to engage students (e.g., personal anecdote, historical event, thought-provoking dilemma, real-world example, short video clip, practical application, probing question, etc.). Consider the following questions when planning your introduction:

How will I check whether students know anything about the topic or have any preconceived notions about it?
What are some commonly held ideas (or possibly misconceptions) about this topic that students might be familiar with or might espouse?
What will I do to introduce the topic?

(3) Plan the specific learning activities (the main body of the lesson)

Prepare several different ways of explaining the material (real-life examples, analogies, visuals, etc.) to catch the attention of more students and appeal to different learning styles. As you plan your examples and activities, estimate how much time you will spend on each. Build in time for extended explanation or discussion, but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding. These questions would help you design the learning activities you will use:

What will I do to explain the topic?
What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?
How can I engage students in the topic?
What are some relevant real-life examples, analogies, or situations that can help students understand the topic?
What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?

(4) Plan to check for understanding

Now that you have explained the topic and illustrated it with different examples, you need to check for student understanding – how will you know that students are learning? Think about specific questions you can ask students in order to check for understanding, write them down, and then paraphrase them so that you are prepared to ask the questions in different ways. Try to predict the answers your questions will generate. Decide on whether you want students to respond orally or in writing. You can look at Strategies to Extend Student Thinking , http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P4_4.php to help you generate some ideas and you can also ask yourself these questions:

What questions will I ask students to check for understanding?
What will I have students do to demonstrate that they are following?
Going back to my list of learning objectives, what activity can I have students do to check whether each of those has been accomplished?

An important strategy that will also help you with time management is to anticipate students’ questions. When planning your lesson, decide what kinds of questions will be productive for discussion and what questions might sidetrack the class. Think about and decide on the balance between covering content (accomplishing your learning objectives) and ensuring that students understand.

(5) Develop a conclusion and a preview

Go over the material covered in class by summarizing the main points of the lesson. You can do this in a number of ways: you can state the main points yourself (“Today we talked about…”), you can ask a student to help you summarize them, or you can even ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think were the main points of the lesson. You can review the students’ answers to gauge their understanding of the topic and then explain anything unclear the following class. Conclude the lesson not only by summarizing the main points, but also by previewing the next lesson. How does the topic relate to the one that’s coming? This preview will spur students’ interest and help them connect the different ideas within a larger context.

(6) Create a realistic timeline

GSIs know how easy it is to run out of time and not cover all of the many points they had planned to cover. A list of ten learning objectives is not realistic, so narrow down your list to the two or three key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn. Instructors also agree that they often need to adjust their lesson plan during class depending on what the students need. Your list of prioritized learning objectives will help you make decisions on the spot and adjust your lesson plan as needed. Having additional examples or alternative activities will also allow you to be flexible. A realistic timeline will reflect your flexibility and readiness to adapt to the specific classroom environment. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:

Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each
When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take
Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points
Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left
Be flexible – be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students’ needs and focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your original plan

Presenting the Lesson Plan

Letting your students know what they will be learning and doing in class will help keep them more engaged and on track. You can share your lesson plan by writing a brief agenda on the board or telling students explicitly what they will be learning and doing in class. You can outline on the board or on a handout the learning objectives for the class. Providing a meaningful organization of the class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the rationale behind in-class activities. Having a clearly visible agenda (e.g., on the board) will also help you and students stay on track.

Reflecting on Your Lesson Plan

A lesson plan may not work as well as you had expected due to a number of extraneous circumstances. You should not get discouraged – it happens to even the most experienced teachers! Take a few minutes after each class to reflect on what worked well and why, and what you could have done differently. Identifying successful and less successful organization of class time and activities would make it easier to adjust to the contingencies of the classroom. For additional feedback on planning and managing class time, you can use the following resources: student feedback, peer observation, viewing a videotape of your teaching, and consultation with a staff member at CRLT (see also, Improving Your Teaching: Obtaining Feedback , http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P9_1.php and Early Feedback Form , http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/earlyfeedback.pdf).

