best teaching style essay

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The 5 most effective teaching styles (pros & cons of each), share this article.

Even though every instructor is unique, the prevalent style of teaching has changed dramatically over the past 50 years, along with the new cultural norms and technological advancements.

Educational researchers today define at least five different teaching styles on a spectrum that moves from a teacher-centered approach to a student-centered one:

Other teaching methods outside of the core five exist as well. The Spectrum of Teaching Styles in Physical Education defines 11 distinct teaching styles that can be used to coach students in schools and universities.

While most instructors can be described by a single personal model of teaching, the best ones always adjust their teaching strategies to their students and the learning process at hand.

That’s why it’s important to know what the different teaching styles are and have a clear idea of how to use them when needed.

Skip ahead:

Demonstrator

Facilitator, is one style of teaching better than others , how to adapt teaching styles to different learning styles, does classroom diversity influence my style of teaching .

5 different teaching styles to use today

A lot of educators in traditional teaching environments with decades of experience are not aware of their primary teaching style, even though their approach to teaching has a direct effect on student participation and student engagement.

Let’s explore five teaching style examples to show how broad differentiated instruction in classroom settings can be.

The lecturer style (sometimes called the formal authority style) is familiar to anyone who’s sat through long unidirectional lectures in giant university auditoriums. In this teaching style, the teacher takes up a central role and delivers information to a large group of students in a structured and organized manner. The subject matter is usually singular and predetermined. 

Because the students are many, there’s not enough room or time for personalized interactions between the teacher and the students. However, students are encouraged to take notes and ask questions at the end of each lecture. There are usually no activities planned.

An example of the Lecturer teaching style in action is when a guest speaker is invited to a school or an office to give a presentation. After the guest speaker presents the topic for an hour, they encourage students to ask questions if there’s anything they don’t understand or would like to clarify. 

Pros of the Lecturer teaching style

• It’s p ossible to teach large groups of students at once
• It’s easy to prepare lecturers
• It provides a clear structure and organization to the content
• It can be time-effective in covering a broad range of material

Cons of the Lecturer teaching style

• There’s limited student engagement and interaction 
• Students won’t be able to retain information properly because they’re not actively engaging with the lecturer
• This teaching method does not cater to diverse learning styles

Under the demonstrator style, the teacher still retains a lot of authority but is more open to trying a student-centered approach to teaching. You can see the demonstrator encouraging students to come up with problem-solving strategies, ask questions and simulate what they’ve just learned.

The demonstrator often goes beyond lectures and demonstrates concepts or skills to the students using visual aids (presentations, images, and films), hands-on activities, and practical examples. As a result, this method is applicable to more learning styles.

An example of the Demonstrator teaching style in action is when a teacher conducts a science experiment or an art workshop in the classroom. The students huddle around the demonstrator to observe and participate in the experiment or workshop. When the teacher is done with the demonstration, they encourage the students to emulate the processes that they’ve observed to create the same (or similar results). 

As the students work, the teacher is there to provide them with visual aids and multimedia to enforce concepts and principles, and answer any questions they may have regarding the project. The teacher may also encourage peer sharing and feedback, which helps students to actively engage in the learning process.

Pros of the Demonstrator teaching style

• It incorporates a variety of teaching formats
• Hands-on learning can enhance students’ understanding of the subject matter
• Visual aids and demonstrations can make concepts more memorable 
• Students can ask for immediate clarification through examples and practical applications

Cons of the Demonstrator teaching style

•  It doesn’t accommodate the needs of all students
• This teaching style may not be suitable for all subjects or topics 
• This style requires adequate resources and preparation, which can be hard if the teacher is short on time or has a low budget
• During a demonstration, there’s often no time to cover a large amount of content

The hybrid (also known as blended) style strives to strike a balance between teacher- and student-centered approaches. It also tries to integrate both traditional and modern teaching methods, which makes it a great style for adapting to the needs of diverse learners.

Most of the time, the teachers who follow the hybrid style bring their own knowledge and expertise into the class. They still have a structure for every lecture but are able to adjust their flow and come up with the right activities to keep the students engaged. A hybrid teaching style integrates lectures, demonstrations, group activities, and even technology into one learning session. 

For example, a hybrid teacher may assign online readings or videos for students to review before class.  There can also be an online discussion forum where students share insights and questions. In class, the students can build upon the online discussion with hands-on activities, group discussions, or problem-solving tasks related to the material they reviewed. 

While the hybrid approach tends to be quite effective in a variety of settings, it can make covering information-heavy courses difficult due to its slower pace.

Pros of the Hybrid teaching style

• This teaching style uses a variety of methods that cater to diverse student needs 
• It integrates traditional and modern approaches for a balanced learning experience 
• It gives teachers the flexibility to adapt to different learning preferences 
• Students remain active and engaged for longer

Cons of the Hybrid teaching style

• This teaching style requires careful planning and the coordination of different teaching elements 
• Finding the right balance between traditional and modern teaching methods may be challenging
• It’s dependent on the available resources and technology  
• It can be less focused and slow
• It requires a lot of energy from the teacher

Shifting to an even more student-centered approach, there’s the facilitator style of teaching.

Instead of giving one-directional lectures, a facilitator encourages inquiry-based learning. Students learn by thinking critically, asking questions, and discussing real-world case studies. Some other activities might be designed to improve problem-solving skills and help understand the subject matter better through practical challenges.

A great example of the Facilitator teaching style in action is a Socratic seminar, which promotes Socrates’ belief that asking questions, inquiring about things, and engaging in constructive debates are the best ways to learn. 

In a Socratic seminar, students seek a deeper understanding of complex or vague ideas through thoughtful dialogue and divergent thinking. The facilitator provides a specific topic or text for students to read through and ponder upon. Then, the facilitator poses open-ended questions to stimulate critical thinking. The students answer these questions, argue civilly for or against a motion, share ideas, and build on each other’s responses to get an all-around understanding of the topic/text.

Another example is a case study analysis, where the facilitator presents a real-life case study related to the subject matter. Then, the facilitator prompts a class discussion where students analyze the case, identify key issues, and proffer solutions. The teacher guides the discussion, encouraging critical thinking and collaboration among students. 

Pros of the Facilitator teaching style

• This teaching style helps students develop self-sufficiency, as the teacher provides guidance and support rather than direct instruction
• It fosters critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills
• It supports student-centered learning and autonomy

Cons of the Facilitator teaching style

• This style doesn’t work well for theory-heavy classes
• It requires a skilled facilitator to guide discussions effectively 
• It may take more time to cover content compared to traditional methods 
• Students may need additional support if they’re not accustomed to this teaching method

The most student-centric teaching style of all is called the delegator style (also known as the group style). Here, the teacher is merely present as an observer, and it’s the group of students who are doing all the work.

Most of the learning in the delegator style happens peer-to-peer, through frequent collaborations and discussions. The instructor is practically removed from the position of authority and only facilitates the discussions instead.

The delegator style works best for lab-based experiments, group tutoring classes, creative writing, debates, and other peer-to-peer activities. In these activities, the teacher divides the class into small groups and assigns each group a project related to the course content. The students are responsible for planning, executing, and presenting their findings, while the teacher acts as a mentor, providing guidance and support throughout the project.

This approach encourages students to take ownership of their education and become self-directed learners.

Pros of the Delegator teaching style

• This teaching style encourages learning and collaboration among students
• It allows for individualized learning experiences
• It promotes the development of problem-solving and decision-making skills

Cons of the Delegator teaching style

• This teaching style can be inefficient since students have to find the right answers for themselves
• It may not be suitable for all subjects or students

These are just five of the most popular teaching styles that instructors can choose from when creating their courses. Depending on the system you look at, there might be even more, as described in a paper titled Teaching Styles and Language Performance by Edgar R. Eslit and Mercedita B. Tongson.

As you can see from the list above, each style of teaching has its pros and cons. So there’s no definitive winner here — rather, you should learn to mix and match based on a situation.

When preparing your course content, you can imagine which teaching style would help your students learn the material best. If you’re not sure, try experimenting with a few different styles for the first few student cohorts to find out.

We’ve written about the seven main types of learning styles before, which are essential for every instructor to understand.

There’s no doubt that different students shine under different teaching approaches.

There’s a famous “empty vessel” theory, for example, which asserts that students’ minds are essentially empty until teachers pour their knowledge into them, lecture-style.

But cooperative learning which requires more group work and would pair well with the facilitator or delegator style of teaching. Check out Cohort-Based Learning for a deeper dive into this kind of teaching style.

Interactive learning can be a great fit for the demonstrator or facilitator style, and so on.

Another reason to have different teaching styles in your arsenal is the diversity of students you might see in your class. As students learn better by different approaches and at a different speed, you should be able to adjust your teaching style on the fly to maximize the learning opportunity for all.

It’s likely that your primary teaching style won’t be purely of the big five discussed above, but rather an ever-changing mix that would be unique to you and the students you teach.

In addition, as teachers lead students and help students become future leaders, you should be aware of the kind of leadership that you want to facilitate through your teaching.

How to create a perfect course online

Do you want to put your teaching style to practice? There’s no better way to do that than creating a brand new online course. The only thing you need is a course-creation platform to do that.

Thinkific is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform for all teachers to create beautiful online courses in no time. The platform adjusts easily to various teaching styles through the use of multimedia materials, from presentations to videos to quizzes to member communities.

Best of all, no coding skills are required. Just pick a gorgeous template and quickly customize it to your need with a drag-and-drop editor.

Get started today for free and see how easy creating an effective course can be.

This was originally published in June 2022, it has since been updated in February 2024 to include new info.

Colin is a Content Marketer at Thinkific, writing about everything from online entrepreneurship & course creation to digital marketing strategy.

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Every teacher has her or his own style of teaching. And as traditional teaching styles evolve with the advent of differentiated instruction, more and more teachers are adjusting their approach depending on their students’ learning needs.

