Instructional Strategies
Oracy in the Classroom: Strategies for Effective Talk
Discussion guidelines:
- Always respect each other's ideas.
- Be prepared to change your mind.
- Come to a shared agreement.
- Clarify, challenge, summarize, and build on each other's ideas.
- Invite someone to contribute by asking a question.
- Show proof of listening.
Discussion roles:
For additional helpful ideas, go to Edutopia and read the entire article.
Research-Based Instructional Strategies
SOURCE: Dennis Fox, (2014) Observation: Ensuring quality instructional strategies, Leadership, 43(4) 29.
Three important stages of the lesson are:
- Opening the Lesson
- Delivering the Lesson
- Closing the Lesson
1. Opening the Lesson
- Activates students' prior knowledge, as related to the learning goal
- Identifies a clear learning goal
- Engages and motivates students for the targeted learning
- Establishes the relevance and importance of the targeted learning
- Provides advance organizers for the targeted learning
2. Delivering the Lesson (Transmitting Declarative and Procedural Knowledge)
- Adjusts instruction based on student learning
- Aligns curriculum, instruction and assessment to the learning goal
- Asks higher-level thinking questions
- Assigns tasks that require student interaction and/or collaborative learning
- Checks for understanding and monitors learning
- Gives students time to think before answering questions
- Provides frequent feedback to students
- Provides opportunities for guided and independent practice
- Provides opportunities for student to reflect on and/or summarize their learning
- Scaffolds complex concepts and processes into manageable "chunks"
- Uses a variety of instructional strategies to engage all students
3. Closing the lesson
- Acknowledges students' effort and achievement, as related to the learning goal
- Assesses students' learning, as related to the learning goal
- Provides an opportunity for students to reflect on and/or summarize their learning, as related to the learning goal
- Reviews the lesson's learning goal