What Are The Core Teaching Strategies?
A child’s experiences in their early years can define their success and ability to thrive as adults in the future. While many emphasise the parents as a defining factor in child development, the classroom experience is equally important.
As qualified teachers and tutors, we know all too well that early learning experiences can build confidence and motivate young people to strive for success as they go into adulthood – but there are many things to consider.
With changing technologies, teachers must be able to deliver an effective and bespoke educational experience.
This post will reveal some of the most effective teaching strategies that we apply every day.
Cooperative Learning
Just as we tutors have unique skills and abilities, so do our students. Nobody can be good at everything, but cooperative learning is about students of varied skills and abilities working together to solve a problem or learn a theory.
Cooperative learning works with the whole class getting involved, or students are split into two groups. By expressing their opinions and listening to others, each student can become more confident and understand others.
Acting out historical stories, solving puzzles together and working on scientific experiments as a group are all excellent ways to implement cooperative learning.
Visualisation/Practical Learning
Everyone loves a school trip because it’s the chance to get out of the classroom! But while students see it as a fun day out, teachers know that school trips are the perfect learning opportunity because it’s a more practical experience.
For example, learning about the Tudors is one thing, but a trip to Hampton Court means students can visualise what life was like and become more interested in learning about the historical facts.
Other forms of visualisation and practical learning include classroom experiments, presentations and interactive whiteboards.
Differentiation
Differentiation isn’t about signalling students with special needs out but accommodating people of all abilities.
For example, one student might excel at English but struggle with Maths, so differentiating and allocating tasks based on a student’s unique needs means we can provide a bespoke learning experience.
Standard techniques include tailor-made worksheets for each student, so the more advanced learners have a challenge while others have extra support.
Technology
Let’s face it; technology has drastically changed the way we live. Today it’s common for children to have mobile phones, and the traditional whiteboard teaching method can seem old fashioned.
Technology is a part of every student’s life, so incorporating it into the classroom can motivate learners. Allowing students to use their mobile phones to research information and setting technology-themed homework assignments can engage learners more.
Enquiry Based Instruction
Problem-solving skills are central to succeeding in later life – but it requires a degree of independent thinking. The best way to get students to think out of the box is to ask questions that encourage out of the box thinking.
For example, asking someone what the capital of England is requires a one-word answer, so enquiry based instruction is less about right or wrong and more about students using introspective and retrospective thinking to come up with a solution.
You can use enquiry based instruction in any subject, and popular examples include:
- How can you contribute to green living at home?
- Will adding two odd numbers together always create an even number?
- Did Henry VIII love his wives?
When learners have the opportunity to explore a question, they understand that there are often many answers to one question.
It makes them more accepting of other people and able to navigate through difficult situations and debates with ease.
Behaviour Management
Effective behaviour management is one of the essential teaching strategies for any educator. It’s less about delivering a curriculum and more about ensuring each student has the opportunity to reach their full potential and receive the support they need.
Some students demand more attention and act out to receive it, which often means the quieter students go unnoticed – especially in large classrooms.
Every teacher needs to create an understanding with each student that disruptive behaviour won’t be tolerated and establish a discipline and reward routine. For example, younger students respond well to behaviour and achievement charts, allowing learners to gain points for good behaviour, and doing their homework means they’re more likely to cooperate.
If there’s a reward for meeting their goals, and the parents are willing to get involved, the child is more likely to perform better in the classroom.
Older students might not respond to behaviour charts, but an excellent method is to reduce the number of homework assignments for good behaviour.
Nobody likes homework, so we always find this technique is highly beneficial!
Homeschooling
A student might struggle to adapt to a classroom environment in some cases, and homeschooling can be a good option. Parents and tutors often work together to ensure the student receives bespoke support and can stay up to date with their studies.
We always recommend that parents source the expertise and support of tutors because they can create a better homeschooling programme for learners.
Becoming a Better Teacher
While all of the above learning techniques make a significant difference to students’ learning experience and help them succeed academically, we know as tutors that our professional development is central to being great teachers.
Educational policies regularly change, and it’s essential to keep up to date with them, embrace them and adapt to accommodate students.
With new technologies emerging, the teaching practices we used ten years ago are no longer relevant, but attending teacher training workshops is an excellent way to update your skills and ensure each student can flourish academically.
Whether it’s behavioural management, understanding how to support LGBTQIA students and working with learners from a wide range of cultural backgrounds, great teachers will always be willing to go the extra mile and offer each learner bespoke support.
Hopefully, this post gives you some excellent ideas of how to implement effective learning strategies. If you enjoyed reading this post, you might like: Does Poor Attendance Impact on Student Learning?