But there are a few fundamental teaching styles most educators tend to use. Which one is yours?

You’ve Got Style

These teaching styles highlight the five main strategies teachers use in the classroom, as well as the benefits and potential pitfalls of each.

The Authority, or lecture style

The authority model is teacher-centered and frequently entails lengthy lecture sessions or one-way presentations. Students are expected to take notes or absorb information.

• Pros : This style is acceptable for certain higher-education disciplines and auditorium settings with large groups of students. The pure lecture style is most suitable for subjects like history, which necessitate memorization of key facts, dates, names, etc.
• Cons : It’s a questionable model for teaching children because there is little or no interaction with the teacher. Plus it can get a little snooze-y. That’s why it’s a better approach for older, more mature students.

The Demonstrator, or coach style

The demonstrator retains the formal authority role by showing students what they need to know. The demonstrator is a lot like the lecturer, but their lessons include multimedia presentations, activities, and demonstrations. (Think: Math. Science. Music.)

• Pros : This style gives teachers opportunities to incorporate a variety of formats including lectures and multimedia presentations.
• Cons : Although it’s well-suited for teaching mathematics, music, physical education, or arts and crafts, it is difficult to accommodate students’ individual needs in larger classrooms.

The Facilitator, or activity style

Facilitators promote self-learning and help students develop critical thinking skills and retain knowledge that leads to self-actualization.

• Pros : This style trains students to ask questions and helps develop skills to find answers and solutions through exploration; it is ideal for teaching science and similar subjects.
• Cons : Challenges teacher to interact with students and prompt them toward discovery rather than lecturing facts and testing knowledge through memorization. So it’s a bit harder to measure success in tangible terms.

The Delegator, or group style

The delegator style is best suited for curricula that require lab activities, such as chemistry and biology, or subjects that warrant peer feedback, like debate and creative writing.

• Pros : Guided discovery and inquiry-based learning place the teacher in an observer role that inspires students by working in tandem toward common goals.
• Cons : Considered a modern style of teaching, it is sometimes criticized as eroding teacher authority. As a delegator, the teacher acts more as a consultant rather than the traditional authority figure.

The Hybrid, or blended style

Hybrid, or blended style, follows an integrated approach to teaching that blends the teacher’s personality and interests with students’ needs and curriculum-appropriate methods.

• Pros : Inclusive! And it enables teachers to tailor their styles to student needs and appropriate subject matter.
• Cons : Hybrid style runs the risk of trying to be too many things to all students, prompting teachers to spread themselves too thin and dilute learning.

Because teachers have styles that reflect their distinct personalities and curriculum—from math and science to English and history—it’s crucial that they remain focused on their teaching objectives and avoid trying to be all things to all students.

What you need to know about your teaching style

Although it is not the teacher’s job to entertain students, it is vital to engage them in the learning process. Selecting a style that addresses the needs of diverse students at different learning levels begins with a personal inventory—a self-evaluation—of the teacher’s strengths and weaknesses. As they develop their teaching styles and integrate them with effective classroom management skills, teachers will learn what works best for their personalities and curriculum.

Our guide encapsulates today’s different teaching styles and helps teachers identify the style that’s right for them and their students. Browse through the article or use these links to jump to your desired destination.

• What is a teaching style inventory, and how have teaching styles evolved?
• What teaching method is best for today’s students?

How does classroom diversity influence teachers?

Emergence of the teaching style inventory.

How have teaching styles evolved? This is a question teachers are asked, and frequently ask themselves, as they embark on their careers, and occasionally pause along the way to reflect on job performance. To understand the differences in teaching styles, it’s helpful to know where the modern concept of classifying teaching methods originated.

The late Anthony F. Grasha, a noted professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, is credited with developing the classic five teaching styles. A follower of psychiatrist Carl Jung, Grasha began studying the dynamics of the relationship between teachers and learning in college classrooms. His groundbreaking book, Teaching with Style , was written both as a guide for teachers and as a tool to help colleagues, administrators and students systematically evaluate an instructor’s effectiveness in the classroom.

Grasha understood that schools must use a consistent, formal approach in evaluating a teacher’s classroom performance. He recognized that any system designed to help teachers improve their instructional skills requires a simple classification system. He developed a teaching style inventory that has since been adopted and modified by followers.

• Expert : Similar to a coach, experts share knowledge, demonstrate their expertise, advise students, and provide feedback to improve understanding and promote learning.
• Formal authority : Authoritative teachers incorporate the traditional lecture format and share many of the same characteristics as experts, but with less student interaction.
• Personal model : Incorporates blended teaching styles that match the best techniques with the appropriate learning scenarios and students in an adaptive format.
• Facilitator : Designs participatory learning activities and manages classroom projects while providing information and offering feedback to facilitate critical thinking.
• Delegator : Organizes group learning, observes students, provides consultation, and promotes interaction between groups and among individuals to achieve learning objectives.

Although he developed specific teaching styles, Grasha warned against boxing teachers into a single category. Instead, he advocated that teachers play multiple roles in the classroom. He believed most teachers possess some combination of all or most of the classic teaching styles.

How does differentiated instruction affect teaching styles?

Carol Ann Tomlinson, a professor at the University of Virginia, is an early advocate of differentiated instruction and a pioneer in the development of learning-based teaching styles. If Grasha laid the groundwork for 20th-century teachers to adopt styles tailored to match their personalities and strengths, Tomlinson has advanced this theme into the 21st century by focusing on differentiated instruction.

In the simplest terms, differentiated instruction means keeping all students in mind when developing lesson plans and workbook exercises, lectures, and interactive learning. These student-focused differences necessitate instructional styles that embrace diverse classrooms for students at all learning levels and from various backgrounds without compromising the teacher’s strengths.

What teaching style is best for today’s students?

Whether you’re a first-year teacher eager to put into practice all of the pedagogical techniques you learned in college, or a classroom veteran examining differentiated instruction and new learning methodologies, consider that not all students respond well to one particular style. Although teaching styles have been categorized into five groups, today’s ideal teaching style is not an either/or proposition but more of a hybrid approach that blends the best of everything a teacher has to offer.

The traditional advice that teachers not overreach with a cluster of all-encompassing teaching styles might seem to conflict with today’s emphasis on student-centered classrooms. Theoretically, the more teachers emphasize student-centric learning, the harder it is to develop a well-focused style based on their personal attributes, strengths, and goals.

In short, modern methods of teaching require different types of teachers—from the analyst/organizer to the negotiator/consultant. Here are some other factors to consider as teachers determine the best teaching method for their students.

Empty vessel : Critics of the “sage on the stage” lecture style point to the “empty vessel” theory, which assumes a student’s mind is essentially empty and needs to be filled by the “expert” teacher. Critics of this traditional approach to teaching insist this teaching style is outmoded and needs to be updated for the diverse 21st-century classroom.

Active vs. passive : Proponents of the traditional lecture approach believe that an overemphasis on group-oriented participatory teaching styles, like facilitator and delegator, favor gifted and competitive students over passive children with varied learning abilities, thereby exacerbating the challenges of meeting the needs of all learners.

Knowledge vs. information : Knowledge implies a complete understanding, or full comprehension, of a particular subject. A blend of teaching styles that incorporate facilitator, delegator, demonstrator, and lecturer techniques helps the broadest range of students acquire in-depth knowledge and mastery of a given subject. This stands in contrast to passive learning, which typically entails memorizing facts, or information, with the short-term objective of scoring well on tests.

Interactive classrooms : Laptops and tablets, video conferencing, and podcasts in classrooms play a vital role in today’s teaching styles. With technology in mind, it is imperative that teachers assess their students’ knowledge while they are learning. The alternative is to wait for test results, only to discover knowledge gaps that should have been detected during the active learning phase.

Constructivist teaching methods : Contemporary teaching styles tend to be group-focused and inquiry-driven. Constructivist teaching methods embrace subsets of alternative teaching styles, including modeling, coaching, and test preparation through rubrics scaffolding. All of these are designed to promote student participation and necessitate a hybrid approach to teaching. One criticism of the constructivist approach is that it caters to extroverted, group-oriented students, who tend to dominate and benefit from these teaching methods more than introverts; however, this assumes introverts aren’t learning by observing.

Student-centric learning does not have to come at the expense of an instructor’s preferred teaching method. However, differentiated instruction demands that teachers finesse their style to accommodate the diverse needs of 21st-century classrooms.

The ‘sage on the stage’ meets the ‘tiger mom’

The objective of blending teaching styles to leverage the teacher’s strengths while meeting the demands of diverse students has become increasingly difficult, as parents take a decidedly proactive role in child-learning techniques.

The traditional authoritative/expert, or “sage on the stage” lecture style, has come under attack by some parents—and contemporary educational leaders—who emphasize that a more diverse approach to teaching is necessary to engage students. This is compounded by the rise of “tiger moms,” a term made popular by parents devoted to improving the quality of education with laser-precision focus on A-list schools and a highly competitive job market.

Age of the proactive parent

Regardless of what style a teacher adopts, it’s important for teachers to develop positive attitudes, set goals, and establish high expectations for students.

“Assume students can excel!” education authors Harry and Rosemary Wong declare. As former teachers with a combined 80-plus years of educational experience, the Wongs emphasize in their best-selling book, The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher and their more recent, The Classroom Management Book that successful teachers share three common characteristics:

• effective classroom management skills
• lesson mastery
• positive expectations

All instructors, when developing their teaching styles, should keep in mind these three goals, as well as the primary objective of education: student learning.

It is abundantly clear that today’s teachers are responsible for students with a diverse range of learning abilities. The 21st-century teacher does not have the luxury of “picking the low-hanging fruit” and then leaving the rest of the tree for experts who specialize in children with behavioral issues or learning disorders.

