Instructional Strategies

May 7th, 2013

At our last class we got into small groups and brainstormed a list of some criteria of what quality instructional strategies look like.  Below is our list of what we felt instructional strategies should look like in a classroom:

• Engaging
• Hands-on
• Motivating
• Visuals
• Access different learning styles
• Cooperative learning
• Movement
• Investigating, discovering, uncovering
• Meaningful connections
• Real-life experiences
• Builds on prior knowledge, scaffolding
• Opportunity to demonstrate learning (number 4: homework & practice)
• Multiple intelligences (number 5: nonlinguistic representations)
• Cues, Questions, and Advanced Organizers
• Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback
• Generating and Testing Hypotheses

     We then looked at Marzano’s High Yield Strategies to see how our list compared to what research tells us is best practice.  Below you will find 3 Instructional Strategies that I routinely use in my classroom. 

     When we began talking about instructional strategies in class, it came as a surprise to me that there were so many strategies that I was using in my day to day teaching that could be considered instructional strategies.  I guess that I never took the time to really think about why I do the things that I do in my classroom, besides the fact that I was told it was best practices in teaching.  It was only when I really thought about why I do the things that I do is the moment when I learned how they are important.  Check out what instructional strategies that you use in your classroom by clicking on this link.   http://www.beesburg.com/edtools/glossary.html  Three instructional strategies that I use quite a bit in my room that I am going to be really paying attention to are Authors Chair, Balanced Literacy & Cooperative Learning. 

1.)  Authors Chair~ Authors Chair is when a student is selected to share their work (during Writer’s Workshop) with the rest of the class.  Author's Chair is an opportunity for the writer to receive positive feedback from their classmates. The student in the author's chair reads aloud a selected piece of text or a piece of their own writing. Peers then have an opportunity to respond to what is read aloud.

     According to Marzano’s High Yield Strategies, Authors Chair would yield a 29% gain because it teaches students that hard work leads to success; stimulates motivation and enhances achievement.  In my classroom, Authors Chair is a huge motivator because all of the students, no matter what their writing skill, wants to sit in the “Share Chair” and be recognized for their work.  Compared to our small group criteria, Authors Chair is very hands-on, motivating, allows for differentiation, builds upon prior knowledge, allows students to make meaningful connections and it definitely allows for opportunity to demonstrate student learning.  Overall, this strategy is highly effective in my classroom.

 2.)  Balanced Literacy~ Balanced Literacy provides and cultivates the skills of reading, writing, thinking, speaking and listening for all students. A Balanced Literacy Program includes:

• Modeled Reading (Reading Aloud) and Modeled Writing
• Shared Reading and Shared Writing
• Guided Reading and Guided Writing
• Independent Reading and Independent Writing

     According to Marzano’s High Yield Strategies, Balanced Literacy would yield a 23% gain because it establishes a direction for learning and students personalize instructional objectives.  Providing frequent feedback that is corrective in nature positively impacts student achievement.  Compared to our small group criteria, Balanced Literacy allows students to make meaningful connections, allows for differentiated learning, is investigating, discovering and uncovering and allows for scaffolding.  Overall, this strategy is highly effective in my classroom.

3.)  Cooperative Learning~ Cooperative learning is a key strategy that teachers use to support students learning to value and respect one another.  Students must learn academically while being a productive member of a small group. 

     According to Marzano’s High Yield Strategies, Cooperative Learning would yield a 27% gain because it develops positive interdependence, accountability, interpersonal skills and small-group skills and group processing.  Compared to our small group criteria, Cooperative Learning in essence is the same list that we created.  It allows for hands-on work, is motivating, engaging, it allows for movement & communication with peers, allows for students to make meaningful connections and encourages real-life experiences and allows opportunities for student learning.  I use this in my classroom everyday and find it to be very highly effective as my students are not only learning with each other, they are learning from each other. 

 

May 10th, 2013

     This week one of my assignments was to choose one new instructional strategy that I’ve never used before and try it in my classroom.  The instructional strategy that I chose to try this week is Story Starters. We are just finishing up our Backwards Design Unit on Living & non-Living things.  I put sun shaped writing books in the writing center and the students had to answer the question: What if there was no sun?  I thought that this would be a good question to see if any of the students would make the connection that plants need light.  It was interesting to see that the first 6 students that went through the writing center made no connection at all to our BD unit.  However, it seemed once one student made the connection and explained it to her partner; everyone was writing that there would be no color, no plants, no trees, no flowers...etc.  The first 3 groups didn’t seem to mind and they cheered on the others who did make the connection.  This was a good informal assessment to see who understood that plants need light to survive. 

 

May 13th, 2013

     One of our assignments this week is to use an instructional strategy that we’ve never used before.  I chose to try Admit/Exit slips.  Admit/Exit slips are a way for the student to show what he/he has learned/retained.  I used this strategy on Wednesday when I taught the last high-frequency word of the year.  The word we learned was “are”.  After showing my kids the word, we learned a song, used it in a sentence, did our movement activity with it and then on Thursday before the kids could enter the classroom they had to write it (or try to write it) on a Post-it note.  It helped me quickly access who had really learned the word and who needed a little more practice.  It was fairly effective as 17/21 students were able to write the word correctly.  Next time I would tell the kids that they are expected to be able to read it, remember it and write it for the next day. 

 

May 20th, 2013

     Again this week our assignment was to use another new instructional strategy that we have never used.  I chose to use Turn to Your Partner.  In this instructional strategy, the teacher gives directions to students.  Students formulate individual response, and then turn to a partner to share their answers.  Then the teacher calls on several random pairs to share their answers with the class.  Because this is the last week of school I wanted to know what everyone’s favorite part of the year was.  As a group we brainstormed a list of things that we experienced together this year.  When it was time, I instructed the students to turn to their partner to share what their favorite thing to do in kindergarten was.  After 1 minute or so I told them to switch.  It was fun to listen to them in their little conversations.  It was also fun to hear what they liked most about kindergarten.  After we were done, I wanted to know what they didn’t like so we did this activity again!  This strategy reminded me of Think, Pair & Share.  Not sure how highly effective this strategy was this week considering the topic.  I think that if the topic were more educational, it would yield a higher gain of understanding.  It was more of a “fun” activity that I threw in for the kids.