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Do your homework

Thandi Banda

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Help your students succeed in exams with these targeted and teacher-tested homework strategies

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Source: © Natalia Smu/Shutterstock

Targeted homework tasks can be a student’s (and their teacher’s) best friend when it comes to exam performance

Homework plays a vital role in consolidating in-class learning. Effective science homework provides the extension to learning that students need to succeed, and gives us vital data to inform our planning. An EEF study on the impact of homework in secondary schools  says that regular homework can have the same positive effect as five additional months in the classroom, as well as ‘enabling pupils to undertake independent learning to practise and consolidate skills and revise for exams’. That said, getting students to complete homework is no mean feat.

There are multiple strategies we can implement to ensure homework has meaning and students appreciate the benefits of homework in their learning. This is especially useful when they’re preparing for exams.

Strategies to engage your students

A few strategies have worked well for me with exam classes.

I deliver the homework in chunks (eg half termly), clearly explaining the rationale. As an example, my year 11 chemistry students performed poorly on electrolysis and titration calculation in their mock exams so, after reteaching, I wanted to ensure they rehearsed the concepts. As part of the homework they had to repeat tasks on these concepts. We then reviewed and adjusted the plan as a class to focus on their weaker areas.

I give praise often. Students love rewards in whatever form. I always discuss what rewards the class prefers. You can use stickers, certificates, etc.

It’s important to be flexible. An exam year can be a stressful time for students and so flexibility is key. I ask my students about the minimum they could manage. They feel valued and part of the decision-making process, making them more likely to complete it.

Identify students/parents/carers who need support. With some of my students, I had the most success in this area by meeting with or emailing their parents/carers and providing strategies for completion, such as doing the homework every Saturday at a specific time. An email every so often to check how they are doing goes a long way.

Using online platforms

When I was a faculty lead, homework was a key focus for our department and so we did some research into online retrieval platforms which were easy to manage, self-marking and provided both students and teachers with information on learning gaps. We found several platforms to fit our criteria, such as quizzing platforms,  Kay Science  – great for missed learning catch up, revision and intervention for small groups – and  Carousel – that helps students embed long-term knowledge. We then took a few key steps to increase buy-in.

Often students struggled with passwords, regardless of ease, so we booked laptops for all classes and the teacher modelled logging in, and checked every student could log in and complete a task. At times students would say they didn’t know the answers, but often this was because they’d not watched the videos. So we reminded them to do that first. There was also a short video of how to log in on the school’s homework platform for extra support.

We mapped homework to the curriculum. Students had to be familiar with the content, so homework tasks supplemented in-class learning.

We did everything we could to minimise barriers. All students who had a record of incomplete homework were encouraged to attend homework club and we allowed extensions in case they just forgot. The barriers to completing homework varied between households and sometimes a conversation to identify them and offer support was all that was needed.

The senior leadership team knew what platform we were using, so they could discuss it with all students, parents and governors. We also presented the chosen retrieval platform to parents and carers to increase buy-in.

Over time we noticed a spike in submissions as students got more familiar with the platform. Teachers praised students who showed the most progress, which meant previously disengaged students felt successful and motivated to complete more tasks.

Thandi Banda

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Smart Classroom Management

A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1

So for the next two weeks I’m going to outline a homework plan–four strategies this week, four the next–aimed at making homework a simple yet effective process.

Let’s get started.

Homework Strategies 1-4

The key to homework success is to eliminate all the obstacles—and excuses—that get in the way of students getting it done.

Add leverage and some delicately placed peer pressure to the mix, and not getting homework back from every student will be a rare occurrence.

Here is how to do it.

1. Assign what students already know.

Most teachers struggle with homework because they misunderstand the narrow purpose of homework, which is to practice what has already been learned. Meaning, you should only assign homework your students fully understand and are able to do by themselves.

Therefore, the skills needed to complete the evening’s homework must be thoroughly taught during the school day. If your students can’t prove to you that they’re able to do the work without assistance, then you shouldn’t assign it.

It isn’t fair to your students—or their parents—to have to sit at the dinner table trying to figure out what you should have taught them during the day.

2. Don’t involve parents.

Homework is an agreement between you and your students. Parents shouldn’t be involved. If parents want to sit with their child while he or she does the homework, great. But it shouldn’t be an expectation or a requirement of them. Otherwise, you hand students a ready-made excuse for not doing it.

You should tell parents at back-to-school night, “I got it covered. If ever your child doesn’t understand the homework, it’s on me. Just send me a note and I’ll take care of it.”

Holding yourself accountable is not only a reminder that your lessons need to be spot on, but parents will love you for it and be more likely to make sure homework gets done every night. And for negligent parents? It’s best for their children in particular to make homework a teacher/student-only agreement.

3. Review and then ask one important question.

Set aside a few minutes before the end of the school day to review the assigned homework. Have your students pull out the work, allow them to ask final clarifying questions, and have them check to make sure they have the materials they need.

And then ask one important question: “Is there anyone, for any reason, who will not be able to turn in their homework in the morning? I want to know now rather than find out about it in the morning.”

There are two reasons for this question.

First, the more leverage you have with students, and the more they admire and respect you , the more they’ll hate disappointing you. This alone can be a powerful incentive for students to complete homework.

Second, it’s important to eliminate every excuse so that the only answer students can give for not doing it is that they just didn’t care. This sets up the confrontation strategy you’ll be using the next morning.

4. Confront students on the spot.

One of your key routines should be entering the classroom in the morning.

As part of this routine, ask your students to place their homework in the top left-hand (or right-hand) corner of their desk before beginning a daily independent assignment—reading, bellwork , whatever it may be.

During the next five to ten minutes, walk around the room and check homework–don’t collect it. Have a copy of the answers (if applicable) with you and glance at every assignment.

You don’t have to check every answer or read every portion of the assignment. Just enough to know that it was completed as expected. If it’s math, I like to pick out three or four problems that represent the main thrust of the lesson from the day before.

It should take just seconds to check most students.

Remember, homework is the practice of something they already know how to do. Therefore, you shouldn’t find more than a small percentage of wrong answers–if any. If you see more than this, then you know your lesson was less than effective, and you’ll have to reteach

If you find an assignment that is incomplete or not completed at all, confront that student on the spot .

Call them on it.

The day before, you presented a first-class lesson and gave your students every opportunity to buzz through their homework confidently that evening. You did your part, but they didn’t do theirs. It’s an affront to the excellence you strive for as a class, and you deserve an explanation.

It doesn’t matter what he or she says in response to your pointed questions, and there is no reason to humiliate or give the student the third degree. What is important is that you make your students accountable to you, to themselves, and to their classmates.

A gentle explanation of why they don’t have their homework is a strong motivator for even the most jaded students to get their homework completed.

The personal leverage you carry–that critical trusting rapport you have with your students–combined with the always lurking peer pressure is a powerful force. Not using it is like teaching with your hands tied behind your back.

Homework Strategies 5-8

Next week we’ll cover the final four homework strategies . They’re critical to getting homework back every day in a way that is painless for you and meaningful for your students.

I hope you’ll tune in.

If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

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20 thoughts on “A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1”

Good stuff, Michael. A lot of teachers I train and coach are surprised (and skeptical) at first when I make the same point you make about NOT involving parents. But it’s right on based on my experience as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator the past 17 years. More important, it’s validated by Martin Haberman’s 40 years of research on what separates “star” teachers from “quitter/failure” teachers ( http://www.habermanfoundation.org/Book.aspx?sm=c1 )

I love the articles about “homework”. in the past I feel that it is difficuty for collecting homework. I will try your plan next year.

I think you’ll be happy with it, Sendy!

How do you confront students who do not have their homework completed?

You state in your book to let consequences do their job and to never confront students, only tell them the rule broken and consequence.

I want to make sure I do not go against that rule, but also hold students accountable for not completing their work. What should I say to them?

They are two different things. Homework is not part of your classroom management plan.

Hi Michael,

I’m a first-year middle school teacher at a private school with very small class sizes (eight to fourteen students per class). While I love this homework policy, I feel discouraged about confronting middle schoolers publicly regarding incomplete homework. My motive would never be to humiliate my students, yet I can name a few who would go home thinking their lives were over if I did confront them in front of their peers. Do you have any ideas of how to best go about incomplete homework confrontation with middle school students?

The idea isn’t in any way to humiliate students, but to hold them accountable for doing their homework. Parts one and two represent my best recommendation.:)

I believe that Homework is a vital part of students learning.

I’m still a student–in a classroom management class. So I have no experience with this, but I’m having to plan a procedure for my class. What about teacher sitting at desk and calling student one at a time to bring folder while everyone is doing bellwork or whatever their procedure is? That way 1) it would be a long walk for the ones who didn’t do the work :), and 2) it would be more private. What are your thoughts on that? Thanks. 🙂

I’m not sure I understand your question. Would you mind emailing me with more detail? I’m happy to help.