Today’s teachers must develop instructional styles that work well in diverse classrooms. Effective teaching methods engage gifted students, as well as slow-learning children and those with attention deficit tendencies. This is where differentiated instruction and a balanced mix of teaching styles can help reach all students in a given classroom—not just the few who respond well to one particular style of teaching.

The wonderment of teaching, what author/educator Dr. Harry Wong refers to as “that a-ha moment” when a child “gets it,” is one of the most rewarding and seemingly elusive benefits of becoming a teacher. This transfer of knowledge from expert to student is an art form and a skill. Fortunately, both can be learned and perfected.

Knowing how to engage students begins with selecting the teaching style that’s right for you. And remember, even though you may prefer one teaching style over another, you must find the style that works best for your students! Try different styles to meet different objectives, and always challenge yourself to find ways to reach each student.

You may also like to read

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Home » Tips for Teachers » 15 Teaching Styles: The Complete Guide for Effective Teaching

15 Teaching Styles: The Complete Guide for Effective Teaching

Teaching styles are instrumental in helping students reach their educational goals. With a breadth of teaching strategies available, it can be difficult to determine which approach is best-suited for different age groups, curricular objectives and lesson plans.

Teachers can foster a more engaging classroom by tapping into the power of multiple teaching styles. Incorporating alternative approaches to instruction helps capture student interest and provides additional reinforcement that facilitates long-term knowledge retention – creating an unbeatable learning atmosphere!

Education is the cornerstone of progress, and teachers are a driving force behind its success. By understanding different teaching styles they can employ in their classrooms, educators gain an invaluable tool to shape future generations – equipping them with knowledge that will be passed down for years to come. It’s essential for instructors everywhere to understand the advantages and disadvantages of various instructional techniques so they may select the best approach possible when guiding students towards enlightenment

To provide clarity on the matter, this article presents an overview of 15 top teaching styles complete with recommended ages for each style’s implementation as well as benefits and drawbacks associated with its use. Additionally included are teaching styles examples illustrating how these types of teaching styles may look within the classroom setting along with guidance on incorporating multiple approaches into one session or determining what works most effectively for today’s learners overall:

What are we waiting for? Let’s begin!

1. Lecture-based teaching style

Lecture-style teaching is one of the oldest types of teaching styles in existence. It enables teachers to share their knowledge and wisdom with students; while giving learners an opportunity to take notes, absorb information, then apply it through exercises or tests.

Distinctive features:

• Emphasis on teacher-centered learning;
• Focus on delivering information through lectures;
• Limited interaction between students and teachers.
• Efficient way to deliver large amounts of information;
• Suitable for large groups of students;
• Can be used to introduce complex or abstract concepts.
• May lead to passive learning and lack of engagement;
• Limited interaction and feedback from students;
• Can be monotonous and may not cater to different learning styles.

Student ages it works best for:

Lecture-based teaching style is a versatile learning tool, helping students of any age gain knowledge and understanding. From elementary school to college and beyond, this style of instruction encourages critical thinking by engaging learners in an immersive educational experience.

Usage examples:

• A college professor delivering a lecture on the history of philosophy;
• A high school teacher providing a lecture on the principles of chemistry.

Check out how a professor from the Kansas State University developed and introduced Lecture-based styles of teaching for his students.

2. Inquiry-based teaching style

Inquiry-based teaching is a student-focused method that encourages active learning and creative thought. With this style, students explore the world around them by questioning, analyzing challenges, and developing their own understanding of topics.

• Emphasis on student-centered learning;
• Focus on inquiry and investigation;
• Encourages critical thinking and problem-solving.
• Promotes active learning and engagement;
• Encourages students to think independently and critically;
• Provides opportunities for collaboration and peer learning.
• May require more planning and preparation from teachers;
• Can be challenging to assess student learning and progress;
• May be less suitable for students who prefer more structure and guidance.

Inquiry-based teaching can be an effective strategy for engaging students of all ages, but may require a tailored approach when it comes to younger learners.

• A middle school teacher designing a lesson where students investigate the impact of pollution on local waterways;
• A high school science teacher leading a class on the scientific method, where students design and conduct their own experiments.

See how the 4th grade teacher from Wildwood IB World Magnet School uses the inquiry-based model to put students in charge of their learning, with lessons that stem from student questions and harness the power of curiosity.

3. Collaborative teaching style

By utilizing collaborative teaching, students reap the benefits of cooperation and team-work – working together to pool ideas and resources with their peers in order to solve problems, complete projects or reach shared goals.

• Focus on collaboration and teamwork;
• Encourages communication and social skills.
• Promotes teamwork and communication skills;
• Provides opportunities for peer learning and support;
• Encourages creativity and innovation.
• May require more planning and coordination among teachers;
• Can be challenging to assess individual student learning and contribution;
• May be less suitable for students who prefer to work independently.

Collaborative style of teaching brings amazing results for student learning at all ages, and with some patience and tweaking, can be a powerful tool when educating younger students.

• A high school English teacher organizing a group project where students create a podcast series on a literary theme;
• A middle school math teacher designing a lesson where students work in pairs to solve complex problems.

Learn how the students at The College Preparatory School are making collaboration the driving force in their learning.

4. Flipped classroom teaching style

The flipped classroom is a revolutionary pedagogical approach that shakes up traditional learning models. Students can access lecture materials online, allowing them to tailor their study habits outside of the classroom setting. While in-class activities focus on active engagement such as discussions and group work for deeper understanding of content material.

• Lecture materials are delivered outside the classroom, allowing for more active learning inside the classroom;
• Emphasizes the role of the teacher as a facilitator and guide rather than a lecturer;
• Encourages collaborative learning and peer-to-peer teaching.
• Provides more opportunities for active learning and student engagement;
• Allows students to learn at their own pace and review lecture materials as needed;
• Facilitates deeper learning and understanding through collaborative and peer-to-peer teaching.
• Requires students to have access to technology outside the classroom;
• May be challenging for students who prefer a more structured and teacher-led learning environment;
• Can be time-consuming for teachers to create and manage the online lecture materials.

By utilizing the flipped classroom style of teaching, educators have an effective way to reach students from middle school up through college. This approach enables teachers to increase engagement and maximize learning potential no matter their age group.

• High school math students are given the unique opportunity to explore their understanding of algebraic equations by viewing engaging lectures and collaboratively problem-solving with classmates. This stimulates a deeper appreciation for mathematics that extends beyond lecture hall walls;
• College history students come to class eager and prepared, having read primary source documents and watched videos on a particular time period. In this environment of inquisitive minds, they discuss the historical events in order to gain deeper understanding of our past.

Watch how Jon Bergmann, founder of of FlippedClass.com, explains what a flipped classroom is and how to get started.

5. Problem-based teaching style

Problem-based teaching invites students to take the helm in their learning journey, utilizing real-world problems as a motivation for critical thinking and problem solving. Working collaboratively with peers, they can foster creative solutions while developing invaluable skills that are transferable across multiple contexts.

• Emphasizes the use of real-world problems as a means of learning;
• Encourages student collaboration and peer-to-peer teaching;
• Emphasizes the role of the teacher as a facilitator and guide rather than a lecturer.
• Provides opportunities for deeper learning and understanding through problem-solving and critical thinking;
• Encourages collaboration and peer-to-peer teaching, promoting social and emotional learning;
• Prepares students for real-world problem-solving and decision-making in their future careers.
• Requires teachers to have a deep understanding of the subject matter and the ability to facilitate student learning effectively;
• Can be time-consuming to design and implement effective problem-based learning activities.

Problem-based teaching is an incredibly effective way of engaging students, especially in middle school, high school and college.

• In a middle school science class, students work together to design and build a device that can purify contaminated water;
• In a college business class, students are given a real-world case study of a company facing financial challenges and must work together to develop a business plan to help the company succeed.

See how teachers and students from four South Australian primary schools stepped right out of their comfort zones, to participate in this semester-long problem-based learning program.

6. Demonstration teaching style

Demonstration teaching is a powerful method for bringing concepts to life in the classroom. By showing students how problems can be solved and tasks completed, rather than simply explaining it to them, teachers create an engaging learning experience that allows their pupils to more easily retain complex ideas from Science or Maths classes.

• The teacher demonstrates the task or problem-solving process;
• Students observe and take notes;
• Students are then asked to perform the task on their own.
• Provides clear examples and explanations of complex concepts;
• Encourages active listening and note-taking skills;
• Allows students to see how concepts are applied in real-world situations.
• May not be suitable for all learning styles;
• Can be time-consuming, especially if there are many students in the classroom;
• Does not provide individualized attention to each student.

With its effectiveness proven across different educational settings, demonstration teaching is an invaluable resource for boosting student success at all levels. From elementary students to college undergraduates, this engaging style of instruction offers a unique opportunity for learners to absorb practical knowledge and gain important skills.

• A science teacher demonstrating the process of photosynthesis to their students;
• A mathematics teacher demonstrating how to solve a complex equation to their class.

Learn more about the demonstration teaching style from Dr. Peter Kibet Koech from Machakos University

7. Hands-on teaching style

This strategy ensures that each student is placed in the most beneficial learning environment, with groups continually adjusting to reflect their evolving needs and interests.

• Students actively participate in the learning process;
• The teacher provides materials and instructions for a task;
• Students learn by trial and error.
• Encourages active participation and engagement in the learning process;
• Provides opportunities for hands-on experimentation and exploration;
• Helps students develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
• Requires significant preparation and planning on the part of the teacher;
• May require additional resources or materials.

Instructing through hands-on activities proves to be effective across all educational levels, from elementary schoolers mastering the basics of arithmetic to university students developing critical thinking skills.

• A science teacher providing materials for students to conduct an experiment and observe the results;
• An art teacher providing materials for students to create a sculpture or painting.

Here is an example of how you can yse flexible groupping in your classroom.

8. Visual teaching style

Visual teaching techniques have become a popular approach to education, utilizing visual aids such as videos, images, charts and more. This helps students further engage in the educational process by enabling them to learn concepts quickly through visuals that are easier for their minds to digest than pure texts alone.