To be effective, the lesson plan does not have to be an exhaustive document that describes each and every possible classroom scenario. Nor does it have to anticipate each and every student’s response or question. Instead, it should provide you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them. It is a reminder of what you want to do and how you want to do it. A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and instructors learn from each other.

Additional Resources

Video clips of GSIs at the University of Michigan actively engaging students in a practice teaching session: https://crlte.engin.umich.edu/engineering-gsi-videos/

Plan the First Day's Session: How to create to a lesson plan for the first day of class: http://gsi.berkeley.edu/gsi-guide-contents/pre-semester-intro/first-day-plan/

Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center. Retrieved from https://www.ideaedu.org/idea_papers/integrated-course-design/

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The Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) Method of Teaching

When teaching English, you must prepare and plan to create a beneficial and constructive learning experience for your students.

Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) is the most effective teaching methodology. Teachers who use ESA can productively organize their lessons. Through ESA, students are focused and highly motivated to learn.

First coined by Jeremy Harmer in his book “How to teach English”, ESA is a method of structuring your lessons in three elements. The different stages of ESA can be flexible and used to keep students engaged at all times.

The Engage Phase – Warming Up

It is essential to always start a lesson with the engage phase. It is here where students start starting and thinking in English. Before learning new content, students need to prepare for learning English. Games, showing pictures, discussions, listening to music, brainstorming vocabulary and storytelling are some excellent activities to engage and immerse students in the class.

It is paramount that all students participate and interact with the class during the engage phase. Teachers should focus on facilitating engagement and making sure that every student has at least spoken once before moving on.

Once the engage phase has finished, students should be thoroughly warmed up and eager to begin the next part of the lesson.

The Study Phase – Learning New Things

This phase is mainly the board work of the lesson. It is here where students will learn or review English language topics. Teachers can use textbooks, study materials, videos and drilling exercises to help students learn and use the English language accurately. Other activities include gap fill quizzes, matching exercises and word order arrangement.

After students learn the topic of the lesson, the teacher then checks their understanding. As a teacher, you must never ask the question “do you understand?” as students are naturally inclined to answer yes despite not fully understanding.

Instead, ask a question about what’s been taught and see how they respond. If the student answers the question about the topic correctly, then they will have understood. In cases where students don’t understand, the teacher will go over the text again and ask more questions.

The Activate Phase – Using English Practically

The final aspect of an ESL lesson is the activate phase, where students use what they have learned in activities such as role-plays, dialogues, debates and surveys.

The purpose of the activate phase is to apply the topics learned in the study phase in a realistic situation. By doing this, students will begin to use the English language. As with the engage phase, it is vital that every student participates and speaks during the activities.

During this stage, teachers help students with their pronunciation, rhythm and fluency. Teachers can do this through elicitation and demonstration. Teachers must conduct the activate phase at the end of the lesson as the way students perform will be an indicator of how much they understood during the study phase. If there are gaps in the students’ learning at this stage, then teachers will need to focus more on improving the study phase.

Different Types of ESA Lessons

Straight-arrow esa lesson.

The most common application of the ESA method, teachers simply start with the engage phase and end with the activate phase.

An example lesson plan of a Straight-Arrow ESA lesson

Boomerang esa lesson.

The structure of a Boomerang lesson is Engage-Activate-Study-Activate (EASA).

Unlike a Straight-Arrow lesson, a Boomerang lesson dives straight into the activate phase of the lesson before the study phase, then finishing by reactivating the students.

During the initial activate phase, students will most likely be unable to use the language correctly. They will make mistakes with grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, which will reveal gaps in the students’ knowledge. Once the students have learned the new topic, they will then do the activity again, filling in any gaps they may have had at the beginning of the lesson.

An example boomerang lesso n

Engage: Discussion of different jobs and occupations.

Activate: Role-play as different types of people e.g lawyer, police officer, firefighter, etc.

Study : Use boardwork and worksheets to enhance students’ vocabulary and understanding of different jobs.

Activate: Repeat the role-play. This time, students will have more vocabulary to use and thus make the activity more fun and exciting.

The objective of a Boomerang lesson is accuracy of the English language and consistently improving through good practice.

