Effective teaching strategies are the methods, procedures, or various processes that an educator uses during classroom instruction. These strategies are the vehicle to which teachers drive their instruction to meet standards and reach their students’ educational needs.
Teachers need to have a wealth of knowledge in various teaching strategies and a bucket of these strategies to choose from. This helps educators engage their learners and keep their classrooms actively participating in the learning process. What role do teaching strategies play in classroom instruction, student learning, and what are some effective teaching strategies used in schools today?
The Role That Teaching Strategies Play in Classroom Instruction
Teaching strategies play an important role in classroom instruction. Without the use of a strategy, teachers would be aimlessly projecting information that doesn’t connect with learners or engage them.
Strategies help learners participate, connect, and add excitement to the content being delivered. As students become familiar with the various strategies teachers use, some can even apply those strategies independently as they learn new material.
Classroom Teaching Strategies Used in Today’s Classrooms
Differentiated Instruction
Every student that comes into your classroom is unique. They enter with different background experiences, different beliefs, and different interests. It should then come as no surprise that students have different ways of learning new material. That is why differentiation is so important. Differentiation provides personal learning strategies for every student. It gives students the opportunity to learn content in the way their brain learns best.
In reading, this can mean grouping students with others in the same ability level. It can also mean providing students with activities that best suit their learning styles. For example, some students may work on a word hunt while others are writing a summary, and still others may choose to draw a picture to show what they learned.
In math, differentiation is also very important. Some of your students may be learning two-digit addition while others may need to be enriched with three- or four-digit addition. Some students may need more hands-on manipulatives to learn the content, while others may prefer repetitive practice on problems. Regardless of how students learn, they need to be given the opportunity to have experiences with materials in a variety of ways and in the way that best matches their learning style.
Project-Based Learning
Project-based learning is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world, meaningful, and personal projects. With this teaching strategy, students gain knowledge and skills over an extended period. Projects can last a few days or even span over the course of several weeks or an entire semester.
Throughout project-based learning, students are working on complex projects or trying to find answers to real-world problems. At the end of the project, they demonstrate their learning by showcasing their project to their classmates or the community. Project-based learning helps students gain knowledge and skills as they investigate authentic, engaging, complex, and challenging topics.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is another teaching strategy that many students can benefit from and truly engage with. It involves structuring your class work in a small group format where each group as an entirety succeeds, instead of just individual students. Many learners appreciate this format as it helps balance strengths and support weaknesses.
Some learners may contribute an artist mindset while others may be more outgoing, and some more academically inclined. When strengths from many students come together, the overall product is often greater than what may have been generated individually.
Experiential Learning
In the 1970’s, David A. Kolb helped develop the modern theory of learning called “experiential learning.” It is a process that cycles through an experience, a reflection, and a review of the experience. Learners participate in an experience, have time to reflect on it, then they engage in thoughtful thinking. This thinking is designed to provide time to draw conclusions and conceptualize the meaning of the experience, and finally they act on the students’ conclusions as they try out their learning.
While this may sound complicated, the process itself is something so natural that many people go through it without even realizing it. The more you practice this teaching strategy the more your students will become familiar with it and naturally apply it to other learning experiences.
Student-Led Classroom
A student-led classroom is just like it sounds; students take ownership in their learning and become leaders in their room. Teachers structure their classrooms so that students are a part of the process of establishing rules, creating consequences, and developing their classroom community. Student-led classrooms help students feel empowered and allow teachers to see what students fully know and understand.
Classrooms such as these help better develop a student’s communication skills as they learn to lead and speak in front of their classmates. Student-led classrooms are another great teaching strategy to put into place for any grade level regardless of being elementary, middle, or high school.
Inquiry-Based Learning
Inquiry-based learning is a unique teaching strategy that can pair well with many students’ learning style preference. It is a strategy where students follow methods and practices similar to scientists, exploring things they are interested in as they ask questions and evolve their learning as they go. Unlike the traditional classroom style of teachers presenting facts and knowledge about a subject, students take the reins as they unravel information and draw conclusions.
The strategy of inquiry-based learning has many realms including:
- Confirmation Inquiry
- Students confirming answers using various methods — structured inquiry, open ended-questions, and a solution framework.
- Guided Inquiry
- Students work in groups to determine the type of investigation they want to do as they work to answer a question. As students catch on to the format of inquiry-based learning they may come to really enjoy this learning strategy as well!
There are many effective teaching strategies that educators are using to engage their students and better connect them to their learning. By trying out strategies such as these, teachers can find the platform that best suits their student’s needs.
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