• Uses visual aids to enhance learning;
• Emphasizes the importance of images, diagrams, and other visual materials;
• Encourages students to create their own visual aids to reinforce learning.
• Enhances learning by making information more engaging and easier to remember;
• Helps students who are visual learners understand concepts more easily;
• Can be especially helpful for teaching complex or abstract concepts.
• May not be as effective for students who learn best through other modalities, such as auditory or kinesthetic learning;
• Can be time-consuming to create high-quality visual aids;
• Some students may find the use of visual aids distracting or overwhelming.

Visual teaching can be an invaluable tool when it comes to helping young minds grow – aiding students in their educational journey by providing them with a memorable and engaging way of learning.

• Using diagrams and flowcharts to explain scientific processes in a biology class;
• Creating visual timelines to help students understand historical events in a social studies class.

Learn more about the visual teaching style from Matthew Peterson’s TEDxOrangeCoast speech.

9. Kinesthetic teaching style

Experiential learning through kinesthetic teaching style is a great way to help students retain information. Through physical activities like games, simulations and role-playing, teachers have the potential to open up exciting new possibilities for their students’ educational journey.

• Emphasizes hands-on, experiential learning;
• Encourages students to actively engage with the material;
• Uses physical activities and games to reinforce learning.
• Helps students learn by engaging multiple senses and making learning more memorable;
• Encourages active participation and engagement with the material;
• Can be especially effective for teaching subjects that involve physical processes, such as science and math.
• May be challenging to implement in large classes or with limited resources;
• Can be time-consuming to plan and execute hands-on activities;
• May not be as effective for students who learn best through other modalities, such as visual or auditory learning.

Kinesthetic teaching is a powerful tool for young minds – allowing students to channel their boundless energy in ways which facilitate learning and engagement. Such an approach enables the utilization of all senses, providing educational experiences that can satisfy even the most dynamic learners.

• Conducting science experiments to teach about chemical reactions in a chemistry class;
• Using role-playing activities to teach about historical events or social issues in a social studies class.

In this video Janice from Sharp Cookie shares her top 8 study tips to people with kinesthetic intelligence learn more effectively.

10. Game-based teaching style

Game-based teaching is a powerful tool for engaging and motivating learners of all ages. This teaching approach uses game mechanics such as rewards, points, and leaderboards to make learning fun while helping students stay focused on the subject matter.

From math to language arts, social studies or science (and many more!), games can be used effectively to stimulate comprehension in any classroom setting. For instance, in a platform like Smartick, game-based learning is exceptionally well-executed to teach complex math concepts. They provide seamless guidance for finding the least common multiple , turning it into a challenging yet enjoyable task for students.

• Game-based teaching is characterized by its focus on engagement and interactivity;
• Games can be used to provide immediate feedback, challenge students at their individual skill levels, and promote a sense of healthy competition among students.
• Game-based teaching can be highly motivating for students and can help to build problem-solving and critical thinking skills;
• It can also be an effective way to provide immediate feedback and to personalize learning for individual students.
• Some educators may struggle to find appropriate games that align with their curriculum, or may find that certain games are too distracting or difficult for some students;
• Additionally, game-based teaching may not be suitable for all subject areas or learning objectives.

Game-based learning can provide an exciting, engaging way for students to gain knowledge. From kindergarteners to high schoolers, every age group benefits from tailored games that use fun challenges as a source of education and growth.

• A teacher might use a game-based approach to teach math concepts by having students play a digital game that requires them to solve math problems in order to progress to the next level;
• A language arts teacher might use a board game to reinforce vocabulary and reading comprehension skills.

In this video, teacher diaries channel shares their top 10 favorite game-based learning apps.

11. Project-based teaching style

Project-based teaching is an effective way to engage students in relevant, meaningful learning experiences. It encourages collaboration among peers and allows learners to explore a topic more deeply while applying their knowledge and skills towards addressing real world challenges – a valuable exercise that develops critical thinking skills!

• Project-based teaching is characterized by its emphasis on student-centered, collaborative learning;
• Students typically work in groups to plan and execute projects, which can involve research, problem-solving, and creative thinking.
• Project-based teaching can be highly engaging for students, allowing them to explore their interests and develop important skills like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving;
• It can also help to promote deeper learning and understanding of subject matter.
• Project-based teaching can be time-consuming and may require a significant investment of resources and planning;
• It can also be challenging for educators to manage and assess student work in a way that is equitable and meaningful.

Project-based instruction offers an exciting learning opportunity for students of all ages; however, it may be better suited to those with more advanced capabilities in research and teamwork.

• A science teacher might use a project-based approach to have students investigate a local environmental issue, researching and proposing solutions to address the problem.
• A history teacher might have students work together to create a museum exhibit that explores a particular period or event in history.

Watch Suzie Boss, Education Writer and Project-Based Learning Consultant, introduce what project-based approach and how to get started with it.

12. Direct instruction teaching style

By utilizing a direct instruction teaching style, teachers provide students with an organized and structured environment from which to acquire the foundational knowledge they need for more advanced topics. This teacher-centered approach allows all learners to benefit from clear explanations as well as engaging activities that help reinforce concepts taught during class.

• The teacher plays a central role in the learning process;
• The focus is on delivering information through lectures, demonstrations, and explanations;
• Students are expected to listen, take notes, and complete assignments based on the information presented.
• Provides clear and structured instruction that can be effective for teaching foundational knowledge and skills;
• Can be helpful for students who prefer a more structured learning environment.
• May not be as effective for promoting critical thinking or problem-solving skills;
• Can be less engaging for students who prefer a more interactive or hands-on learning approach.

Direct instruction is a teaching style well-suited for all ages, but it can be particularly beneficial in early academic settings such as elementary and middle school classrooms.

• A teacher using direct instruction teaching style to teach math facts, such as addition and subtraction, to a group of second-grade students;
• A teacher using direct instruction teaching style to introduce new vocabulary words to a high school English class.

Learn more on how to motivate the students, activate background knowledge, and explain the new skill through Direct instruction style with TeachLikeThis channel.

13. Socratic teaching style

With the Socratic teaching style, teachers provide an engaging student-centered learning environment where ideas and critical thinking skills can flourish. It emphasizes collaboration among peers to help students come up with their own answers through discussion—an invaluable educational tool for today’s learners!

• The teacher encourages discussion and questioning among students;
• The focus is on students arriving at their own conclusions through critical thinking and analysis;
• The teacher acts as a facilitator rather than a lecturer.
• Encourages critical thinking and promotes student engagement;
• Can help students develop strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Can be less structured than other teaching styles, which may make it less effective for teaching foundational knowledge and skills;
• Can be challenging for students who are less comfortable with public speaking or expressing their ideas in a group setting.

Socratic teaching is a versatile and effective method for educating students of all ages, but shines particularly in higher level academic settings.

• A teacher using Socratic teaching style to lead a discussion about a current event in a high school social studies class.
• A teacher encourages critical thinking and analysis of a literary text in a college English class.

Here’s some more information on the Socratic Method.

14. Experimental teaching style

Experimental teaching provides students an engaging and meaningful learning experience with a hands-on approach. Through experiential exploration, this style of education promotes interaction between the material and student in subjects varying from mathematics to literature.

• This teaching style is characterized by its focus on hands-on learning and experimentation;
• Students are encouraged to explore and investigate the subject matter through experiments and other activities, rather than simply memorizing information;
• This approach emphasizes critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.
• Encourages active engagement with the material;
• Develops critical thinking and problem-solving skills;
• Fosters creativity and innovation.
• Can be time-consuming and require additional resources;
• May not be suitable for all subjects or learning objectives;
• Requires careful planning and preparation to ensure experiments are safe and effective.

All students can benefit from experimental teaching, but the style is especially impactful among older learners who have a greater appreciation for science and are ready to tackle more sophisticated experiments.

• In a biology class, students might design and conduct their own experiments to investigate the effects of different variables on plant growth;
• In a physics class, students might use simulations and hands-on experiments to explore the principles of motion and energy.

In the video below you’ll learn what an Open Ended Question is how you can help children think through problems on their own.

15. Self-directed learning teaching style

Self-directed learning is a powerful approach that equips students with the autonomy to drive their own progress. Through this style of teaching, learners are encouraged to cultivate self-motivation and critical thinking while developing independence.

• Students take responsibility for their own learning, set their own goals and pace of learning;
• Students choose their own learning materials;
• Students manage their own progress.
• Encourages self-motivation and independence;
• Allows students to pursue their own interests and passions;
• Can be more efficient and personalized than traditional teaching methods.
• Requires a high level of discipline and time-management skills;
• May not be suitable for all students, particularly those who require more structure and guidance;
• Can be challenging for teachers to implement and assess.

Self-directed learning offers a unique opportunity for learners of all ages to take their education into their own hands. For those driven by motivation and passionate about knowledge acquisition, it can be an especially powerful tool!

• A high school student who sets their own goals for an independent research project;
• A college student who creates their own study plan for an online course they are taking.

In this video, teachers at Summit Public Schools explain the role of the teacher in self-directed learning.

What Teaching Style is Best for Today’s Students?

Today’s students have a wide range of needs and educators are responding by exploring new, creative teaching methods. We’ve already dove into 15 proven teaching styles, but which one is most beneficial for today’s learners? By examining current research in education, we will discover which style empowers our future generations to succeed!

Overview of current research and trends in education, and how they relate to teaching styles

Educational researchers are revolutionizing the classroom experience. The latest trends focus on personalization, student-centered interactions and making use of cutting edge technology to create a more interactive learning environment than traditional lecture teaching styles can offer.

