5 Teaching Strategies to Engage Your Students

I have found the best way to engage learners is to make it real for them. The five teaching strategies listed below offer varying levels of independence and exploration for kids. And really, it makes teaching so much more fun to see kids fired up as they make connections in their learning. 

1. Cooperative Learning/Group Investigations

Characteristics

A teaching activity in which the teacher purposively uses small group interaction to forward new learning and accomplish academic and social skills.

My Recommendations

Groups should be flexible, ideally, 3-5 students, created by a teacher, students, or needs-based. It's important to set group standards and have students self-reflect on their participation and the group's function.

Benefits: Collaboration among students; deeper thinking and understanding; enhanced feelings of empathy for others.

2. Differentiated Instruction

Characteristics

Student-centered, whereby teachers provide appropriately challenging learning experiences for all students. Provides multiple approaches to content, process, and product. Assessment is ongoing to develop the next steps. Purposeful student movement/talking. Flexible grouping.

My Recommendations

Students become engaged learners when they are appropriately challenged with meaningful lessons. This method creates a reasonable range of approaches to learning much of the time so that most of the students find learning a fit most of the time.

Benefits: Students take responsibility for their own growth/needs. Collaboration between teacher/students ongoing to develop appropriate lessons. Builds on what students already know.

3. Simulation/Role Playing

Characteristics

Simulation: An inductive teaching method in which students assume the roles of people engaged in complex, real-life situations. 

Role Play: The involvement of students as participants and observers in a simulation of a real-world situation.

My Recommendations

Students learning best by emulating real life. Simulation is an effective method for making real-world situations, past or present, come to life for students as they become part of the event. Role-playing is fairly easy to employ and can be used across multiple subject areas with a fairly quick preparation time, depending on the complexity of the task.

Simulation Benefits: The increased likelihood that concepts and principles induced from the simulation will be transferred and applied to the real world. 

Role-Playing Benefits: Growth and understanding related to content; students' understanding of others' beliefs and values; problem-solving skills.

4. Inquiry-based Learning

Characteristics

An inductive teaching strategy in which the teacher poses a task, problem, or intriguing situation, while students explore the situation across small changes in the data set and generate insights about the problem and/or solution.

My Recommendations

Inquiry-based learning uses real-life issues with real-life data to solve problems. Closed inquiry gives the teacher control of the question. Open inquiry gives control of the question to the students. 

Benefits: Increased self-awareness; awareness of different points of view; enhanced curiosity; increased understanding of concepts and principles; enhanced ability to solve problems.

5. Creative Problem Solving & Problem-Based Learning

Characteristics

An inductive teaching method in which the teacher presents an ill-structured, novel, and complex problem for students to investigate and solve collaboratively with teacher guidance and coaching.

My Recommendations

This would be the most ambitious method but allows for the most autonomy for the students. Because of the problem's ill-structured nature, data and resources may not be readily available, creating additional challenges. The teacher is truly a mentor or consultant, as students follow a scientific method approach to problem-solving.

Benefits: Acquisition of new knowledge, concepts, and principles; enhanced problem-solving ability.

I created a copy of 5 Classroom Teaching Strategies as a handy teacher reference sheet, which you can get right here. 

I'd love to hear how you use these strategies in your classroom!

"No practice is truly a best practice unless it works for the individual learner." Carol Ann Tomlinson