Patchwork ESA Lesson

A patchwork ESA lesson always begins with the engage phase and finishes with the activate phase. However, what happens between these phases can be arranged by the teacher as they see fit.

An example structure of a patchwork lesson can be E-A-S-A-E-S-A.

The patchwork lesson is flexible and can be used to target specific areas of student learning. If students need to increase their understanding of a topic, then a study phase will be conducted. To make a lesson more interesting, a teacher can initiate the activate stage or use the engage stage to introduce new topics. Anything is possible.

The ESA methodology is the most organized and time-efficient way of conducting a lesson. It will allow students to learn in an engaging, exciting, productive and fun way.

The engage phase sparks the initial interest in the topic, the study phase is the absorption of new knowledge, and the activate phase puts everything into practice.

This methodology can help you as an ESL teacher to structure your lessons to fit your style of teaching and educational needs of your students. It is by far the best method of teaching English.

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Teacher Aidan

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PPP TEFL Teaching Methodology

What is presentation, practice and production (ppp).

During your SEE TEFL certification course you will become more familiar with an established methodology for teaching English as a foreign language known as 3Ps or PPP – presentation, practice, production. The PPP method could be characterized as a common-sense approach to teaching as it consists of 3 stages that most people who have learnt how to do anything will be familiar with.

The first stage is the presentation of an aspect of language in a context that students are familiar with, much the same way that a swimming instructor would demonstrate a stroke outside the pool to beginners.

The second stage is practice, where students will be given an activity that gives them plenty of opportunities to practice the new aspect of language and become familiar with it whilst receiving limited and appropriate assistance from the teacher. To continue with the analogy, the swimming instructor allowing the children to rehearse the stroke in the pool whilst being close enough to give any support required and plenty of encouragement.

The final stage is production where the students will use the language in context, in an activity set up by the teacher who will be giving minimal assistance, like the swimming instructor allowing his young charges to take their first few tentative strokes on their own.

Advantages of the PPP (3Ps) Method

As with any well-established methodology, PPP has its critics and a couple of relatively new methodologies are starting to gain in popularity such as TBL (task based learning) and ESA (engage, study, activate) . However, even strong advocates of these new methodologies do concede that new EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers find the PPP methodology easiest to grasp, and that these new teachers, once familiar with the PPP methodology, are able to use TBL and ESA more effectively than new trainees that are only exposed to either TBL or ESA.

Indeed, there are strong arguments to suggest that experienced teachers trained in PPP use many aspects of TBL and ESA in their lessons, and that these new methodologies are in truth, the PPP methodology with some minor adjustments.

At this stage you might well be asking, It’s all very well having a clear methodology for how to teach but how do I know what to teach? The language that we call English today has absorbed a great many influences over the last thousand years or so. It has resulted in it becoming a language that can provide us with a sparklingly witty pop culture reference from a Tarantino script, 4 simple words spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King that continue to inspire us today, and something as simple and mundane as a road traffic sign.

The Job of the EFL Teacher

As EFL teachers our job is to break down this rich and complex language into manageable chunks for our students. These chunks of language are what EFL teachers call target languageWe are going to look at an example of what a piece of target language might be and then you will be given more detail on how this would be taught in a PPP lesson before finally watching three videos with some key aspects of each stage of the lesson highlighted for you.

During the course we will spend a great deal of time in the training room equipping you with the tools to employ a successful methodology for teaching the English language. You are going to get opportunities to both hone these skills in the training room and put them into practice in authentic classroom settings.

Of course you might be thinking, I don’t have any experience of being in a classroom! How on earth am I going to cope with standing at the front of a class with 20 plus pairs of eyes looking at me waiting to see what I do?

All good TEFL courses are designed to train those with no teaching experience whatsoever. We will spend the first part of the course in the training room making you familiar with all the new skills you will need whilst giving you opportunities to practice them in a supported and controlled environment.

Only after that, will you be put in an authentic classroom environment. It goes without saying that the first time anybody stands up and delivers their first lesson will be a nerve-racking experience. However, it is also an experience that mellows over time, and one that all teachers remember fondly as time goes by and they feel more at home in a classroom.