Rather than an academic setting dependent on monotonous lectures and memorization of material, the flipped classroom offers a more interactive experience. Here students benefit from pre-recorded materials that prepare them for class discussion where they can collaborate with peers. Project-based learning allows learners to tap into their own creativity by tackling longterm projects covering multiple topics while being given freedom in its execution

Technology has revolutionized the modern classroom, empowering teachers to leverage innovative educational approaches such as game-based learning and advanced online resources. This trend is transforming instruction into an engaging experience that encourages students to acquire knowledge through interactive activities.

Overall major pros and cons of switching different teaching styles

Empowering students and using technology as part of the classroom experience can offer many learning benefits, but teachers must factor in extra preparation time to ensure success. Thoughtful structuring of activities is key for engaging students and creating an effective learning environment.

Technology-based teaching styles and the consequent need for specialized resources can be a costly hurdle. Additionally, student-centered learning requires proper assessment methods with an emphasis on providing formative feedback throughout the course of instruction.

By implementing these teaching styles, teachers can not only ignite student motivation and engagement but also enhance learning outcomes for an all-around enjoyable educational experience.

How to choose the most effective teaching style

Educators seeking the most optimal instruction for a lesson or unit should take into consideration multiple aspects, such as content and aims of learning. Furthermore, it is crucial to factor in students’ specific preferences and capabilities by providing distinct activities that accommodate their individual styles. Making these considerations can help ensure an engaging class environment where all learners feel supported!

Teachers must be resourceful and creative when it comes to instruction, leveraging what is available to them and tailoring their teaching styles accordingly. Adopting an adaptive approach enables educators to assess the effectiveness of strategies in real-time from feedback gathered directly from learners.

In the ever-evolving education system, teachers must factor in many variables when deciding how to teach. According to research findings, student-centric learning involving technology appears as a beneficial and engaging way for students of all abilities to learn successfully – though one should be mindful of any potential drawbacks that may arise from these approaches.

Keep Learning

Teachers looking to elevate their pedagogical acumen can explore a world of teaching styles and techniques by taking advantage of various platforms. With numerous resources available, educators can discover useful advice on best practices that will bring any classroom alive! Some highly recommended options include:

• Edutopia  offers an invaluable resource for teachers, providing a wide array of articles and tools to help educators further their students’ knowledge. Its vast library of topics covers everything from instructional techniques and style preferences, to the latest in educational trends – helping ensure that both experienced instructors as well as novices can stay up-to-date on essential teaching strategies.
• TeachThought is the ultimate professional development destination for educators, offering a diverse selection of courses and resources to help teachers upgrade their skills and stay current with best practices. With inspiring articles and podcasts on teaching approaches from industry experts, they’re an invaluable resource in today’s classroom.
• ASCD provides teachers with premier professional development opportunities, such as webinars and conferences tailored to help them enhance their teaching practices. With personalized resources at the forefront of our mission, we hope all educators can unlock the potential within themselves and their students.

With a variety of accessible resources, teachers are empowered to further refine their approach to teaching and create positive learning experiences for students. By capitalizing on the knowledge provided by these cutting-edge strategies, educators can continue developing best practices that lead directly to greater student success.

Educators who recognize the value of flexible lecture styles, and are willing to experiment with various approaches tailored to their students’ unique needs can unlock learning potential in powerful ways. By creating an interactive environment that fosters growth, teachers set up meaningful pathways for academic success – giving each student room to explore what works best when mastering course material!

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Teaching Styles: Everything you need to know about teaching methods and strategies

Have you ever thought about how each classroom teaches things differently? In this article, we answer what are teaching styles, why are there multiple teaching styles, what are the different styles, and which style works the best today?

What are teaching styles?

Teaching styles , also called teaching methods, are considered to be the general principles, educational, and management strategies for classroom instruction.

The use of different teaching styles started in the beginning of the twentieth century. This was due to the amount of research being poured into different learning methods. Once we understood that everybody learns differently, it became obvious that there need to be different teaching styles to accommodate the learning styles .

Two philosophers, John Locke (Some Thoughts Concerning Education) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (On Education), developed different theories as to how to educate which lead us to have the idea of different teaching styles today. Locke saw the importance of developing a child’s physical habits first anything else. To Locke, this was essential to a child’s development. Rousseau believed that education should be more centered on a child’s interactions with the world and the teaching style should concentrate less on books.

Why have different teaching styles?

Why can’t everyone be taught the same way? Well, why can’t you learn something the same way as your partner or next door neighbor? Everybody learns different ideas at different times at different paces. Some people can learn something on the first try after being told what to do whereas others might need to have hands-on experience in order to learn and possibly repeat it a few times to really get the hang of things. 

Different teaching styles  are necessary because the students need to be able to learn what the teacher is teaching. However, the choice of teaching styles used can also depend on the school mission statement, the classroom demographics, the educational philosophy of the teacher, and most importantly, the subject area.

Types of teaching styles:

There are five main types of teaching styles and methods to choose from.

• The Authority method , also known as the lecture style , involves sitting and listening to the instructor speak about a pre-assigned topic while the students take notes and memorize to the best of their ability what is being said. This particular style is more popular in universities and some high schools due to a larger student population. However, less common in the standard classroom setting due to its lack of allowance of student participation and inability to meet individual needs. The Authority method , also known as the lecture style , involves sitting and listening to the instructor speak about a pre-assigned topic while the students take notes and memorize to the best of their ability what is being said. This particular style is more popular in universities and some high schools due to a larger student population. However, less common in the standard classroom setting due to its lack of allowance of student participation and inability to meet individual needs.
• The Demonstrator method , widely known as the coaching style , similar to the lecture style, The Demonstrator method tries to maintain authority in the classroom. Even so, instead of using only a verbal lecture to give information and teach, this style coaches students using gateways like multimedia presentations, class activities and demonstrations. For subjects like music, art, and physical education subjects, this style is perfect because the demonstration is usually necessary to acquire a full understanding of the subject. However, a downside is that there is little individual interaction between the teacher and students which makes it difficult to accommodate to personalized needs.
• The Facilitator style recognized also as the activity or action method , tries to encourage self-learning through peer-to-teacher learning. In contrast to the lecture style, teachers ask students to question rather than give them the answer. The goal is for students to develop a deeper understanding of the topic by using self-discovery and develop problem-solving skills. This technique is best used in small classroom settings because, as a facilitator, the teacher needs to interact with students on an individual basis, which can be difficult with a larger number of students.
• The Delegator style , or group method , is used for school subjects that require group work, lab-based learning, or peer feedback. For example, science classes and certain language learning classes. The teacher acts as a delegator, becoming an observer to promote peer collaboration and encourage student-to-student learning. The Delegator style is becoming more and more popular throughout many classrooms. However, some people consider other styles to be more proactive due to the fact that the group method removes the teacher from a position of authority.
• Last, but not least, the Hybrid method , also known as   blended learning , is an integrated teaching style that incorporates personal preferences, individual personalities, and specific interests into their teaching. It’s popular in English, science, and religion classes because it’s easy to incorporate extra-curricular knowledge into a developed, deeper knowledge of a particular topic. Some argue that this style weakens the learning process because the teacher tries to be all things to all students.

Teaching style Inventory

Teaching styles can also be organized into four categories with two parameters each: a teacher-centered approach versus a student-centered approach , and high-tech material use versus low-tech material use .

Teaching Styles: Student-Centered Approach

In a student-centered approach to learning, teachers and students share the focus and interact equally while the teacher still maintains authority. This can be beneficial to students because group work is encouraged; thus, communication and collaboration are used and encouraged. However, due to the fact that students are talking, classrooms may be noisier and may be more difficult to manage.

One method to use is inquiry-based learning which makes the teacher more of a supportive figure (rather than completely authoritative) who can provide support and guidance throughout the learning process. By being an inquiry-based learning facilitator , the teacher and student undergo the learning process together with student learning lightly guided by the teacher. By being the personal model , comparable to the personal model in the direct instruction, the teacher acts as the guide and mentor to help enable students to learn by observation and copying the teacher’s actions. By using the delegator method, teachers act as a support for students, are able to answer questions and most importantly are there to provide a sense of freedom and independence for the student.

Another method commonly used is the cooperative learning style where students work in small groups and the teacher can act as the facilitator, where everyone learns together, or as the delegator, where the teacher gives more free-reign to the student while still pointing them in the right direction.

Teaching Styles: Teacher-Centered Approach

In the teaching styles, especifically the teacher-centered approach to learning, the students put their attention on the teacher, students work alone, and collaboration is prevented. This is great because students are, in theory, quiet and paying full attention to the teacher while being able to make individual decisions. However, a student may suffer in their communication skills and feel unable to ask questions due to the fact they normally work alone and quietly. Plus, this classic method is sometimes thought of as dull and uninteresting.

Direct instruction is a method that uses little technology and relies on lecturing. The teacher may take on the formal authority role, where the teacher is in power due to their senior and level of knowledge over the students. They may also take on the expert role where students can be referred to as “ empty vessels” because they are viewed solely as receptors of information and knowledge. The other role a teacher can take on in the direct instruction method is that of a personal model . This method uses the teacher as a model of instruction, to lead by example, and students learn by observation.

Teaching Styles: High-Tech Approach

Many schools and classes are taking advantage of the recent advancements in technology which has enabled us to develop a high-tech approach to learning.

The flipped classroom is a high-tech idea developed in 2007 by two teachers who began to pre-record their lectures which allow students to learn from home by completing assignments to go along with the lectures. This is great if students want to work at their own pace, but if there’s a slow internet connection it’s near impossible to use this method.

Inquiry-based learning can involve technology by asking the students a question about the world and they have to do some research. The findings could be presented in the forms of a website, self-made videos, or PowerPoints.

Based on the man who founded Outward Bound , expeditionary learning is a project-based learning involving expeditions and engagement in in-depth topics that impact their schools, communities, and lives. This was created so students can see how problem-solving is happening in the real world, that is, the world around them. A student in NYC could study statistics about the pollution surrounding them or a student from Alaska could study the snow impact from where they live. G-Suite (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Drive ) is used for this method because it helps students collect and show research in a way that makes it easy for everyone.