I think what you talked about is great. How do you feel about flipping a lesson? My school is pretty big on it, though I haven’t done it yet. Basically, for homework, the teacher assigns a video or some other kind of media of brand new instruction. Students teach themselves and take a mini quiz at the end to show they understand the new topic. Then the next day in the classroom, the teacher reinforces the lesson and the class period is spent practicing with the teacher present for clarification. I haven’t tried it yet because as a first year teacher I haven’t had enough time to make or find instructional videos and quizzes, and because I’m afraid half of my students will not do their homework and the next day in class I will have to waste the time of the students who did their homework and just reteach what the video taught.

Anyway, this year, I’m trying the “Oops, I forgot my homework” form for students to fill out every time they forget their homework. It keeps them accountable and helps me keep better track of who is missing what. Once they complete it, I cut off the bottom portion of the form and staple it to their assignment. I keep the top copy for my records and for parent/teacher conferences.

Here is an instant digital download of the form. It’s editable in case you need different fields.

Thanks again for your blog. I love the balance you strike between rapport and respect.

Your site is a godsend for a newbie teacher! Thank you for your clear, step-by-step, approach!

I G+ your articles to my PLN all the time.

You’re welcome, TeachNich! And thank you for sharing the articles.

Hi Michael, I’m going into my first year and some people have told me to try and get parents involved as much as I can – even home visits and things like that. But my gut says that negligent parents cannot be influenced by me. Still, do you see any value in having parents initial their student’s planner every night so they stay up to date on homework assignments? I could also write them notes.

Personally, no. I’ll write about this in the future, but when you hold parents accountable for what are student responsibilities, you lighten their load and miss an opportunity to improve independence.

I am teaching at a school where students constantly don’t take work home. I rarely give homework in math but when I do it is usually something small and I still have to chase at least 7 kids down to get their homework. My way of holding them accountable is to record a homework completion grade as part of their overall grade. Is this wrong to do? Do you believe homework should never be graded for a grade and just be for practice?

No, I think marking a completion grade is a good idea.

I’ve been teaching since 2014 and we need to take special care when assigning homework. If the homework assignment is too hard, is perceived as busy work, or takes too long to complete, students might tune out and resist doing it. Never send home any assignment that students cannot do. Homework should be an extension of what students have learned in class. To ensure that homework is clear and appropriate, consider the following tips for assigning homework:

Assign homework in small units. Explain the assignment clearly. Establish a routine at the beginning of the year for how homework will be assigned. Remind students of due dates periodically. And Make sure students and parents have information regarding the policy on missed and late assignments, extra credit, and available adaptations. Establish a set routine at the beginning of the year.

Thanks Nancie L Beckett

Dear Michael,

I love your approach! Do you have any ideas for homework collection for lower grades? K-3 are not so ready for independent work first thing in the morning, so I do not necessarily have time to check then; but it is vitally important to me to teach the integrity of completing work on time.

Also, I used to want parents involved in homework but my thinking has really changed, and your comments confirm it!

Hi Meredith,

I’ll be sure and write about this topic in an upcoming article (or work it into an article). 🙂

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teaching homework strategies

Teaching with Homework

Introduction

The debate of whether or not schools assign too much homework has been around for about as long as schools have. Over the years, experts have changed their opinions about whether schools should lower or raise the number of assignments they give, leaving teachers often confused. Recently many schools have banned homework altogether, but many other schools stand firmly against this practice. Those against excess allotment assert that it could lead to unhealthy stress levels and sleep deprivation, especially for older students. However, older students are the ones that reap the most benefits from the practice. Homework does ultimately create extra work for teachers to grade and for parents to help, but are the student-learning benefits strong enough to outweigh all else?

Nearly every school in the world has assigned some form of homework to its students. As a result, plenty of articles, studies, and activities exist to provide educators with the best strategies.

Lesson Plan

  • Why Do Homework : McGill University provides this packet of ten lesson plans, teaching students the importance of completing homework. The first lesson introduces the benefits of completing assignments, and includes a contract and journal. Each lesson plan references a set of worksheets that teachers can use to keep track of their lessons, and to distribute to their students. With these lessons, kids can better understand the purposes of their work and further motivate themselves at home.
  • Improving Assignments : Education World provides this short lesson plan intended for grades 5-12. This plan allows teachers to take student input into account by opening up discussions on the effectiveness of homework assignments. Teachers can use this lesson halfway through or towards the end of the school year to gain adequate feedback from their students. Allowing students to feel partially in control of their assignments through lesson plans like this one can motivate them in the future.
  • Learning to Be Your Own Coach : This plan from the New York Times’ Learning Network offers a plan for teaching students self-sufficiency in completing assignments. The page includes a warm-up, activity, and blurb entailing strategies for going further. It also provides links to resources including worksheets and case studies that teachers can use in addition to the activity. 
  • The Cult of Homework : The Atlantic published this article addressing the debate of homework allotment. Many researchers suggest a strong correlation between homework and better performances on tests among older students. This finding fits with the commonly cited “10-minute rule,” which suggests that educators should assign about 10 minutes of homework per night, per grade level, giving a first grader 10 minutes per night, 20 minutes for a second grader, and so on. The article also examines the other side of the argument, citing countries such as Japan and Denmark, which it says perform better academically than the United States and assign less work.
  • How Homework Can Boost Learning : Forbes provides this incredibly insightful article about distributing homework in grade schools. The article tackles different perspectives about the issue, taking into account the different ways that teachers can assign and the effects on different groups of students. The author acknowledges low-income and less-educated families, citing research that finds a positive correlation between such assignments and student performance. With such families, homework allows parents opportunities to become more involved in their children’s schoolwork. Researchers find that homework as a whole improves performance among middle and high schools, but not elementary schools. However, similar studies have found that math practice proves more effective in helping elementary schoolers than any other age group. In turn, teachers should consider carefully how the types of tasks they are appointing are affecting each of their students.
  • Is Banning Homework a Good Idea? In this article, McRel International’s Howard Pitler responds to a recent policy at a Quebec elementary school, banning homework. The author goes on to discuss whether or not schools should be banning such assignments. He references four pieces of advice for teachers when assigning, and with these strategies, acknowledges the influence of parental pressure for teachers to give out more chores. Many parents view assignments as a way to show rigor. As a result, teachers can feel tempted to assign students “busy work.” Pitler provides yet another list of strategies for teachers to deal with this kind of pressure and make the best of the students’ homework time.

Informational Sites

  • Research Spotlight on Homework : National Education Association’s (NEA’s) page blueprints the best homework practices in education. This page assesses the different studies conducted, suggesting that educators “ take into account grade-specific and developmental factors when determining the amount and kind of homework.” The article weighs both sides of the debate, citing several studies throughout, and includes helpful references and related links surrounding the issue. This source does a good job of presenting the homework debate from a very neutral point of view. Educators can use this resource to gain a better understanding of the issue before picking a stance.
  • Effective Practices : Reading Rockets writers Kathy Ruhl and Charles Hughes comprised this article based on research on teaching practices with students with learning disabilities. In the article, Ruhl and Hughes outline the most and least effective practices when assigning homework. The article addresses homework’s four innate purposes: practice, preparation, studying, and elaboration. This article provides insight for teachers on how, what, and when to assign.
  • Designing Meaningful Assignments : The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development details the difficulty of finding a balance when addressing different student needs when assigning homework. Teachers should avoid issuing dull, or busywork, but such a feat proves harder than expected. This article provides tips and insight for teachers in assigning more meaningful work that can most improve a student’s learning. These strategies encourage teachers to empower their students’ with creativity and freedom, further motivating the students to take charge of their own education.

Homework’s purpose is to reinforce classroom topics, but oftentimes shortened classes can interrupt such protocol. Many claim that introducing topics for homework can put pressure on parents and marginalize less educated families. But these tasks can also teach students lessons in responsibility and self-sufficiency. Overall, teachers should find a healthy balance of work and cater it towards their students’ ages. After all, many of them are still kids.

Additional Resources

  • Developing Good Habits : Mali Anderson from Parents.com offers six strategies for laying a foundation for children’s good study habits. Parents and educators need to find a balance of control by sitting students down to do their homework, but leaving them to complete it on their own. This resource is intended for parents and educators of younger students. Educators can share this resource with parents in order to improve students’ habits and performances on assignments. 
  • Should Students Have Homework? : Suzanne Tingley from Western Governors University criticizes homework practices in America. With the type of assignments that most teachers allot, she cites, assignments do not necessarily develop students’ mastery in a topic, but rather train them for tackling standardized tests. The article suggests that schools do not necessarily need to assign nightly, but feel pressured to because it is “what [schools] have always done. She encourages teachers to think carefully about their policies, praising the quality of lessons over the quantity.
  • The School That Banned Homework : The Washington Post covered this story, checking in on a Vermont elementary school that banned homework six months earlier. The school reported positive results and even found that kids are reading more on their own now than they did when teachers assigned them readings. Educators can look to this school’s approach when considering whether or not to lessen the influx of assignments on their students. With the trend of lowering homework levels gaining in popularity in recent years, it is important that educators learn about the schools whose policies succeeded.

