Instructional Strategies
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Teachers are encouraged to learn more about the instructional strategies that have the highest probability of enhancing student achievement for all students in all subject areas at all grade levels. While no strategy works in all situations, it is the thoughtfulness and skill the teacher brings to the strategy that improves student learning. The nine categories of instructional strategies include:1) comparing, classifying, analogies, and metaphors; 2) summarizing and note taking, 3) reinforcing effort and giving praise, 4) homework and practice, 5) non-linguistic representations, 6) cooperative learning, 7) setting objectives and providing feedback, 8) generating and testing hypotheses, and 9) questions, cues, and advanced organizers. reasoning skills. What follows is a list of each instructional strategy with a short description of what each means.
| STRATEGY | DESCRIPTION |
| 1) Comparing and classifying were described in the complex reasoning skills page. | Creating metaphors is the process of identifying a general or basic pattern in a specific topic and then finding another topic that appears to be quite different but has the same general pattern. Creating analogies is the process of identifying relationships between pairs of concepts - in other words, identifying relationships between relationships. |
| 2) Summarizing and Note taking | Summarizing and Note taking is often described as the sorting and sifting of information so students only write and remember the most important information presented. Strategies vary, but may include: default interferences, rule-based summary strategy, summary frame questions, teacher prepared notes and various student prepared note taking formats. |
| 3) Reinforcing effort is obvious by definition, but students should be taught the relationship between effort and achievement. | Students could even be taught to track their effort and achievement using rubrics for self evaluation and charts to record their progress. Giving praise is recognizing students for legitimate achievements. Praise must be used carefully and thoughtfully to have a positive effect on achievement. Examples of giving praise include: personalizing achievement, praise tokens, peer praise, and praise language. |
| 4) Homework effectiveness is enhanced if specific activities are planned for specific types of knowledge. | Homework on vocabulary might include: making linkages, creating categories, graphic and pictorial representations. Homework on details might include: default differences, nonlinguistic representations. Homework on generalizations might include: identifying new examples and nonlinguistic representations. Homework on principles might include: new applications and graphing principles. Homework on skills might include: tracking accuracy, speed, and depicting steps in skills. Homework on processes might include: practicing an aspect of the process and identifying the interrelationship between different aspects of the process. Practice is critical to the knowledge development of any type. Practice examples should be designed to focus on specific elements. Students must be given extended practice to develop their knowledge to a sophisticated level. |
| 5) Nonlinguistic representation is attempting to store information as mental pictures or even physical sensations. | When both linguistic and nonlinguistic systems are used to learn and store information the better students are able think about an recall information. The techniques for creating nonlinguistic representations include: various graphic organizers, pictures and pictographs, mental pictures, and concrete representations. |
| 6) Cooperative learning can take various forms, be misused and overused. | Cooperative learning is used correctly when groups are given well structured tasks and are given sufficient time to practice independently the skills and processes they must master. |
| 7) Setting objectives is like setting goals and is the process of establishing direction and purpose. | Goal setting is a skill that everyone should master to help achieve short and long term goals. Instructional goals should be specific, but flexible. Contracts between students and teachers or between group members may help attain goals. A goal setting process should be taught to students that includes specific aspects and steps. Providing feedback is a way to let students know how well they are doing. A way to make feedback more specific is to use rubrics to identify and explain various levels of information, process, and skills achieved. Student-led feedback is another way to help students recognize the various levels of achievement possible. |
| 8) Generating and testing hypotheses involves the application of knowledge. | Teachers should create a framework to help students with generating and testing hypotheses. The Complex Reasoning page describes inductive and deductive reasoning skills. |
| 9) Cues, questions, and advanced organizers are all strategies used to help students activate their prior knowledge. | Cues let students know they will use some of their prior knowledge in attempting to learn some new information, process, or skill. Questions can be used to help students make inferences about things, people, actions, events, places, etc. Advanced organizers are organizational frameworks presented in before learning to help emphasize the essential ideas that the teacher plans to cover in a lesson or unit. The types of organizers might include: expository, narrative, graphic, or even skimming a reading. |