Personalized learning is a relatively new style of teaching that, as the name gives away, is all about personalizing the student’s method of learning according to their specific interests and skills. It’s founded on the idea of student self-direction and choice. The assessments are also personalized and quite individual by using a competency-based progression. This means that once a student has mastered a certain skill or subject, they can move on to the next level, regardless of their current grade level. There is also an emphasis on college and career preparation involved because students work on their own, with a mentor (boss) guiding them along. The technology involved is, like the learning itself, quite personalized. However, everyone involved will need to have a certain comfort level with navigating online lessons and programs between the student and instructor.  

Another high-tech learning option is game-based learning which encourages students to develop a “mastery” mindset rather than focus too much on grades. Students develop problem-solving skills by working on accomplishing a specific goal (also known as a learning objective ) by choosing actions and different activities and then experimenting with them to achieve the goal. As students progress, they can earn badges and points, as they would in video games . Some of the software that makes game-based learning possible on the teacher’s part is 3DGameLab and Classcraft . Although this style of teaching isn’t completely student-centered, it’s still rather relatively focused on the student because they are able to work at their own pace and make independent choices while still in a gaming environment.

Low-Tech Approach

Some schools or teachers may not enjoy or have the money for high-tech learning and instead, they opt for a low-tech approach to teaching by using a technique called kinesthetic learning . Also known as tactile learning or hands-on learning , kinesthetic learning is a teacher-centered approach that uses the concept of multiple intelligences , the idea that everyone has a strong suit in certain intelligences than in others (i.e. better with words than math). Instead of lectures, students use physical activities to learn. For example, drawing, role-playing, and building. This isn’t as common of a teaching style one might think. However, this teaching style rarely uses technology by putting a stronger emphasis on movement and creativity. Because of this, it’s a cheap and screen-free teaching style.

Another low-tech teaching method is d ifferentiated instruction . Although this is a student-centered teaching style that aims to meet a student’s specific needs, it is mostly implemented by the teacher. Used commonly with students with special needs, differentiated instruction became popular in the United States in 1975 when a law was passed that ensure every child has equal access to an equal education. Some examples of differentiated instruction could include having students read books at their own reading levels or offering different spelling tests to different students depending on their literacy ability. Due to the lack of necessity to use technology and the adaptability of the teaching style, it’s a low-key and traditional teaching style.

What teaching style is best for today’s students?

As a teacher, it’s difficult to cater to each student’s needs. Constructivist teaching style  follows the theory that learning is an active, constructive, and valuable process. It carries with it the idea that people construct their own personal reality and any new information is given is then linked and connected to prior knowledge . Every person will bring with them cultural factors and past experiences to the table. Thus, any mental representation is made personal and individual. The constructivist teaching style assumes that all knowledge is constructed from information given in the past, regardless of how one is taught. It’s important to keep this idea in mind when choosing a teaching style.

Some students might learn better with being an empty vessel and having information , simply processed data, lectured to them. This is a form of passive learning and is commonly used when “teaching to the test,” meaning that the teaching style is structured to pass a certain exam like the ACT, for example.

Proven to be the most effective in a number of ways, an active learning style is best suited for interactive classrooms . That is to say, both the teacher and the student are engaged in the teaching style and learning process which helps the student gain knowledge , information modeled to be useful.

Do you have any fun teaching styles or strategies? What’s your favorite way that you were taught in school? Let us know in the comments below.

• Category: For Educators
• Tag: learning , school , teaching styles

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Center for Teaching

Teaching statements.

Print Version

• What is a teaching statement?
• What purposes does the teaching statement serve?
• What does a teaching statement include?

General Guidelines

• Reflection questions to help get you started
• Exercises to help get you started
• Evaluating your teaching statement
• Further resources

What is a Teaching Statement?

A Teaching Statement is a purposeful and reflective essay about the author’s teaching beliefs and practices. It is an individual narrative that includes not only one’s beliefs about the teaching and learning process, but also concrete examples of the ways in which he or she enacts these beliefs in the classroom. At its best, a Teaching Statement gives a clear and unique portrait of the author as a teacher, avoiding generic or empty philosophical statements about teaching.

What Purposes does the Teaching Statement Serve?

The Teaching Statement can be used for personal, professional, or pedagogical purposes. While Teaching Statements are becoming an increasingly important part of the hiring and tenure processes, they are also effective exercises in helping one clearly and coherently conceptualize his or her approaches to and experiences of teaching and learning. As Nancy Van Note Chism, Professor Emerita of Education at IUPUI observes, “The act of taking time to consider one’s goals, actions, and vision provides an opportunity for development that can be personally and professionally enriching. Reviewing and revising former statements of teaching philosophy can help teachers to reflect on their growth and renew their dedication to the goals and values that they hold.”

What does a Teaching Statement Include?

A Teaching Statement can address any or all of the following:

• Your conception of how learning occurs
• A description of how your teaching facilitates student learning
• A reflection of why you teach the way you do
• The goals you have for yourself and for your students
• How your teaching enacts your beliefs and goals
• What, for you , constitutes evidence of student learning
• The ways in which you create an inclusive learning environment
• Your interests in new techniques, activities, and types of learning

“If at all possible, your statement should enable the reader to imagine you in the classroom, teaching. You want to include sufficient information for picturing not only you in the process of teaching, but also your class in the process of learning.” – Helen G. Grundman, Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement

• Make your Teaching Statement brief and well written . While Teaching Statements are probably longer at the tenure level (i.e. 3-5 pages or more), for hiring purposes they are typically 1-2 pages in length.
• Use narrative , first-person approach. This allows the Teaching Statement to be both personal and reflective.
• Be sincere and unique. Avoid clichés, especially ones about how much passion you have for teaching.
• Make it specific rather than abstract. Ground your ideas in 1-2 concrete examples , whether experienced or anticipated. This will help the reader to better visualize you in the classroom.
• Be discipline specific . Do not ignore your research. Explain how you advance your field through teaching.
• Avoid jargon and technical terms, as they can be off-putting to some readers. Try not to simply repeat what is in your CV. Teaching Statements are not exhaustive documents and should be used to complement other materials for the hiring or tenure processes.
• Be humble . Mention students in an enthusiastic, not condescending way, and illustrate your willingness to learn from your students and colleagues.
• Revise . Teaching is an evolving, reflective process, and Teaching Statements can be adapted and changed as necessary.

Reflection Questions To Help You Get You Started:*

• Why do you teach the way you do?
• What should students expect of you as a teacher?
• What is a method of teaching you rely on frequently? Why don’t you use a different method?
• What do you want students to learn? How do you know your goals for students are being met?
• What should your students be able to know or do as a result of taking your class?
• How can your teaching facilitate student learning?
• How do you as a teacher create an engaging or enriching learning environment?
• What specific activities or exercises do you use to engage your students? What do you want your students to learn from these activities?
• How has your thinking about teaching changed over time? Why?

* These questions and exercises are meant to be tools to help you begin reflecting on your beliefs and ideas as a teacher. No single Teaching Statement can contain the answers to all or most of these inquiries and activities.

Exercises to Help You Get You Started:*

• The Teaching Portfolio , including a section on teaching statements, Duquesne University Center for Teaching Excellence. This website includes five effective exercises to help you begin the writing process
• Teaching Goals Inventory , by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross and their book Classroom Assessment Techniques . This “quiz” helps you to identify or create your teaching and learning goals.

Evaluating Your Teaching Statement

Writing A Statement Of Teaching Philosophy For The Academic Job Search (opens as a PDF), The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan.

This report includes a useful rubric for evaluating teaching philosophy statements. The design of the rubric was informed by experience with hundreds of teaching philosophies, as well as surveys of search committees on what they considered successful and unsuccessful components of job applicants’ teaching philosophies.

Further Resources:

General information on and guidelines for writing teaching statements.

• Writing a Philosophy of Teaching Statement , Faculty and TA Development at The Ohio State University. This site provides an in-depth guide to teaching statements, including the definition of and purposes for a teaching statement, general formatting suggestions, and a self-reflective guide to writing a teaching statement.
• Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement , Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Iowa State University. This document looks at four major components of a teaching statement, which have been divided into questions—specifically, to what end? By what means? To what degree? And why? Each question is sufficiently elaborated, offering a sort of scaffolding for preparing one’s own teaching statement.
• Writing a Meaningful Statement of Teaching Philosophy , McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University. This website offers strategies for preparing and formatting your teaching statement.

Articles about Teaching Statements

• Grundman, Helen (2006). Writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement (opens as a PDF), Notices of the AMS , Vol. 53, No. 11, p. 1329.
• Montell, Gabriela (2003). How to Write a Statement of Teaching Philosophy , from the Chronicle Manage Your Career section of the Chronicle of Higher Education .
• Montell, Gabriela (2003). What’s Your Philosophy on Teaching, and Does it Matter? , from the Chronicle Manage Your Career section of the Chronicle of Higher Education .

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11 Teaching Styles to Increase Student Engagement

We uncover the key types of teaching styles to help you accelerate student engagement

Christine Persaud

A one-size-fits-all approach never worked in higher education—for learning or teaching. Just as no two students learn the same way, no two educators can deliver their courses identically. Teaching styles offer a more flexible course experience , for both students and educators. 1 Mixing and matching teaching styles , or simply re-evaluating your current ones, can make your course delivery feel fresh and even improve student engagement.