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Homework strategies for teachers.

teaching homework strategies

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Teaching strategies, the top 4 homework strategies for teachers, 20 february 2022/ by zineb djoub.

What are the most effective homework strategies for teachers?

I still remember those days I felt frustrated because most of my students did do the homework. As they were looking at me dolefully, I knew there was something wrong. Though I’ve always tried to set useful homework and spent time designing valuable activities, I felt that my students were not that motivated to do them.

Because homework is a vital part of learning, I decided to change the way I approach it, from merely setting tasks about my lessons to making those tasks more engaging and motivating to my students.

Here are 4 effective homework strategies for teachers. These will support you to create homework that is stimulating and provocative.

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#1. Make homework relevant

Students need to see the value of homework so that they devote their time and effort to doing it. Therefore, it’s necessary to communicate the aims behind each homework you assign. Holding a class discussion can help you find out their opinions about homework and raise their awareness of how much it can accelerate learning.

Yet, such awareness-raising may not suffice if students are not benefiting from homework.

To that end, your assignment should not be used as a punishment but rather as a stimulus for students to learn more outside school.

Besides, for students to do and benefit from the work it’s important to make the right selection of tasks.

So, creating homework requires planning and considering students’ learning needs and interests. It’s not a last-minute decision we make just to nudge students to work outside class. Even when assigning activities from the coursebook, we should be more selective about what works best for them.

Making this deliberate decision will show your students the value of homework and motivate them to do it.

But, what kind of tasks to assign to make homework more relevant to students’ learning?

Homework is meant to reinforce what students have learned in class. So, tasks need to provide more practice, and reflection, and foster understanding and mastery of a given concept/topic/skill.

Also, its tasks need to help cater to students’ learning needs, providing them with more opportunities to work on the learning materials covered in class. So, knowing about your students’ needs (through monitoring classwork, observing and talking to them, etc.) you can vary homework tasks for different students.

Homework is also a tool to extend students’ learning in class. Tasks can be more challenging; involving students in research or inquiry to find and solve problems, discover something new, analyze and evaluate existing information, create something, etc.

So, homework can be an effective tool to enhance students’ higher-order thinking .

In addition, students are likely to value homework when it encourages them to take responsibility : to have certain choices to decide what works best for them.

Therefore, from time to time give your students some choices within the homework. They can, for instance, choose from a set of tasks to do, the topics to work on, the kind of performance they prefer and fits their needs (written, oral presentation, creating a video, a poster, etc.).

You can also make homework an opportunity for students to collaborate and learn from and through others. Students can have the chance to meet outside class, work in groups, and write homework as a joint effort. Working with partners can make such a task more relevant and motivating for students.

#2. Make homework fun and engaging

It’s so necessary to create homework our students will benefit from, but sustaining their interest and motivation in doing it is also required. Therefore, homework should involve students in doing things that they enjoy.

Finding out about students’ learning preferences through questionnaires, classroom discussions, observations , can help you create more motivating, worthwhile, and enjoyable homework tasks.

So, think about your students’ interests: what do they like to do outside class (reading, watching movies, going out with friends, etc.)? Do they like to work with partners? What kind of homework tasks do they prefer most?

Hence, taking those preferences into account when deciding on the work students can do outside class does not mean ignoring the lesson objectives or the intended learning outcomes. Instead, it’s about designing valuable activities that motivate students to work beyond that classroom context.

So, to make your homework more fun and engaging:

  • Include new, different, unfamiliar, or unexpected homework tasks.
  • Connect homework tasks to topics/things/materials students already find interesting or hold in esteem.
  • Encourage students’ self-expression, sharing of experiences, and everyday life concerns.
  • Foster students’ creativity. Students enjoy using their imagination for creating, for example, make-believe stories, videos, sketches, suggesting handy solutions to particular issues, and acting out pretend plays.
  • Allow competing to add more excitement to homework.
  • Besides varying your homework tasks and personalizing them, set them differently. Send them via email to students or post them on your class blog. You can also write out homework tasks on slips of paper and place them in envelopes, one for each student. Deliver them containing the homework instructions in class. Tell students to open the envelopes at home (Painter, 2010).
  • As stated before providing some choices within your homework will help students make conscious decisions about what works for them and so engage them in doing the work.
  • Invite students to create a homework task for their class. Be sure to clarify the aim and learning expectations.

#3. Make homework manageable

As Sharon Bobbitt (1998) wrote: “Homework is meant to be a positive experience which encourages children to learn”. So, it needn’t only be relevant and engaging, but also manageable in terms of time.

For this purpose, you need to be mindful of the number of homework tasks you assign as well as the frequency of doing so. Even if you have created motivating and relevant tasks, too much homework is likely to be tedious for your students.

So, if you want them to do homework and learn from it, focus on the most important tasks for their needs and interests and avoid assigning homework for each lesson.

To facilitate homework completion and boost your students’ productivity in such a process, here are some tips:

  • Ask your students to keep an exercise book only for homework. They can leave the first page blank where they write down in class the task’s type, aims, data, and times of completing it.
  • Provide them with a checklist that includes a set of goals about the homework at hand. This will help you identify their areas of difficulty while doing it.
  • Help them organize their own learning tim e outside class. Encourage them to make their homework plan indicating the time and days when they will work. Also, ask them to consider tips for themselves and share with others what works for them. You can add your ideas and advice as well.
  • Reward ‘best homeworkers’, those students who have completed tasks and succeeded in overcoming their learning difficulties.

#4. Monitor and give positive feedback

Feedback is a motivational tool for students to keep doing their homework. It’s necessary, therefore, to provide positive feedback that supports them to learn from homework tasks. This means your feedback needs to help students identify their progress and areas of weakness.

To do so, consider the way you’re correcting and communicating feedback. This is through:

  • Clarifying the aims of each homework you assign and what you expect from students.
  • Explaining the assessment criteria upon which you’re assessing the work.
  • Giving more descriptive comments highlighting students’ strengths and weaknesses, asking them questions, and expecting to get their responses in class. For example: “y ou have trouble with …….. Do you have an issue with understanding……….?” .
  • Use homework as a tool to monitor students’ learning . Devote time to check homework (mainly during small group instruction) and invite students to ask questions.
  • Keep your homework log of what students are doing in homework. This will help you provide the necessary support and guidance.
  • Encourage students to reflect on the work they’ve done and on their achievements. Discuss with them what you’ve noticed (improvement, difficulties, etc.) and listen to their concerns.

This is my new approach and homework strategies for teachers. Use them with your students and collect enough information from them to know how they find your homework. Then, make clear decisions to set more effective homework tasks. Your students will learn a lot from your homework.

Painter, L.(2010). Homework. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Robbitt, S.(ed.).(1998). Helping your students with homework: A guide for teachers. Washington.D.C: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S.Department of Education.

For more homework strategies for teachers read: Helping your students with homework by By Nancy Paulu.

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What is Social-Emotional Learning?

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING

What is social-emotional learning.

The objective of education is no longer limited to maximizing academic achievements, but it also includes developing students to become good citizens, promoting their physical, emotional, and economic well-being, and inculcating skills and attitudes that encourage lifelong learning. Social-emotional learning factors (e.g., student-teacher social interactions, classroom climate, and peer group) can affect students’ learning.

6 Essential Teaching Skills

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

6 essential teaching skills you need.

Teaching is not only a matter of mastering a given subject and having certain qualities such as self-confidence, passion, and enthusiasm. But, it’s also about abilities or skills to optimize students’ learning achievement. Indeed, effective teaching depends to a larger extent on actual practice or what goes inside the classroom. So, teaching skills remain a key determinant of the learning outcomes.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Proactive classroom management strategies.

To maximize learning opportunities, it is necessary to build a positive learning community where every student feels safe, supported, and motivated to learn. This may seem hard to attain with the different discipline issues teachers face in the classroom. Not only are these rendering learning difficult, but also leading to teacher burnout. So, to prevent the occurrence of problem behaviours, teachers need to use proactive classroom management.

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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.

See Also: Non-Associative Learning

  • The teacher presents students with rhyming pairs to help a student associate one word with another. This can be effective in teaching vocabulary.
  • When attempting to recall a fact, you can try to reflect on where you were and what else you were talking about when that fact was first introduced to you.

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.

list of teaching strategies

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/ 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
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 17 Adversity Examples (And How to Overcome Them)

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

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

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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!

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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.

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

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No Series: Efficient & Meaningful Homework Review

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Efficient & Meaningful Homework Review

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

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Thought starters

  • What are the advantages of using this homework routine?
  • How does this process encourage student accountability?
  • Notice how the use of small groups increases both the efficiency and effectiveness of reviewing homework.?