There will be some of you out there with experience of teaching in a classroom already. You may be well versed in employing many different methodologies and strategies in your classroom already, but many or most will have been with native English speaking students, or those with a near-native levels of English. This means that some of the skills we will be equipping you with may feel a little alien at first, but your experience will not prove to be a hindrance. Indeed, you will already have successful classroom management skills that can be adapted to fit a second language classroom fairly easily and other trainees on the course will benefit from your presence.

In addition, some of the skills that you will learn on the course can also be adapted to work in a classroom of native speakers too, and it is not unusual for experienced teachers to comment on exactly this after completing a good TEFL course.

Target Language in an EFL Lesson

Recall how it is the job of the EFL teacher to break down the rich tapestry of the English language into manageable bite-size chunks, suitable for study in an average study period of 50 minutes. As mentioned, we refer to these chunks as target language. As EFL teachers we will select target language that is appropriate for both the skill level and the age of the students.

The target language that you will see being presented in the videos is Likes and dislikes for 6 food items.

The teacher you will watch in the video has a clear aim, which is to ensure that:

**By the end of the lesson, students will know the names of 6 food items in English and will be able to express whether or not they like them in a spoken form by entering into a simple dialogue consisting of,

Do you like ___?,
Yes, I like ___., or
No, I don’t like ___.

The six food items are ___. In short, the students will be able to name the 6 food items by the end of the lesson and tell whether they like them or not.**

Presentation – Part 1 of PPP

You may have delivered a few presentations in your time but the type of presentation we deliver in a second language classroom will differ quite a bit from those. For a start, you were speaking to proficient users of the English language about something they were, most likely, vaguely familiar with anyway. In an EFL classroom we don’t have those luxuries, so we have to be careful about the language we use and how clearly we present the new language that we wish for our students to acquire.

Let’s look at 4 key things that should be occurring in an effective second language classroom presentation:

1 – Attention in the Classroom

Learners are alert, have focused their attention on the new language and are responsive to cues that show them that something new is coming up. A simple way to ensure some of the above is if the teacher makes the target language interesting to the students.

The language will of course, be of more interest to the students if it is put into some type of context that the students are familiar with. In the case of likes and dislikes for young learners a visual associated with a facial expression will be something they can relate to. Naturally, the easier it is for them to relate to the context, the more likely they are to be interested in the language presented.

In the case of the target language for the videos a smiley face visual and a sad face visual on the whiteboard linked to the phrases I like ___. and I don’t like ___., respectively. A teacher might make exaggerated facial expressions whilst presenting these ideas to make the ideas both fun and easy to perceive for the students. This is often referred to as contextualization in EFL classrooms.

2 – Perception and Grading of Language

We want to ensure that the learners both see and hear the target language easily. So if a whiteboard is being used, it should be well organized with different colors being used to differentiate between different ideas. If images are being used, there should be no ambiguity as to what they represent and sounds made by the teacher should not only be clear, but should be repeated and the teacher needs to check the material has been perceived correctly, and can do this by asking the students to repeat the sounds he or she is making.

Learners will be bombarded with a series of images corresponding to sounds made by the teacher during the presentation stage and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that they are not overloaded with information and that clear links are being made between the images and the associated sounds.

Therefore, there is an onus on the teacher not to use any unnecessary language at this stage. That is to say the grading of their language should be appropriate for the level of their students and the language they use should consist of the target language and any other essential language required to present the ideas clearly such as commands like listen! The commands should, whenever possible, be supported by clear body language.

3 – Target Language Understanding

The learners must be able to understand the meaning of the material. So in the case of likes and dislikes they perhaps need to see an image of a happy face and associate it with liking something and a sad face and associate that with disliking something.

We also need to have a way of checking if the learners did indeed, understand the material presented without asking the question, Do you understand? as this invariably triggers the response yes! from learners who are keen to please their teacher and not to lose face. We, as teachers, need to be a little more imaginative in checking our student’s understanding of material presented. Ideally, we should be checking the learners’ understanding in context. In the videos you will see, expect to see the teacher doing this during the presentation stage.