In this guide, you will:

• Learn what teaching styles are and how they impact learning
• Get teaching styles examples and resources
• Review an inventory of different teaching styles, informed by higher ed experts like Anthony Grasha, Kay Mohanna, Ruth Chambers and David Walls
• Receive methods for experimenting with a range of different teaching styles (including the demonstrator and facilitator teaching styles) to improve your course delivery

Table of contents

• What are teaching styles?
• How different teaching styles affect learning
• What are the different types of teaching styles?
• Teaching styles proposed by Mohanna, Chambers and Wall
• Teaching styles proposed by Grasha
• Why teaching styles are important
• How teaching styles can improve student engagement

1. What are teaching styles?

Teaching styles are linked to a professor’s educational value system and stem from their philosophy of education. Being aware of your own teaching style (or styles) can help you improve your teaching methods, by designing your course to increase student engagement and, ultimately, enhance student outcomes. The types of teaching styles you adopt will depend on your course goals, course material and learning objectives.

Teaching styles not only refer to the instructional strategies and methods employed but also the use of certain types of rhetoric. In fact, Daniel K. Schneider, an associate professor at TECFA , a research and training unit in the faculty of psychology and education at the University of Geneva, says that educators are usually not aware of their own teaching style and it could even be described as an “emergent property.”

One educator, for example, might be more teacher-centered, viewing themselves as an authority figure on a particular topic. Another, meanwhile, might approach teaching from a mentorship perspective, functioning more in an advisory role and giving students the latitude to work more independently. Neither would be making a necessarily conscious decision to teach in that way.

Anthony Grasha, the late Professor of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati, and a noted expert on teaching styles defined five types of teaching methods: expert , formal authority , personal model , facilitator and delegator . Ideally, educators can experiment with multiple styles, consider their strengths and develop an approach that they’re comfortable with that can maximize student engagement. Often, this will involve making conscious use of a mix of teaching styles.

2. How different teaching styles affect learning

Harry and Rosemary Wong, former teachers and co-authors of The First Day of School: How to be an Effective Teacher and The Classroom Management Book , believe that there are three goals of teaching styles: to develop effective classroom management skills, to achieve lesson mastery and to have positive expectations.

Teaching styles can vary considerably based on individual classroom settings, the subject you’re teaching and the diverse group of students in your class. An authority or lecture-based teaching style, for example, is well-suited to large classes and subjects that require heavy memorization, like history. A delegator or group teaching style might be more conducive to subjects that require lab activity, like chemistry, or subjects that involve significant feedback, like debate and creative writing. In the latter style, the teacher inspires and observes rather than recites facts.

The goal of any teaching style is to remain focused on teaching objectives and engaging students as best you can. Not all students respond well to a particular style, which is why many professors who are versed in teaching styles use a combination of them based on the subject matter or environment.

Students are the most important factor in building your course environment: and it’s essential to use a teaching method to engage students at all levels of learning and ability. Using a balanced mix of teaching styles that blend the best of what you have to offer will reach every student effectively.

2.1. A teaching style inventory made for any course or instructor

The first step in developing and understanding your curriculum delivery is to review a teaching style inventory. 2 Several resources can offer structure to this self-reflective exercise. The most effective resources that can help you understand the different teaching styles are below.

• Mohanna, Chambers and Wall’s Staffordshire Evaluation of Teaching Styles (SETS) is a self-evaluation questionnaire and scoring sheet that helps educators select their own teaching style from a list of six options. The types of teaching methods include: a) all-around flexible and adaptable, b) student-centered and sensitive, c) official curriculum, d) straight facts; no-nonsense, e) big conference and f) one-off. 3
• The Teaching Behavior Preferences Survey by Behar and Horenstein (2006), meanwhile, includes statements (such as “My teaching is guided by instructional strategies”) to determine if you are more teacher- or student-centered, and into which of four subdomains you might fall. 4
• The Principles of Adult Learning Scale by Conty (1983) includes 44 self-administered questions to determine where you fall on the spectrum of teaching styles. 5
• Another option is the Constructionist On-Line Learning Environment Survey by Taylor and Maor (2000), which measures the quality of an online environment and teaching styles. 6

3. What are the different types of teaching styles?

There’s no canonical group of teaching styles. The concept can be sliced in many different ways in terms of definition. One group of classifications, for example, is based on content while another is based on student communication.

The important consideration is that teaching styles identify the gaps between where learners are and where they need to be and find a way to help bridge that gap.

Teaching styles can range from strict authorities to, more commonly nowadays, those that promote active and collaborative learning. Here are two of the most commonly used sets, which stem from Mohanna, Chambers and Wall’s teaching styles and Grasha’s teaching methods.

3.1. Types of teaching styles proposed by Mohanna, Chambers and Wall

Kay Mohanna, Ruth Chambers and David Wall developed SETS in 2007, to discover if there were distinct teaching styles that could be measured. 7 They were familiar with the idea of learning styles but felt that these did not take into account the importance of the teacher in the learning process as well. They also wondered if a mismatch between an educator’s teaching style and a student’s preferred learning style could stand in the way of positive educational outcomes.

The researchers analyzed aspects of teaching by studying educational literature and looked for patterns and associations. The themes they came up with fit into six identifiable teaching styles: all-around flexible and adaptable; student-centered, sensitive; official curriculum; straight facts, no-nonsense; big conference; and one-off. From there, they created a self-evaluation questionnaire and scoring sheet to provide professors with personal scores in each type to identify their strongest preferences. Plotting these points onto a Staffordshire Hexagon provides a visual representation of an educator’s personal teaching style matrix.

Below, we break down the six types of teaching styles as proposed by Mohanna, Chambers and Wall.

3.1.1. Student-centered, sensitive

This teaching style emphasizes emotions and gives students more responsibility for their own learning. It’s used by educators who are not comfortable delivering lengthy presentations, or when a subject does not necessarily call for formal lectures. Roleplay and drama can even be involved. For example, professor Sergio Juarez at California State University, Fresno takes an empathetic approach to student assessment. Using a dynamic Top Hat textbook, he allows students to deliver speeches in the language they feel most comfortable in, boosting student engagement and morale.

This student-centered teaching style promotes greater interaction and uses an active learning environment to help students develop critical thinking and meta-cognitive skills. However, this teaching method might not be effective for all students—many people can quickly get frustrated or lose a sense of direction with personal, unsupervised learning. Top Hat’s interactive and inclusive discussion tool sparks conversations where students are invited to share their ideas in a variety of ways, no matter how big the class.

This teaching style is best used in smaller classrooms, and where discovery and exploration would be more effective in the learning process than reciting facts and note-taking. It can be used in disciplines such as medicine and teaching a patient-centered mindset. It’s also ideal for a subject where activities like role-playing, lab work and drama can be used, such as debate and creative writing.

3.1.2. Official curriculum teacher

Teaching styles like this one are for the well-prepared and accredited educator who is aware of and wants to follow the formal curriculum to a tee. As Wall explains, “As well as being familiar with the curriculum statements, this teacher is very careful to match their teaching with these curriculum statements so that over time, the whole curriculum has been properly covered.”

This teaching style focuses on external targets for teaching, as well as faculty development and “teaching the teacher,” and offers dependency and security to instructors and students alike. Knowledge of the curriculum itself, of course, is paramount and this teaching style cannot work without it. However, one major disadvantage to this is that teaching with a structure in place means that one cannot deviate from it, even for subjects that students may find interesting or worth more time. As a result, student engagement can potentially suffer.

3.1.3. Straight facts, no-nonsense

Similar to the official curriculum teaching style, this style describes educators who like to teach facts and figures, typically in a lecture format. These educators are less focused on multi-disciplinary teaching and learning and place more value on specific course material that needs to be taught. It’s most appropriate for students at the beginning of a subject who need to absorb the foundations of a topic. This teaching style also works well for subjects that involve heavy memorization.

Content-based, teaching styles like this align well with the cognitive domain in Bloom’s taxonomy . For skills, Miller’s pyramid may be more useful. But aligning to structure could be hard for educators who prefer to take a more personal approach to their class—the authors recommend anybody who wants to adopt this teaching style attend ‘teach the teacher’ courses.

3.1.4. Big conference

This teaching style is adopted by professors who like to get up on stage in front of a big audience to share their knowledge on a topic. These teachers can potentially be very engaging speakers who can hold students’ interest, even if there is little interaction in class.

This teaching style works well when applied to subjects like psychology, philosophy or law, especially for large first-year courses. Quizzes and polls are one of the best ways to get a read on how your students are progressing. You can use them to highlight concepts in different, interactive ways and encourage student collaboration—but with Top Hat, they also create real-time insights that instantly let you know how your class is doing.

Of course, stage fright or fear of public speaking can be a significant problem for many teachers in this particular teaching style. Being able to network, engage others and engender respect are vital parts of speaking at a conference and teaching in a conference style. And, just because somebody can give a compelling presentation, it doesn’t mean they can necessarily teach. As Chambers says, “Quite often when a charismatic speaker has given a rousing lecture, you can think afterward, ‘Well, what did they actually say?’ and not be able to voice a single take-home message.”

3.1.5. One-off

The one-off teaching style is defined by professors who prefer to deliver small, self-contained bits of teaching on a one-on-one basis versus lecturing on a topic for an hour in front of a big audience. There are no props or fancy presentations—just the teacher and student. It can also cover any impromptu teaching time or guest workshops. The downside to this teaching method is that students often have little-to-no connection with their professor, making learning feel highly impersonal.

“One-off teaching is impersonal, flexible, self-confident, self-contained, resourceful, centered more on the purpose of teaching than learners’ needs [and] discontinuous,” Chambers writes. A one-off teacher ultimately might be brought in to fill a knowledge gap so that curriculum goals can be fulfilled.

3.1.6. All-round: Flexible and adaptable

Those who prefer this teaching style are comfortable using different skills and methods in the classroom. Educators take into account both the environment and individual student needs and adapt on the fly—knowing that students differ in needs and learning styles. The integrated approach is inclusive and allows professors to adjust as needed, thus potentially reaching more students effectively.