24 Comments

Private message to Maria Gonzalez Aguilera

Maria Gonzalez ... Nov 17, 2020 10:51pm

I really enjoyed the video and how you have the student do peer homework. I agree with this video it does teach the students to be accountable and responsible but they also learn new ways that they might find easy or less complex to get the correct answers. although my questions what would you do to prevent from students not doing the homework routine? 

Private message to Cheryl Tomlin

Cheryl Tomlin Jul 5, 2020 5:14pm

This sounds like a great strategy for making homework more meaningful and helpful in learning and retaining the skills practiced. Question: How do you prevent students from not doing their homework, and using the time in class when they are supposed to be reviewing their answers to copy from their classmates? We have a huge cheating problem at my high school, so I'd love to hear some ideas! 

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Andre Clark Sep 25, 2017 4:59pm

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Bryce Jensen May 5, 2017 1:19am

  • Transcript: Efficient & Meaningful Homework Review

Transcripts

Interviewer: Okay, so you have your homework out from last night?

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: So please take a few moments to go over it at your tables.

Every time they come into my class, they come in the same way. That is, they come in, they write down the homework, and they take out last night’s homework and begin to compare their work. They look over their homework so they’re comparing answers, and if there’s ever a disagreement, then they work together to come to an agreement if there is one right answer. If not, they’re just sharing their strategies. Then, after a few minutes of doing that, I’ll take questions, any outstanding questions that they may have.

Interviewee: You could’ve picked whichever of them make, takes or adds.

Interviewer: Or adds, exactly. That’s how I started by saying that there is more than one answer.

For the most part, they tend to resolve things in their group, but often there are questions at the end, and so I’ll take those as a whole class. It makes the homework meaningful and not just “Something I have to do every night and my teacher collects and does I don’t know what with it.” It keeps them accountable to each other. It also keeps the rest of the class from not having to listen to the one person who has the one question and the other 20 of us have to sit there and listen and watch me go over something they already understand.

[End of Audio 01:21]

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25 Effective Instructional Strategies For Educators

Engage, assess and motivate students with these 25 easy-to-use instructional strategies for any discipline

teaching homework strategies

Christine Persaud

25 Effective Instructional Strategies For Educators

Instructional strategies refer to the techniques instructors use to deliver their lessons. Effective instructional strategies—also known as teaching strategies—help students become actively involved in the learning process. When done right, instructional strategies also support students in reaching their learning objectives. 

By reading the guide below ( our downloading this free list of instructional strategies ), you’ll gain a solid understanding of the various types of teaching strategies, why they’re important and how they can be applied to the learning process to benefit both professors and students.

In this guide, you’ll:

  • Learn what instructional strategies are, and the various strategies educators can use to teach more effectively
  • Gain a deeper understanding of how instructional strategies for teachers—including formal and informal assessments, case studies, debates, flipped classrooms and more—play into the overall student learning experience
  • Get equipped to implement instructional strategies that are appropriate for your course in order to become more effective at teaching and engaging students
  • Get access to a free instructional strategies list , packed with 25 easy-to-implement exercises for your next course

With this collection of teaching strategies, you’ll be ready to guide students towards success in any classroom setting. Plus, putting a few of these techniques into practice will ensure students come to class prepared to engage with the material, with their peers and with you.

Table of contents

  • What are instructional strategies?
  • What’s the difference between instructional strategies, teaching strategies, teaching techniques and teaching practices?
  • Types of instructional or teaching strategies
  • Active learning instructional strategies and teaching strategy examples
  • Assessment-based instructional strategies
  • Group teaching techniques
  • Teaching strategy examples for advanced students
  • Organizational instructional strategies
  • Tiered instructional strategies

1. What are instructional strategies?

Instructional strategies encompass any type of learning technique a teacher uses to help students learn or gain a better understanding of the course material. They allow teachers to make the learning experience more fun and practical and can also encourage students to take more of an active role in their education. The objective of using instructional strategies beyond subject comprehension is to create students who are independent, strategic learners. The hope is, with time and practice, students will be able to select the right strategies on their own and use them effectively to complete tasks.

There are various instructional strategy examples that can be used effectively at all levels and subject areas, with a wide range of learning styles. These learning strategies motivate students by improving their engagement, capturing their attention and encouraging them to focus on not only remembering course material, but truly understanding it.

Educators who use instructional strategies allow students to make meaningful connections between concepts learned in class and real-life situations. They offer an opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge and course correct on their own when needed. Teachers also benefit from using instructional strategies because they’re able to better monitor and assess student performance through different methods of evaluation.

2. What’s the difference between instructional strategies, teaching strategies, teaching techniques and teaching practices?

In the dynamic landscape of higher education, understanding the nuances between instructional strategies, teaching strategies, teaching techniques, and teaching practices is crucial for educators aiming to enhance their pedagogical approach. Instructional strategies encompass a broader framework, outlining the overarching plans and methods employed to facilitate learning. These strategies guide the selection of teaching methods and techniques, serving as the foundation for effective educational practices. On the other hand, teaching strategies delve into the specific approaches instructors use to convey information and engage students. These strategies act as the vehicles through which instructional goals are achieved, embracing diverse methodologies such as collaborative learning, active participation, and technology integration.

Zooming in further, teaching techniques are the tactical tools and methods employed within a specific teaching strategy. These are the hands-on practices educators implement to deliver content, foster understanding, and promote critical thinking. Examples include case studies, role-playing, and interactive discussions. Finally, teaching practices encompass the comprehensive application of instructional, teaching, and technical strategies in the classroom. It reflects the amalgamation of various methods tailored to the unique needs of learners and the subject matter. By dissecting these components, higher education professors can refine their pedagogical repertoire, fostering a rich and dynamic learning environment for their students.

3. Types of instructional or teaching strategies

There are far too many types of instructional or teaching strategies to catalog in one place. And there’s no single, specific way to group them together. While the categories below are by no means exhaustive, instructional strategies often fall under general groupings. These include: active learning , assessment-based , group-based , advanced strategies , organizational (or classroom management) and tiered .

4. Active learning instructional strategies and teaching strategy examples

4.1. exit tickets.

Before students leave your learning environment, ask them to answer a question related to a key concept discussed in the lesson that day. They can write it down on a piece of paper or index card. Questions can be simple, like asking students what they found most interesting about the lesson. Or, they can be more complex, such as having them draw a sketch that demonstrates what they learned, or asking them to connect the key concept they learned to a real-life situation. Have students hand the ‘tickets ‘ to you as they exit (or have them submit a response to your discussion board), then review the responses.

The feedback can help educators determine which students need additional teaching in specific areas. Using this approach, teachers gain a quick understanding of how the whole class is grasping and reacting to the material.

Use the information from the exit tickets to form groups in the class that follows. Place students at similar levels of understanding, or who have similar views on a topic, together. Conversely, group students with opposing views together in order to foster debate and conversation. Learn more about the types of exit tickets you can use in your next course—download an exit ticket template here .

4.2. Flipped classrooms

Regardless of where you teach, flipping your classroom is one of the most popular forms of active learning and among the most well-known instructional strategies. Instead of using classroom time for lecturing, educators provide students with a pre-recorded lecture to watch prior to class. They’re often concise, posted to sites like YouTube, or presented in the form of a podcast that students can listen to at home or during their commute. Educators can then use classroom time to engage students in learning activities related to the lecture they’ve already seen or heard.

Flipped classrooms are an effective teaching technique because they allow students to review and learn concepts on their own time. Students are then free to complete more interactive and collaborative work in class, including discussions and tasks with their peers and teacher. They can also collaborate and discuss material online, via forum discussions with peers and subject matter experts. In class, students can actively apply concepts via peer learning, group work, and presentations.

Flipped learning helps keep students continuously engaged in class instead of just passively listening. And it makes good use of downtime by allowing students to combine a workout or commute time with further learning, when it’s most convenient for them. Built to enable this strategy, Top Hat makes it simple to adopt a flipped classroom —simply run quizzes prior to your lecture and create interactive discussions for students to collaborate during class time.

Looking for more? Get 25 additional instructional strategies in this free guide .

4.3. Journals and learning logs

This instructional strategy lets students record their thoughts, feelings and reflections on a variety of topics. Journal entries could refer to something discussed in your lecture, or they can allow students to reflect on a relevant newspaper article or piece of media they came across. Journals can also be used for getting students to think critically about the course material and how it can be applied to the real world. This activity lets students make predictions, brainstorm ideas, connect ideas and even identify solutions to problems presented in class.

You might consider using the following prompts in advance of a journaling assignment to promote higher-level thinking. At the start of a lesson, you might ask, “What questions do you have from yesterday?” During the middle of a lesson, ask, “What do you want to know more about?” At the end of your lesson, ask, “How could you use these findings outside of class?” Encourage students to note any thoughts that come to mind at these three points. At the end of the semester, their journal can form the foundation of a more comprehensive study guide.