4 – Short-term Memory in the Classroom

The learners will have to retain the information from the presentation and use it further on in the lesson when we have consolidated their learning of the material and we will give them an opportunity to produce it on their own.

For the target language to be retained by the learners, it needs to be engaging and we need to consider that different learners will remember the material in different ways. Some by the way the material is seen, others by the way it is heard, and others if it is associated with a physical movement perhaps. We need to make sure our presentation has something to enable all these types of learners to retain the information.

Presentation Stage of a PPP EFL Lesson with subtitles

Practice – Part 2 of PPP

Practice can roughly be defined as the rehearsal of certain behaviors with the objective of consolidating learning and improving performance. Below are some of the characteristics of an effective language practice:

1 – Practice Validity

The practice activity must have learners rehearsing the skill or material it purports to practice. So in the case of the lesson you will view shortly, it must have the learners practicing both the food vocabulary items and the structure of the dialogue, i.e.,

Yes, I like ___, or

2 – Pre-learning

Before we ask our learners to practice new language, we must have ensured that they have some understanding of the new language. We will have done this during the presentation stage. If they have not had the new language clearly presented to them and been aided in being given some understanding of it, then they (the learners) will not be practicing at this stage but will be going through another initial learning stage. Worse still, they will feel like they are being tested on something they haven’t been allowed to gain an understanding of.

3 – Volume (Amount) of Practice

Here, we are referring to the number of opportunities every student in the class has to practice the new language and not the level of sound. The more opportunities each student has to practice the target language, the more effective this stage of the lesson is.

So in the case of likes and dislikes, we might give the students individual worksheets where they have to fill in some part of the dialogue and the name of a food.

4 – Success Orientation

The students should have an opportunity to practice the new language and in order for this to happen they need an activity that both stretches them and is a task they can complete because of course, if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be getting any opportunity to practice.

5 – Issuing Activity Instructions and Managing the Activity

Of course, whilst it is important to select an appropriate activity, it is equally important to issue clear and unambiguous instructions for the activity itself so all of your students are clear as to what is expected of them. We will be issuing instructions for the activity in the student’s second language so we need to make use of clear visuals to support any language we have to use and strong demonstrations of what is expected.

Managing the activity should consist of the teacher being mobile during the activity, offering praise and being on hand to show struggling students where relevant information may be found on the whiteboard.

Practice Stage of PPP EFL Lesson with subtitles

Production – Part 3 of PPP

The students have now had the target language presented to them clearly and have had an opportunity to practice it in a controlled environment. If we return to the swimming instructor analogy, it is now time to let them take their first few tentative strokes in the pool on their own with supervision and encouragement from the instructor.

As with the practice stage, we have to initiate an activity that allows them opportunities to use the target language in the classroom. In fact, the characteristics of a production stage activity are quite similar to the practice stage with one key difference and that is, student autonomy.

During this stage, the students will be producing the target language with minimal assistance from the teacher as opposed to the practice stage where the teacher will be on hand to assist students rehearse target language that has only just been presented to them.

Here are some of the key aspects of a production stage activity:

1 – Volume (Amount) of Production

As with practice, we want to create as many opportunities for our students to produce the target language albeit this time, more independently. This means we avoid activities where the students speak to the teacher as this allows limited opportunities (the students have to wait their turn before they get a chance to speak to the teacher). Instead for spoken activities, we look to get the students speaking in pairs, speaking to each other as much as possible, whilst we as the teachers go around the classroom offering minimal assistance but lots of positive reinforcement.

2 – Production Validity

Again, we should initiate an activity that allows the students to produce the target language that we presented to them and not a variation on it (although this is not strictly true with higher level students).

So, in the case of likes and dislikes for food, we should set up an activity where the students are saying, Do you like pineapple? as opposed to, What do you think of pineapples?

