Instructional+Strategies


 * Instructional Strategies**—there are thousands of different strategies. The goal of an IS is to enable learning, to motivate the learners, to engage them in learning, to help them focus. There is NO one best strategy and there is NO wrong strategy. It is important to vary your instruction to not only keep the students' interest but to allow them to interact with your content in a variety of ways.

Links to Explore: Constructivism: [|Knowledge Building in the Secondary Classroom Instructional Strategies]

Inquiry: What is "i[|nquiry learning]"? from the //Centre for Learning in Learning//, CLL, McMaster UniversityTeaching 'Inquiry' involves engaging students in the research process with instructor support and coaching at a level appropriate to their starting skills, Students learn discipline specific content but in doing so, engage and refine their inquiry skills. What would an inquiry course look like?  [|University of Maryland Teaching Resource Guide]: An excellent pdf resource for many instructional strategies & assessment strategies
 * Is question driven, rather than topic or thesis driven
 * Begins with a general theme to act as a starting point or trigger for learning
 * Emphasizes asking good researchable questions on the theme, and coaches students in doing this
 * Builds library, interview, and web search skills, along with the critical thinking skills necessary for thoughtful review of the information. Coaches students on how to best report their learning in oral or written form.
 * Provides some mechanism (interviews, drafts, minutes of group meetings, bench mark activities, etc.) to help students monitor their progress within the course.
 * Draws on the expertise and knowledge of the instructor to model effective inquiry and to promote reflection.

Read: [|Getting Acquainted with the Essential Nine (Marzano)] Read [|Instructional Practices that Work (Marzano)]to collect and add to your repertoire of instructional ideas, examples provided

[|Cooperative Learning/Collaborative Teaching/Peer Teaching] (Ohio State University) Excellent strategies based on //Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education, Volumes I and II//, published by the National Center for Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (1993-94),

[|Jigsaw]

University of Illinois: [|Four Corners] (from University of Illinois)

[|Interviews] with professors at the U of Illinois sharing their experiences using specific instructional strategies.

[|Effective Questioning Techniques]

Discussion Question:
 * //“How can we come to better understand the vast array of instructional strategies? What is the advantage of concentrating on a few selected IS that are coherent with our TPS and then gradually expanding our repertoire of IS? What is the advantage for the student in our use of an (appropriate) range of IS?”//**


 * //Be sure to check the University of Regina's [|CTL (Centre for Teaching and Learning)]website for more instructional strategies and resources.//**