4.4. Minute papers

Pose a question about the day’s teaching, and give students a moment to reflect before writing down their answer on their own or in pairs. The responses can provide valuable insight into student comprehension of the material.

Minute papers can be presented in a number of ways, but the easiest is a “ticket out,” whereby educators wrap up class a few minutes early. (We saw this earlier in our instructional strategies list, under ‘exit ticket’ ). They then ask students to answer what the most important thing they learned today was and what questions they still have. The first question requires students to think quickly, recall class material, decide on the main points, and put it into their own words. For the second, they must think further about what they’ve understood thus far.

Teachers can use the responses to determine how well students understand the material. Minute papers can also help students understand where their own learning gaps are. Once this is realized, both students and teachers can identify and address weaknesses.

4.5. Muddiest point

The ‘muddiest point’ is another active learning instructional strategy. This activity asks students to use index cards (or an app), to anonymously submit what part(s) of the course material they’re having the most difficulty with. Educators can then use the responses to determine where extra instruction is needed and adjust lessons accordingly.

Alternatively, these topics can be addressed during student review sessions. Ask students to identify topics they feel they need clarification on and consolidate these into a list. Then get each student to select a term from the list they feel they can explain to the rest of the class.

Cross it off the list, and move on to the next. By the end, it will be easy to see which concepts students are having the most issues with by process of elimination. And if terms haven’t been selected, they are being avoided for a reason. Naturally, students will pick the terms they are most comfortable with.

Use that information to devise more instructor-led sessions on the concepts that most students are confused about, or that require more clarification, to eventually complete the entire list.

4.6. Reflection

Hand out blank index cards or a pre-designed worksheet at the end of a class session and ask students to use them to submit a response to a question about the day’s lesson. Alternatively, ask students to submit a discussion board response. The reflection prompt could be simple, like asking what they learned, or what they found the most interesting. Or, you can make your prompt more application-based, like asking them to connect what they learned to a real-life situation, or telling them to explain why what they learned is important.

The purpose of reflection is to encourage students to consider what they have learned. Like a number of other instructional strategies in this list, it also gives the teacher an idea of where students stand on a topic or issue so they can use this information to help better prepare for the next lesson. The added benefit is that having students express these thoughts on paper can result in better memory retention.

To drive this strategy in higher education, Top Hat’s interactive discussions make it easy for students to reflect on what was covered in class. Allow students to discuss concepts with their peers, with the ability to grade discussions as desired.

4.7. Think-pair-share

This active learning technique is another of the best-known instructional strategies. After presenting a lesson, pause the lecture for a moment to ask students to pair up with a partner. Have them discuss the material they just learned. Prepare questions, and, once they’ve had some time to discuss with their partner(s), get students to take turns presenting their observations to the rest of the class.

Make the question challenging, such that it could spark debate between the grouped or paired students. Give them just a few minutes to talk amongst themselves and come to a collective conclusion.

Think-pair-share can work especially well for the first few lessons of a class, keeping students on their toes and interested in the material that is to come. But it can also help recapture student enthusiasm near the middle of a term, reminding students that they aren’t alone in their learning and that others share their views or concerns, and that there are different perspectives to support an issue that are worth considering beyond their own.

5. Assessment-based instructional strategies

5.1. assessment.

One of the most used instructional strategies, assessments are considered any graded test, quiz, project, or exam. Informal checks of student progress throughout the year, such as discussions or presentations, can be included too. There are many different assessment-based instructional strategies (and a few follow in this group).

In general, there are various ways to run assessments and different ways to adapt them to class time. These include: asking certain groups of students to only complete specific parts of a test, allowing students to respond orally versus in writing, or asking students to demonstrate what they’ve learned in a more hands-on way, like building something or drawing a diagram.

The most critical thing to remember with assessments is to try and stay focused on evaluating the concept that’s most important for the student to grasp. This might mean your assessments have to be more practical. Asking a student to put the learning to work and actually do something can be a far better indicator of what they know than simple written or oral answers.

One tip is to include test or quiz questions that vary in complexity, and focus on different aspects of a concept. You could include one question mandatory for responding, but allow students to choose which ones they want to answer among the remaining ones.

→ Download Now: 25 Free Instructional Strategies

5.2. Cubing

“Cubing” is a version of the above. It involves writing a command or question on each of the six sides of a cube, then having students roll the cube like a die and respond to the question or command accordingly.

The questions can relate to describing, comparing, contrasting, applying, predicting or imagining concepts. Get students even more involved in this cooperative learning activity by having them come up with their own questions that they then exchange with classmates, taking turns to answer.

Take it to another level by creating multiple cubes with questions of varying levels of complexity. Assign students to work in groups—have each group of students write or dictate their answers to the questions on their cube. Use the data to determine which students should work on which concepts come assignment time.

5.3. Grade as you go

This instructional strategy is ideal for subjects that involve repetitive practices and rote memorization, such as mathematics and language. Have students work on assignments either alone or in pairs, checking and marking their work.

This teaching technique is motivational because students instantly know if they’re on the right track, allowing them to gauge their achievement level. But it also helps students immediately correct something they’re doing wrong. Once they identify the mistakes, they can translate that learning to subsequent questions, instead of completing the entire assignment incorrectly.

Instructional strategies such as ‘Grade As You Go’ also help educators pinpoint students who have a superior grasp of the material, allowing them to move on to a more challenging assignment.

By the time the assignment is completed, it’s far more likely that the entire class will be ready to move on to the next concept or skill. And since grades have already been given, it reduces after-class grading time for teachers. Put this strategy into practice this fall by relying on the Top Hat Gradebook . This comprehensive tool lets you view attendance, participation and completion data in one place and makes it easy to retroactively adjust grade weights as needed.

5.4. Homework practice

The purpose of homework , as one of the numerous assessment-based instructional strategies, is to extend learning beyond the classroom setting. Homework gives students extra time to master concepts studied in class and further refine their learning. To use this effectively, assign homework based on the student’s skill level, ensuring it aligns with the areas they need more practice in.

The amount and complexity of homework varies depending on subject and level. Students should be able to complete homework independently, with minimal involvement from tutors or peers. If they can’t, it should serve as a red flag to both the student and educator.

Built to enable this strategy, Top Hat makes it easy to create, personalize and assign interactive homework assignments . Choose from a variety of question types including fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice and embed discussion questions throughout your assessments.

5.5. Questions and quizzes

Question-asking is among the simplest of the instructional strategies, but it can still be strategically complex. The simplest way to gauge student understanding of course material is to ask them questions about it. During group discussions, pose several questions of varying complexity so that everyone has a chance to respond, including both those who are experiencing difficulties with the class, as well as those who are mastering the concepts. Strategically adjust the questions you ask based on who you plan to call upon. This helps build student confidence and ensures the class runs smoothly.

Timing is important, too. When the class starts, or there’s a pause between concepts or topics, you can administer a quick quiz or poll to get an understanding of how far along students are in their learning. In order to effectively assess comprehension, it’s best to not attach a grade to this activity. Students will inevitably worry if the quiz is going to impact their overall grade for the class. Platforms like Kahoot! can be used to facilitate informal games or trivia sessions at the start of class, setting the stage for what’s to follow in your lecture.

Use technology like clickers to administer things like multiple choice quizzes that can be tabulated immediately for large classes, with questions that challenge or check an assumption before a lecture begins. Then, administer the same or a similar quiz at the end of class, and compare the results.

Educators can determine how effective the lesson was and see if they need to revisit the subject matter again, or can confidently move on to the next topic.

6. Group teaching techniques

6.1. case studies.

Case studies, as instructional strategies or teaching techniques, are more spontaneous than structured group projects. But this is a good thing. It helps prepare students for when they enter the workforce, where problem solving on the fly is an essential skill. In a practical work environment, students can’t just do what they’re told and expect to succeed. Case studies can help prepare them for life after college or university.

To use case studies, put students into groups and task them with finding a way to apply the knowledge they’ve acquired from reading course materials and listening to lectures into real-world scenarios that match your assigned content area(s).

In a classroom setting, working on case studies encourages students to think critically about what they’ve learned, not just recite points back to the class.

6.2. Debates

Instructional strategies like these work as a structured form of argumentation. Debates require students to research concepts and think critically in order to present their positions in a convincing and justifiable way.

Most fitting for concepts with opposing points of view, debates help students develop listening and presentation skills. Once presented in class, having a debate can also introduce new perspectives on topics, and convince students to conduct further research in order to build stronger arguments, or intelligently counter those of the opposing side.

6.3. Peer instruction

With the teacher’s guidance, students can prepare and present course material in class, encouraging interaction with peers. Try to do this without the use of slides as an aid, so students have to communicate more with classmates and discover more creative ways to present the material.

It’s best to do these kinds of student-led instructional strategies at the beginning of a class, so students can teach one another about what they know, sharing their knowledge and experiences that relate to course material.