3 – Production Contextualization

The activity should simulate a real–life situation where they (the students) may use the target language. In the case of likes and dislikes for food this might be a menu with images of the food items or perhaps a series of images of the food items to prompt the dialogue,

Yes, I like ____, or

Note that a successful production activity will also have aspects that set it apart from a practice activity, including:

4 – Student Autonomy

Students will be speaking, using the target language, with ideally, little or no support from the teacher.

They shouldn’t be looking things up on either the whiteboard or on any materials they have on their desk (e.g. a completed practice worksheet) so a teacher may choose to erase information from the whiteboard for this stage and the teacher might also choose to get students to clear their desks.

5 – Issuing Instructions for an Activity

As with the practice stage whilst it is important to select an appropriate activity, it is equally important to issue clear and unambiguous instructions for the activity itself so all of our students are clear as to what is expected of them. We will be issuing instructions for the activity in the student’s second language so we need to make use of clear visuals to support any language we have to use and strong demonstrations of what is expected, just as we will have done during the practice stage.

6 – Correcting Errors During the Activity

It is important that the students get as many opportunities to speak using the newly acquired language. Therefore, a teacher shouldn’t be drowning them out by speaking at length, over the top of them to correct any errors. This obviously differs from the practice where students expect the teacher to assist them as they rehearse (not produce) newly acquired language.

Clever use of body language by the teacher will enable them to be discrete in correcting errors and will allow them to offer much needed encouragement to students as well.

Production Stage of a PPP EFL Lesson with subtitles

TEFL Student Online Training Task (password protected)

Developing mathematical knowledge for teaching through lesson planning and technological pedagogical content knowledge among rwandan teacher training college tutors

Published: 27 April 2024

Cite this article

Hashituky Telesphore Habiyaremye 1 ,
Celestin Ntivuguruzwa 2 &
Philothere Ntawiha 2

The current study aimed to sightsee the effectiveness of Mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) through lesson planning and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) on Rwandan mathematics tutors in teachers' training colleges. A quasi-experimental research design was used with a control and an experimental group. The experimental group received the intervention on developing MKT through the lesson plan and TPACK, while the control group used a standardized format lesson plan templates as their primary method for preparing instructional materials. In both groups, we analyzed 88 lesson plans in three stages (before, during, and after intervention). The collected lessons were analyzed using a standardized and validated Lesson Plan Analysis Protocol (LPAP). The result revealed that, before the intervention, teachers in both groups struggled with preparing an effective lesson, with an average of 57.8% and 54% in the control and experimental groups, respectively, indicating that the prepared lesson could not be effectively taught. During the intervention, tutors in the experimental group were facilitated to improve their lesson preparation. In this regard, the average was increased to 61.37% in the experimental group, compared to 57.67% in the control group. Moreover, the post-intervention results revealed significant divergence in the two groups' performance, with an average of 82.40% (indicating a very good lesson plan that can be taught) in the experimental group and 59.73% (a fair lesson plan) in the control group. The inferential results showed a statistically significant difference in lesson preparation between Mathematics tutors in the experimental and control groups ( p < 0.05) in favor of the experimental group during and after intervention. The research underscores the need for educational stakeholders and continuous professional development organizers to incorporate TPACK in lesson planning during teacher training to promote a more comprehensive and forward-looking approach to tutor preparation.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

TTCs are equivalent to high schools where future primary school teachers are trained. Tutors are teachers teaching in TTCs and student-teachers are students in TTCs.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support the African Center of Excellence for Innovative Teaching Mathematics and Science provided. We also appreciate the lesson plans willingly provided by teachers.

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Hashituky Telesphore Habiyaremye

School of Education, University of Rwanda College of Education (URCE), Kayonza, PO Box 55, Rwamagana, Rwanda

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Appendix 1 Lesson plan before the intervention

1.1 school name: ttc x teacher's name: xx.