6.4. Role play

The use of simulations and games in your instructional toolkit can give you a deeper look at the impact of learning, as well as demonstrate how students can invent and experiment with learned concepts. Role playing also offers students a chance to practice their interpersonal skills in an environment in which they are comfortable and familiar.

Having the opportunity to visualize, model or role play in dynamic situations promotes curiosity, exploration and problem solving. It can aid students in working towards a greater understanding of the material. The more ways that students have of representing the knowledge they’ve acquired beyond writing and oral explanation, the better their comprehension and recall of the information will be.

In math and science fields, for example, students can experiment with simulated projects that would otherwise be difficult or cost-prohibitive to do in real settings. Examples include: designing a model of a roller coaster to understand slopes, angles and speed; using a hard-boiled egg to demonstrate Newton’s Law of Motion; or building a model volcano to understand what makes them erupt.

7. Teaching strategies examples for advanced students

7.1. curriculum compacting.

These instructional strategies encourage educators to identify students who already have advanced knowledge of a subject, skill or concept so they can spend less time on these areas. Curriculum compacting frees students up to focus more on the areas where they need to develop a greater understanding, versus concepts with which they’re already proficient. It’s ideal when working with individual students or small groups.

7.2. Independent study project

If students appear to be ahead of the class, assign them independent study projects. These projects should allow them to focus on a single concept around material discussed in class. They can also work on a separate but related topic for which they’ve expressed an interest or passion, making this an inquiry-based learning exercise.

Once the project is completed, the student can share what he or she learned with the class, demonstrating their mastery of the concept, and further educating the rest of the class on a specific area or example.

Independent study projects usually run anywhere from three to four weeks.

8. Organizational instructional strategies

8.1. agendas.

An agenda sets out a comprehensive list of the assignments, activities, projects and tests students are responsible for working on and completing throughout the year, along with a timeline for each. Students can decide how they want to complete the work and in what order. Do they want to focus on one area of learning for an entire week? Do they want to tackle the subject matter they’re most comfortable with first, or start with more difficult concepts? In addition to encouraging students to come up with a structure they can follow, agendas help them practice time management skills.

To get going, provide each student with a blank calendar to fill in with their own schedule, ensuring they’ve organized work in order to meet assignment and project due dates. If different students are working on the same part of an assignment at the same time, consider allowing them to work together during class. Take on the role of a facilitator here, helping students set reasonable deadlines according to their needs.

8.2. Anchor activities

Also referred to as ‘sponge’ activities, anchor activities are assignments that students must work on immediately in order to maximize instruction time. They can complete these activities at the beginning of every class or right after, but the idea is to keep the learning and educational process going.

Anchor activities might include the student revisiting a question posed in the previous day’s class and composing a response to it, or presenting and discussing an answer out loud to a partner. Another option could be drawing a picture to represent a concept they just learned, or writing down an opinion about a key issue. This instructional strategy for teachers can also be used to provide students with notes as a reference when they’re studying for exams.

Be mindful of anchor activities that are simply ‘busy work’ to pass the time. Just as a sponge soaks up water, the goal of anchor activities is to help students soak up a better understanding of a concept or skill.

8.3. Knowledge charts

Before delving into a new topic or concept, have students submit what they already know, what they want to know and what they’ve learned already. Then, assess their prior knowledge on the subject, and get a feel for how interested they are in a topic.

Knowledge charts, as instructional tools, can also be used at various times to see how students are progressing, and if their interest in the topic is waning or growing. In filling out these graphic organizers, teachers can get an idea of where students are at academically. Students themselves can gauge their own progress and see where more work is needed.

8.4. Learning contracts

Another one of the several instructional strategies aimed at more advanced students is the learning contract. Use it to help students who need to be challenged by providing a specific assignment and list of directives that they must complete within a set period of time. Work with the student to set out the requirements of the contract, and provide a blank calendar they can use to devise a doable timeline, determining what dates and times they need in order to complete different parts of the assignment. 

This is an effective instructional strategy to help students set their own learning goals and practice time management skills—both of which are useful in the working world. Once the contract and timeline are set, encourage students who are working on the same parts of the assignment at the same time to work together.

8.5. Portfolio development

Portfolios allow students to gather, organize and illustrate examples of their learning and academic achievements. Portfolio development is the process of creating, collecting, reflecting on and selecting work samples that best showcase students’ understanding of a given concept. Once students select their top pieces that best represent their learning outcomes, they can then use a binder or scrapbook to organize their work.

Work samples kept in a portfolio might include notes from an interview, a diagram, storyboards, essays, infographics and more. Portfolio development is a necessary and effective process for most humanities and STEM majors. Art students can use a portfolio to curate their top pieces—whether paintings, drawings or photographs—at the end of the semester. Alternatively, students in architecture or engineering courses can use a portfolio to house mockups and wireframes of a new building or the parts of an engine. No two students’ portfolios will include the same work since these differ based on discipline and course.

9. Tiered instructional strategies

9.1. tiered activities.

Set up three or four activities of varying complexity for students to participate in. Each should have the same common goal of helping students understand a specific element of the subject material. For example, it might be different experiments that all explain the basic concept of physics.

Start with a mid-level activity that would apply to most students in the class, then include one that’s a step-up in difficulty to challenge students with a better understanding of the material. Alternatively, offer a simplified version for students who are still working to gain a full understanding of the concept.

Place students in groups based on their perceived level, or give a brief description of each of the assignments and let them choose which level they feel most comfortable working in. Once completed, discuss and compare the results.

By the end of this collaborative exercise, each group will have a greater understanding of the material. If students are able to choose which group they join, the teacher will also get a feel for the comfort level of each student.

9.2. Tiered rubrics

Present a couple of rubrics (scoring guides) to students, based on their current level, so they have the skills needed in order to better focus and be successful in class.

The rubrics should all contain the same basic categories, but the point value or required elements should be adjusted based on the student’s readiness. For students equipped to take on greater challenges, add more categories or requirements. Conversely, remove some requirements and/or categories for students who need more assistance, or haven’t quite grasped the material just yet.

10. Conclusion

In exploring various types of instructional strategies, you’ll find that there’s something to suit every type of student level, subject and lecture format. When applied effectively, instructional strategies for teaching can help students gain a deeper understanding of course material and encourage critical thinking, beyond basic retention and surface understanding. Educators, too, can benefit by using different teaching methods throughout the semester to determine the efficacy of lesson plans, and how every student is progressing through each concept.

Download our free instructional strategies guide , filled with 25 effective activities and best practices to use in any college course.

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The role of homework

Homework seems to be an accepted part of teachers’ and students’ routines, but there is little mention of it in ELT literature.

teaching homework strategies

The role of homework is hardly mentioned in the majority of general ELT texts or training courses, suggesting that there is little question as to its value even if the resulting workload is time-consuming. However, there is clearly room for discussion of homework policies and practices particularly now that technology has made so many more resources available to learners outside the classroom.

Reasons for homework

  • Attitudes to homework
  • Effective homework
  • Types of homework
  • Homework is expected by students, teachers, parents and institutions.
  • Homework reinforces and helps learners to retain information taught in the classroom as well as increasing their general understanding of the language.
  • Homework develops study habits and independent learning. It also encourages learners to acquire resources such as dictionaries and grammar reference books. Research shows that homework also benefits factual knowledge, self-discipline, attitudes to learning and problem-solving skills.
  • Homework offers opportunities for extensive activities in the receptive skills which there may not be time for in the classroom. It may also be an integral part of ongoing learning such as project work and the use of a graded reader.
  • Homework provides continuity between lessons. It may be used to consolidate classwork, but also for preparation for the next lesson.
  • Homework may be used to shift repetitive, mechanical, time-consuming tasks out of the classroom.
  • Homework bridges the gap between school and home. Students, teachers and parents can monitor progress. The institution can involve parents in the learning process.
  • Homework can be a useful assessment tool, as part of continual or portfolio assessment.

Attitudes to homework Teachers tend to have mixed feelings about homework. While recognising the advantages, they observe negative attitudes and poor performance from students. Marking and giving useful feedback on homework can take up a large proportion of a teacher’s time, often after school hours.

  • Students themselves complain that the homework they are given is boring or pointless, referring to homework tasks that consist of studying for tests, doing workbook exercises, finishing incomplete classwork, memorising lists of vocabulary and writing compositions. Where this is actually the case, the negative effects of homework can be observed, typified by loss of interest and a view of homework as a form of punishment.
  • Other negative effects of poorly managed homework include lack of necessary leisure time and an increased differential between high and low achievers. These problems are often the cause of avoidance techniques such as completing homework tasks in class, collaborating and copying or simply not doing the required tasks. In turn, conflict may arise between learners, teachers, parents and the institution.

Effective homework In order for homework to be effective, certain principles should be observed.