Appendix 2 Lesson plans with comments during the intervention

LESSON PLAN OF MATHEMATICS

COMPETENCE ICT- BASED LESSON PLAN

TUTOR'S NAME : X

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Habiyaremye, H.T., Ntivuguruzwa, C. & Ntawiha, P. Developing mathematical knowledge for teaching through lesson planning and technological pedagogical content knowledge among rwandan teacher training college tutors. Educ Inf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12634-x

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Published : 27 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12634-x

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Teaching Methods and Strategies: The Complete Guide
Teaching Methods. Teaching methods, or methodology, is a narrower topic because it's founded in theories and educational psychology. If you have a degree in teaching, you most likely have heard of names like Skinner, Vygotsky, Gardner, Piaget, and Bloom.If their names don't ring a bell, you should definitely recognize their theories that have become teaching methods.
Lesson Methodologies
Methodology is the way (s) in which teachers share information with students. The information itself is known as the content; how that content is shared in a classroom is dependent on the teaching methods. The following chart lists a wide variety of lesson methodologies appropriate for the presentation of material, which I will discuss here.
[2023] What Is Your Teaching Methodology? A Comprehensive Guide
Quick Answer: Your teaching methodology refers to the strategies and techniques you use to deliver instruction and facilitate learning in the classroom. It encompasses your approach to lesson planning, classroom management, assessment, and student engagement. The most effective teaching methodologies are those that are student-centered, promote critical thinking, and cater to diverse learning ...
Creating Effective Lesson Plans: A Guide for Teachers
Effective lesson planning is an art that evolves with experience. It ensures that teaching is purposeful, engaging, and aligned with educational goals. By tailoring lesson plans to your career stage and employing strategies that promote student engagement and understanding, educators can create impactful learning experiences that empower their ...
PDF 37 Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning
Fig. 1. Key Components of Lesson Plan Design (L. Dee Fink, 2005) Steps for Preparing a Lesson Plan Below are six steps to guide you when you create your first lesson plans. Each step is accompanied by a set of questions meant to prompt reflection and aid you in designing your teaching and learning activities. (1) Outline learning objectives
How to build a great lesson plan (with a template!)
Lesson plans allow you to evaluate your own teaching performance as you compare your methods with the plan you've prepared. This is a good way to make adjustments to your teaching style and/or techniques. 3. Organization. Lesson plans help you think in an organized manner, visualizing each step of the outline as you work from one concept to ...
[2023] The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Methods and Strategies: Expert
The right teaching method can make all the difference in student success. Effective teaching methods ensure that information is being delivered in a way that's engaging and meaningful. Not all students learn the same way, and using a variety of teaching methods can help ensure that every student is able to understand and retain information.
6 effective teaching methods and how to use them
To find out more, read about our top 6 most effective learning methods below. 1. Online learning. Teaching online may not have been the norm for most teachers before the COVID-19 pandemic, but there have always been some teachers who prefer to work online. Online tutors often enjoy the freedom of working from home, choosing their working hours ...
TEAL Center Fact Sheet No. 8: Effective Lesson Planning
The WIPPEA Model, an acronym that stands for Warm-up, Introduction, Presentation, Practice, Evaluation, Application, is a lesson plan model that represents a continuous teaching cycle in which each learning concept builds on the previous one, serving as an instructional roadmap for instructors. The WIPPEA lesson plan model is adapted from the ...
The Complete List of Teaching Methods
Teaching Methods: Not as Simple as ABC. The teacher-centered approach vs. the student-centered approach. High-tech vs. low-tech approaches to learning. Flipped classrooms, differentiated instruction, inquiry-based learning, personalized learning and more. Not only are there dozens of teaching methods to explore, it is also important to have a ...
Lesson Planning With Engagement in Mind: Proactive Classroom Management
This article highlights four research-based proactive strategy categories including whole-group response systems, movement integration, visual supports, and student choice. This article illustrates how teachers can embed strategies from these categories in their lesson planning and includes a lesson plan template with teacher-created examples.
OLCreate: General Teaching Methods: Components of a lesson plan
Components of a lesson plan. A lesson plan is a step-by-step guide on what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. A teacher's lesson plan includes many components, watch the video below to discover the key components of a lesson plan: Overview of key components: The course subject, class and the topic.
Methods and techniques of making a lesson plan
A lesson plan is the teacher's guide for running a. particular lesson, and it includes the goal (what the students are supposed to learn), how the goal will be reached (the method, procedure) and ...