  • Students should see the usefulness of homework. Teachers should explain the purpose both of homework in general and of individual tasks.
  • Tasks should be relevant, interesting and varied.
  • Good classroom practice also applies to homework. Tasks should be manageable but achievable.
  • Different tasks may be assigned to different ability groups. Individual learning styles should be taken into account.
  • Homework should be manageable in terms of time as well as level of difficulty. Teachers should remember that students are often given homework in other subjects and that there is a need for coordination to avoid overload. A homework diary, kept by the learner but checked by teachers and parents is a useful tool in this respect.
  • Homework is rarely co-ordinated within the curriculum as a whole, but should at least be incorporated into an overall scheme of work and be considered in lesson planning.
  • Homework tends to focus on a written product. There is no reason why this should be the case, other than that there is visible evidence that the task has been done.
  • Learner involvement and motivation may be increased by encouraging students to contribute ideas for homework and possibly design their own tasks. The teacher also needs to know how much time the students have, what facilities they have at home, and what their preferences are. A simple questionnaire will provide this data.
  • While homework should consolidate classwork, it should not replicate it. Home is the outside world and tasks which are nearer to real-life use of language are appropriate.
  • If homework is set, it must be assessed in some way, and feedback given. While marking by the teacher is sometimes necessary, peer and self-assessment can encourage learner independence as well as reducing the teacher’s workload. Motivating students to do homework is an ongoing process, and encouragement may be given by commenting and asking questions either verbally or in written form in order to demonstrate interest on the teacher’s part, particularly in the case of self-study and project work.

Types of homework There are a number of categories of useful and practicable homework tasks.

  • Workbook-based tasks Most published course materials include a workbook or practice book, mainly including consolidation exercises, short reading texts and an answer key. Most workbooks claim to be suitable for both class and self-study use, but are better used at home in order to achieve a separation of what is done in class and at home. Mechanical practice is thus shifted out of class hours, while this kind of exercise is particularly suited to peer- or self-checking and correction.
  • Preparation tasks Rarely do teachers ask learners to read through the next unit of a coursebook, though there are advantages in involving students in the lesson plan and having them know what is coming. More motivating, however, is asking students to find and bring materials such as photographs and pictures, magazine articles and realia which are relevant to the next topic, particularly where personalisation or relevance to the local context requires adaptation of course materials.
  • Extensive tasks Much can be gained from the use of graded readers, which now often have accompanying audio material, radio and TV broadcasts, podcasts and songs. Sometimes tasks need to be set as guidance, but learners also need to be encouraged to read, listen and watch for pleasure. What is important is that learners share their experiences in class. Extensive reading and listening may be accompanied by dictionary work and a thematic or personalised vocabulary notebook, whereby learners can collect language which they feel is useful.
  • Guided discovery tasks Whereas classroom teaching often involves eliciting language patterns and rules from learners, there is also the option of asking learners to notice language and make deductions for themselves at home. This leads to the sharing of knowledge and even peer teaching in the classroom.
  • Real-world tasks These involve seeing, hearing and putting language to use in realistic contexts. Reading magazines, watching TV, going to the cinema and listening to songs are obvious examples, offering the option of writing summaries and reviews as follow-up activities. Technology facilitates chat and friendship networks, while even in monolingual environments, walking down a shopping street noticing shop and brand names will reveal a lot of language. As with extensive tasks, it is important for learners to share their experiences, and perhaps to collect them in a formal or informal portfolio.
  • Project work It is a good idea to have a class or individual projects running over a period of time. Projects may be based on topics from a coursebook, the locality, interests and hobbies or selected individually. Project work needs to be guided in terms of where to find resources and monitored regularly, the outcome being a substantial piece of work at the end of a course or term of which the learner can claim ownership.

Conclusion Finally, a word about the Internet. The Web appears to offer a wealth of opportunity for self-study. Certainly reference resources make project work easier and more enjoyable, but cutting and pasting can also be seen as an easy option, requiring little originality or understanding. Conferring over homework tasks by email can be positive or negative, though chatting with an English-speaking friend is to be encouraged, as is searching for visual materials. Both teachers and learners are guilty of trawling the Net for practice exercises, some of which are untried, untested and dubious in terms of quality. Learners need guidance, and a starting point is to provide a short list of reliable sites such as the British Council's  LearnEnglish  and the BBC's Learning English  which provide a huge variety of exercises and activities as well as links to other reliable sources. Further reading Cooper, H. Synthesis of Research on Homework . Educational Leadership 47/3, 1989 North, S. and Pillay, H. Homework: re-examining the routin e. ELT Journal 56/2, April 2002 Painter, L. Homework . English Teaching Professional, Issue 10, 1999 Painter, L. Homework . OUP Resource Books for Teachers, 2003

First published in October 2007

Mr. Steve Darn I liked your…

Mr. Steve Darn I liked your method of the role of the homework . Well, I am one of those laggard people. Unfortunately, when it comes to homework, I definitely do it. Because, a student or pupil who understands new topics, of course, does his homework to know how much he understands the new topic. I also completely agree with all of Steve Darn's points above. However, sometimes teachers give a lot of riff-raff homework, just like homework is a human obligation. This is a plus. But in my opinion, first of all, it is necessary to divide the time properly, and then to do many tasks at home. Only then will you become an "excellent student" in the eyes of the teacher. Although we live in the age of technology, there are still some people who do not know how to send homework via email. Some foreign teachers ask to send tasks by email. Constant email updates require time and, in rare cases, a fee. My above points have been the cause of constant discussions.

  • Log in or register to post comments

exam and certificate

Setting homework, busy work or homework, setting homework.

I could not agree more!

Homeworks are an excellent way to revise and learn.

However, students are not likely to accept homeworks. That is why, as you claimed, the homeworks need to be useful, to have purpose.

I like your idea of ,, Real-world tasks,, since they definitely involve their background knowledge and such a type of homework is interesting and contemporary!

I totally agree. I am one of those teachers who give a lot of homework, and sometimes pupils don't like it. But homework help a lot. I mostly prefer project works, especially to upper levels.

I want to learn more about upper English specially law and business English all terms and words that we can use when we are making business.

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Browse fascinating case studies, research papers, publications and books by researchers and ELT experts from around the world.

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Teaching Students About Systems Thinking

These strategies guide students to explore the interconnected parts of complex systems like the human body, governments, and ecosystems.

Illustrated blocks

Our world is interconnected and complex. As a result, our students need to move beyond fragmented ways of thinking, which look at problems in isolation or focus on short-term solutions. By developing our students to be systems thinkers, we can enable them to see patterns and organize their learning both inside and outside of school.

Let’s break this idea down by first describing what we mean by a system. Generally speaking, a system is a group of interconnected elements that are organized for a function or a purpose. System elements, or parts, may be physical or intangible things.

Importantly, system parts are interdependent. A change in one element can produce change within the entire system. This means systems are nonlinear. When consequences occur, they’re not isolated. They ripple through a system. Systems we encounter daily include the human body, cities, governments, social networks, and the Earth’s climate.

To give a narrative example, in Dr. Seuss’s well-known book The Lorax , the parts of the system are things like the water, air, Truffula Fruits, Brown Bar-ba-loots, and Humming-Fish, as well as the Once-ler’s greed and desire for economic growth above all else. Imagine if the Once-ler had truly understood how his behaviors impacted the Truffula Tree ecosystem, including the sustainability of his own Thneed production. His inability to think holistically led not only to a range of negative environmental consequences, but also to the collapse of his own business. 

In a global issue such as plastic pollution, system parts may include crude oil production, plastic manufacturing, companies, consumers, wastewater, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Systems thinking helps students manage complexity

Systems thinking is a mindset as well as a set of tools that enables students to recognize and understand relationships and interconnectedness. It’s an ability to toggle between the parts and the whole of a system to understand how interactions produce negative or positive behaviors. 

Systems thinking supports our students to understand the complexity of the world and manage its uncertainty, especially in a time of increased globalization; it is an essential component of critical thinking that teachers can apply across the curriculum. For example, using systems thinking, students can do the following:

  • Chart character development in a piece of literature with behavior-over-time graphs
  • Map nonlinear causes and consequences of historical or political conflicts
  • Understand the relationships between parts of a cell, as well as between cells, organs, and body systems
  • Analyze and take action on real-world issues, such as global warming, poverty, or overfishing

Teachers, curriculum coordinators, and school leaders can also use systems thinking tools, such as Agency by Design’s Mapping Systems protocol , to better understand the way parts of our educational system connect to produce positive or negative outcomes for students, such as lower attendance, higher referrals to learning interventions, or increased mental health issues.   

Fostering systems thinking as critical thinking

There are a number of ways teachers can facilitate systems thinking in the classroom. By slightly shifting how we interact with students—our questions or thinking prompts—we can promote “thinking in systems.”