Instructional Methods: Activities to Include in Your Lesson Plans
Role Playing. The essence of learn by doing, role playing allows the students to act out a lesson and test their skills and knowledge. This method allows students to assume the roles of others and appreciate another point of view, but some students may feel self-conscious or threatened, so be sure to take the needs of such students into account.
Lesson Planning (Chapter 3)
Planning daily lessons is the end result of a complex planning process that includes the yearly, term, and unit plans. A daily lesson plan is a written description of how students will move toward attaining specific objectives. It describes the teaching behavior that will result in student learning. This chapter addresses the daily planning ...
9 Teaching Methods To Promote Success in the Classroom
6. Inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning promotes the idea of learning by investigation, where students can complete projects, ask questions and find answers by themselves. While teachers act as resources in these times, the goal is for students to solve problems and discover information on their own.
List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)
Teaching Strategies Examples (List) 1. Flipped Instruction. Description. Flipped classrooms involve asking students to complete the reading, preparation and introductory work at home. Then, during class time, the students do practice questions that they would traditionally do for homework.
PDF Teaching Methodologies, Strategies and Approaches
Teaching Methodologies, Strategies and Approaches One of the values that forms the foundation of my teaching philosophy and practice is the belief that effective learning is active and collaborative. In order to develop this value within my own teaching practice, ... discussions and theoretical frameworks into tutorial lesson plans.
Planning, preparing and structuring a small group teaching session
Table 2 The OAS method for lesson planning and teaching. Full size table. Designing a formal lesson plan. A lesson plan acts as a map, assisting in guiding a series of activities to ensure students gain the knowledge, skills or attitudes set out within the learning objectives . It also provides a record of what has been taught and assists in ...
Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning
Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline: Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each. When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take. Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up ...
The Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) Method of Teaching
Activity #1. Create three columns and write the list of adjectives in the first column. Ask students for the comparative forms of the adjectives and write them down in the second column. In the third column, explain how to create the comparative form by writing (adjective + er) or (more + adjective) Activity #2.
A Practical Guide to Teaching Research Methods in Education
ABSTRACT. A Practical Guide to Teaching Research Methods in Education brings together more than 60 faculty experts. The contributors share detailed lesson plans about selected research concepts or skills in education and related disciplines, as well as discussions of the intellectual preparation needed to effectively teach the lesson.
What is PPP Teaching Method? How to Create ESL Lesson Plan
During your SEE TEFL certification course you will become more familiar with an established methodology for teaching English as a foreign language known as 3Ps or PPP - presentation, practice, production. The PPP method could be characterized as a common-sense approach to teaching as it consists of 3 stages that most people who have learnt ...
Developing mathematical knowledge for teaching through lesson planning
The current study aimed to sightsee the effectiveness of Mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) through lesson planning and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) on Rwandan mathematics tutors in teachers' training colleges. A quasi-experimental research design was used with a control and an experimental group. The experimental group received the intervention on developing MKT ...

Teaching Methods and Strategies: The Complete Guide

Teaching Methods

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Social Cognitive Theory

The Multiple Intelligences Theory

Constructivism

Universal Design for Learning

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[2023] The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Methods and Strategies: Expert Advice for Classroom Success

Table of Contents

Introduction

Different Types of Teaching Methods and Strategies

What are the 5 Teaching Approaches?

The Four Types of Instructional Methods

What are the different types of teaching methods?

What are the 5 teaching approaches?

What are the four types of instructional methods?

What are some teaching methods and strategies?

What are instructional methods in education?

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The Complete List of Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods: Not as Simple as ABC

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List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)

Teaching Strategies Examples (List)

2. Play-based learning

3. Project-based learning (PBL)

4. Authentic Learning

5. Discovery Learning

6. High Expectations

7. Parent and Community Engagement

8. Unconditional Positive Regard

9. Modeled Teaching

10. I Do We Do You Do Method

11. Guided Practice / Cognitive Apprenticeship

12. Scaffolding

13. Direct Instruction (a.k.a Explicit Teaching)

14. Repetition (Rote Learning)

15. Spaced Repetition

16. Prompting