Question with intention: Knowing we want to move away from “A leads to B” linear thinking, we can intentionally ask questions that encourage students to reflect on multiple parts of a system and how they connect. Instead of asking, “What caused this?” which communicates that there is a single cause, we can instead ask, “What factors contributed to this?” allowing students to search for multiple causes and nonlinear relationships.

Take a helicopter view: Toggling between the details and the big picture is an important systems thinking skill and one of the habits of a systems thinker . When looking at a situation, event, or particular issue, encourage students to discuss systems as a whole. For example, in the classroom we may create a circle, where each student represents a system part and makes connections with a ball of string. Students name how they connect to another system part as they toss the ball of string to one another, with each student retaining some of the string as they pass the ball around. At the end, students can see the interconnectedness of parts by gently tugging on the yarn and seeing who is affected.

Encourage pattern recognition: We want students to see the web of interconnections within systems and recognize how systems connect to other systems. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for instance, we saw how health systems impacted transportation and the economy, leading to certain goods being unavailable. By asking, “What’s this got to do with that?” we nudge students to go both deep and wide in an investigation.

Strategies for Teaching systems thinking

Many strategies for systems thinking encourage students to visualize and create “system pictures.” Because of the high degree of interaction within systems, many strategies invite students to map connections in nonlinear ways. Here are some concrete strategies we can use in the classroom.

Connected circles: In this strategy, a circle represents a particular system, and the parts of the system are written around the outside. Using a case study such as an article, video, or real-life experience, students chart connections across the parts of the circle, writing the relationship between parts on the connector line. A connected circles template can be modified for any system that students will explore.

Systems models: After researching a system such as a tropical rainforest or coral reef, students create a systems model using divergent physical materials, e.g. Lego, magnetic tiles, wooden blocks, paper, cotton balls, shells, stones, etc. After making representations of the system and its parts, students annotate the model with sticky notes, arrows, etc. to show relationships between them. This may also include inputs and outputs of the system. For example, sunlight and carbon dioxide go into the rainforest (inputs), and oxygen and water vapor come out (outputs).

Games and simulations: Matthew Farber has written extensively about the use of constructionist gaming to promote thinking about complex systems. He shows how making and thinking come together to allow students to play with systems. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop also writes about the role of digital learning to promote understanding of systemic causes in young children. 

By inviting students to play with and explore systems thinking tools, we enable them to see structures and patterns within and across the content areas. Such engagements can empower students to find solutions to local, global, and intercultural issues that may have previously seemed unsolvable.

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  1. 4 Tips to Build an Efficient Everyday Homework Strategy

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  2. Homework: The Good and The Bad

    teaching homework strategies

  3. Best Strategies for Tackling Homework

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  4. Homework chart, Teaching strategies, School help

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  5. Homework strategies from teachers

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  6. 4 Ways To Create a Winning Homework Strategy

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VIDEO

  1. EFFECTIVE TEACHING STRATEGIES

  2. teaching homework and test problems

COMMENTS

  1. PDF Practice and Homework Effective Teaching Strategies

    Practice and homework are effective instructional strategies to help students retain content. All classrooms contain students with diverse learning styles. To guarantee mastery and retention of new learning for all students, teachers should use several variations of practice and homework.

  2. Effective strategies for homework success

    Strategies to engage your students A few strategies have worked well for me with exam classes. I deliver the homework in chunks (eg half termly), clearly explaining the rationale.

  3. Five Homework Strategies for Teaching Students With Learning

    Strategy 1. Give clear and appropriate assignments Teachers need to take special care when assigning homework. If the homework assignment is too hard, is perceived as busy work, or takes too long to complete, students might tune out and resist doing it. Never send home any assignment that students cannot do.

  4. A Simple, Effective Homework Plan For Teachers: Part 1

    1. Assign what students already know. Most teachers struggle with homework because they misunderstand the narrow purpose of homework, which is to practice what has already been learned. Meaning, you should only assign homework your students fully understand and are able to do by themselves.

  5. PDF Homework Teaching Strategies

    Everything has a place and purpose. Teachers do not give tests or quizzes to students because they want to see them suffer and struggle. This same principle applies to homework. A teacher does not thrive on the power given to them by seeing their students struggling to accomplish their homework.

  6. Better Homework: Three Proven Strategies

    Spaced repetition Typically a teacher presents an entire lesson, students take notes and complete class work, and then they do homework to reinforce learning. Once the lesson is over, the student may not need the information again until an exam.

  7. Effective Practices for Homework

    A review of the research on the effective use of homework for students with learning disabilities suggests that there are three big ideas for teachers to remember: (1) the best use of homework is to build proficiency in recently acquired skills or to maintain skills previously mastered; (2) homework should be individualized; and (3) teachers should evaluate homework and provide detailed ...

  8. How to Help Students Develop the Skills They Need to Complete Homework

    For students who struggle with getting homework done, at first they may not actually do homework; rather, they practice the routines of setting up and getting started. ... Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas ...

  9. Teaching with Homework

    Resources Nearly every school in the world has assigned some form of homework to its students. As a result, plenty of articles, studies, and activities exist to provide educators with the best strategies. Lesson Plan Why Do Homework: McGill University provides this packet of ten lesson plans, teaching students the importance of completing homework.

  10. PDF Increasing the Effectiveness of Homework for All Learners in the ...

    Introduction Homework is often a contentious issue for students, parents, and teach-ers. When utilized properly, homework can be a valuable tool for reinforcing learning that takes place in the classroom. Unfortunately, many teachers do not School Community Journal, 2013, Vol. 23, No. 1 169 use homework efectively.

  11. Homework Strategies for Teachers

    #1. Make homework relevant Students need to see the value of homework so that they devote their time and effort to doing it. Therefore, it's necessary to communicate the aims behind each homework you assign.

  12. Homework

    Clearly setting out the aims of homework to pupils. Understanding and addressing any barriers to completion, such as access to a learning device or resources. Explicitly teaching independent learning strategies. Providing high-quality feedback to improve pupil learning. Monitoring the impact homework on pupil engagement, progress and attainment.

  13. Homework challenges and strategies

    Try creating a homework schedule and set a specific time and place for your child to get homework done. Use a timer to help your child stay on track and get a better sense of time. Learn about trouble with planning. The challenge: Studying effectively Many kids need to be taught how to study effectively. But some may need concrete strategies.

  14. List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)

    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. Benefits

  15. PDF Marzano's 9 Strategies for Effective Teaching

    Marzano's Nine Instructional Strategies for Effective Teaching and Learning. Researchers at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) have identified nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement across all content areas and across all grade levels. 1. Identifying Similarities and Differences.

  16. Dr. Ken Shore: Homework Strategies

    Homework Strategies Homework is a frequent source of tension between teachers and students. For most teachers, homework is both a way to reinforce academic skills and an opportunity to teach children to be independent learners. For many students, however, homework is an unpleasant burden to be avoided, forgotten, or raced through.

  17. Making Homework Meaningful For Students

    Make homework meaningful for your students with this easy teaching strategy. By getting students to be responsible to each other, homework serves a purpose bigger than just making the teacher happy.

  18. Teacher-Selected Strategies for Improving Homework Completion

    Three strategies resulted in significant increases in homework completion: (a) giving students real-life assignments (i.e., assignments that connected homework to events or activities in the home) plus reinforcements, (b) using homework planners, and (c) graphing homework completion.

  19. 25 Effective Instructional Strategies For Educators

    Blog Post Subscribe to the Top Hat Blog Join more than 10,000 educators. Get articles with higher ed trends, teaching tips and expert advice delivered straight to your inbox. Engage, assess and motivate students with these 25 easy-to-use teaching strategies for any discipline. Get started today!

  20. The role of homework

    Homework provides continuity between lessons. It may be used to consolidate classwork, but also for preparation for the next lesson. Homework may be used to shift repetitive, mechanical, time-consuming tasks out of the classroom. Homework bridges the gap between school and home. Students, teachers and parents can monitor progress.

  21. 10 Powerful Ways to End Your Lessons

    Teaching Strategies. 10 Powerful Ways to End Your Lessons. ... While cleaning up and going over homework assignments often take up those final moments of class time, effective closing activities allow you to make better use of them by checking for understanding, correcting misunderstandings, and putting a little fun into the process to motivate ...

  22. PDF ED452628 2001-03-00 Five Homework Strategies for Teaching ...

    STRATEGY 1. GIVE CLEAR AND APPROPRIATE ASSIGNMENTS Teachers need to take special care when assigning homework. If the homework assignment is too hard, is perceived as busy work, or takes too long to complete, students might tune out and resist doing it. Never send home any assignment that students cannot do.

  23. Teaching K-12 Students About Systems Thinking

    Take a helicopter view: Toggling between the details and the big picture is an important systems thinking skill and one of the habits of a systems thinker.When looking at a situation, event, or particular issue, encourage students to discuss systems as a whole. For example, in the classroom we may create a circle, where each student represents a system part and makes connections with a ball of ...