Some educators might feel that it’s easier to stick to one teaching style, but a base awareness of different teaching styles and how they can apply to different students is a good first step towards developing an all-around mentality. “The all-around flexible teacher does however possess one skill we should all aspire to as teachers; the main role of any teacher is to create an educational environment that supports learning,” says Mohanna.

3.2. Teaching styles proposed by Grasha

Anthony Grasha coined five approaches to teaching styles in 1996 8 : expert, formal authority, personal model, facilitator and delegator.

Grasha believes that all educators possess each of these five teaching styles to varying degrees, though they gravitate to some more than others. He likens teaching styles to an artist’s palette: the teacher’s primary or dominant teaching style(s) are similar to the foreground of a painting, while the other qualities still exist, but are farther into the background. All styles and colors, however, are needed to some degree to create a painting with dimensions and layers.

Many educators and educational institutions use Grasha’s styles to help define their approaches to learning and teaching. One study with English as a First Language (EFL) 9 educators found that this group most frequently adopts the facilitator teaching style, followed by delegator, personal, expert and formal authority. The study determined that these types of teaching methods helped create an environment that was more conducive to learning, promoted higher levels of motivation and helped students achieve their goals.

3.2.1. Expert

The expert teaching style defines professors who want to showcase a high level of knowledge and expertise in a subject and use the information to challenge students. The goal is to transmit information to students to prepare them for assignments, exams and further studies. This tremendous knowledge transfer can be helpful for students looking to soak up information from credible resources in their field. But this method can be intimidating for students if it’s overused. And while this style focuses on facts and figures, it might not successfully show the processes used to find answers to problems.

Similar to the official curriculum teaching style—and the one-off style, for parachuted-in knowledge—the expert style is ideal for large and more mature classes in higher education, including introductory sophomore classes where there are countless facts and figures that students need to grasp.

3.2.2. Formal authority

Educators who use the formal authority teaching style establish status among students, clearly define their learning goals and expectations and follow a set list of rules of how things should be done. This teaching style is great for students who need structure since there are clear guidelines and expectations, and an understanding of the acceptable way to do things. 

However, this teaching style can also be too rigid and standardized for many students who appreciate more active learning settings, interaction and better engagement. This teaching method can work effectively in disciplines like law or music where there are established rules that need to be followed, and where an instructor can lead by example by playing an instrument or discussing legal procedures.

3.2.3. Personal model

In the personal model, educators use any opportunity they can to teach by using real-life examples and establishing a prototype of how to think and behave based on their own beliefs and methods. Educators oversee, guide and direct work, but don’t necessarily present themselves as authorities on a subject. Rather, they show students how to do things and encourage them to observe and follow directions to complete tasks. This educator, then, is essentially a role model.

This type of teaching style provides hands-on experience and direct observation. But some educators run the risk of pushing their own way as the best way, which can cause some students to feel inadequate if they can’t live up to the standards. This method could work well, however, in a higher education setting where students already have a good grasp of the material and abstract concepts, and where all students are working on the same level, like in advanced medical studies.

3.2.4. Facilitator

Providing a warm, more emotional climate, the facilitator’s teaching style focuses on teacher-student interaction on a personal level. Students are encouraged to ask questions, explore different options and suggest alternatives, and are guided along the way as they learn by trial and error. The goal is to help students think independently and take more responsibility for their own learning process. Elizabeth Sargent, Biology Lecturer at Georgia Southern University , takes on a facilitator teaching style in her classroom. During assessment time, she asks students to suggest new topics to discuss and debate. Sargent also runs group exams—held before a formal end-of-term test—to allow students to build connections with their peers and to help one another arrive at a solution.

In this teaching style, the instructor works in a more consultative role, providing support and encouragement. This style allows for much greater flexibility in the classroom and focuses on student needs and goals. But it can be time-consuming and ineffective if the subject matter is one where a more direct approach is needed. Some students might also be uncomfortable with a less structured approach. Facilitation can work well in smaller classroom settings or upper-level and graduate courses where creativity and exploration are encouraged, and if students are at a point they feel willing to take risks.

3.2.5. Delegator

The ultimate goal for someone adopting this teaching style is for students to be able to function autonomously, working independently on assignments and projects or as part of small teams with peers. The instructor is available when needed, to be used as a resource. Educators who use the delegator teaching style don’t host formal lectures.

A teaching style like this can help students develop the tools to be confident and independent learners. Still, students who aren’t ready for such autonomy could become anxious and not perform well. This method is great for upper-level studies where students already have an appropriate level of knowledge and don’t need much hand-holding. They are ready to rise to the next level of learning and view the educator as a guide, not someone who’s there for standard instruction.

4. Why teaching styles are important

4.1. teaching style examples in higher education.

Teaching styles used in K-12 classroom settings won’t necessarily work in higher education settings. Younger children will initially respond more to authoritative teaching methods, and while older students might benefit from blended learning or working on their own projects, incoming college students will be expected to do a great deal of research and work on their own.

Many studies have found that there is value in higher education instructors sharing some aspects of their personal lives with students. It humanizes them and makes them appear more relatable and approachable. Doing so could be as simple as mentioning your love of a popular TV series as an aside (bonus points if you can relate it to the course material) or even some family circumstances. “When [a faculty member] shared that she has a daughter beginning college at another university, she showed that she understands from multiple perspectives what it is like to be a college student,” says Dr. Sarah M. Ginsberg, associate professor at Eastern Michigan University, in an essay entitled Shared Characteristics of College Faculty Who Are Effective Communicators .

Content isn’t the be-all, end-all of classroom management. More important than knowing is being able to use effective instructional strategies to share it. In other words, how you teach something is just as important as what you teach.

“I think that deep engagement is really hard work for students. If they become engaged that means they’re applying effort, it means they’re exposing themselves to possible failure, it means they’re taking risks. One of the best ways to engage students is to challenge them. To push them to the outskirts of their ability and even a bit beyond. For all of those reasons, engagement is hard work for students. I view it as offering them an open hand to succeed.” Professor Sarah Rose Cavanagh, author and psychology professor, author of Hivemind and Spark .

In addition to trying to make your curriculum more personal, seeking feedback from students throughout the year (not just at the end of a course) can help educators gain a better understanding of how well their teaching style is working, and how they can adjust it to better reach students. Technologies like clickers and in-class polls and surveys can help, as well as simply observing student behavior to gauge their interest and enjoyment in the class.

Change doesn’t have to be drastic. Employing simple tactics can go a long way to increasing student engagement . It could be asking students to write their questions, comments or responses on assignments for your feedback—taking some inspiration from the more student-centered teaching styles—or structuring an otherwise lengthy lecture to include breaks, which would require some flexibility in teaching.

4.2. Teaching styles and academic performance

Many studies have found a relationship between teaching styles and academic performance. In Malaysia, one study 10 found a “significant but moderate” relationship between a lecturer’s teaching style and student academic engagement. More support for the relationship between student engagement and a teacher’s teaching style can be found in the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (2000).

A student’s ability and willingness to learn also depends on how suitable a teaching style is to the way they prefer to absorb course material. Psychological investment and the institution’s culture can also impact student participation.

Overall, student involvement is an important predictor of academic performance. The more students are involved in and engaged with their studies, the better they are likely to perform.

4.3. Teaching styles and active learning

Not surprisingly, some teaching styles lend themselves more to active learning than others. Any teaching style that involves less lecture time and more student interaction is conducive to active learning. This includes teaching styles like the delegator, facilitator and personal model in Grasha’s classifications, and the student-centered, sensitive, one-off and all-around, flexible and adaptable teaching methods in Mohanna, Chambers and Wall’s. Any blended teaching style, of course, incorporates some active learning components.

To encourage an active learning environment, and ensure that it thrives, find a comfortable balance between both the cognitive and affective dimensions of teaching and work to develop a genuine relationship with students in some way.

Even if you gravitate more toward an expert or authoritative teaching style, try and make yourself more approachable by carving out some time to create meaningful activities for students. Presentations, demonstrations, and responsive feedback—part of the delegator or facilitator teaching style—are vital aspects of active learning.

Even teaching styles such as formal authority or a one-off lecture can incorporate some active learning strategies. Flipped classrooms can be achieved with a curriculum-based teaching style; a ‘straight facts’ approach melds well with a ‘muddiest point’ exercise.

4.4. Teaching styles versus learning styles

Teaching styles and learning styles can work hand-in-hand. And when they match, it can result in a positive experience all around

Learning styles, in general, describe ways that students prefer to absorb and understand information, and the classifications they put themselves in based on their preferences. Some sets include visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners or verbal learners. Since there’s no common definition for learning styles, there’s no scientific basis to them: nevertheless, taking the student’s perspective is valuable when considering your teaching style.

Like learning styles, it’s widely acknowledged that teaching styles fall on a spectrum and are contextual rather than fixed. An educator doesn’t necessarily adopt just one type of teaching style but they might employ a secondary or tertiary style when necessary. Or the instructor might switch styles based on subjects, students, course curriculum or other mitigating factors as part of a plan to adopt more effective learning strategies.

At least one study has found a statistically significant correlation between successful teaching styles and learning styles. 11 But a mismatch between the two, for example, could in some ways be beneficial for first-year students and those in the early stages of learning. Some students can benefit from being pushed to learn in new ways outside of their comfort zones, and thus develop new learning skills.

Regardless of the primary teaching style, the goal should always be to adopt a balanced method that doesn’t favor one style too much, that is open-minded to different types of teaching and can accommodate different learning styles.

5. How teaching styles can improve student engagement

The teaching style(s) you choose to employ can directly predict student engagement, collaboration and participation. Research shows that when students feel that their teacher is more involved and supportive of their goals, students will be more engaged inside the classroom and, in turn, more likely to perform better academically. 12 For example, the delegator teaching style may require a greater level of effort and persistence on students’ part. The facilitator teaching style prompts students to take the lead in managing discussions and projects, which will simultaneously increase their engagement and sense of agency. Here are some ways that students may feel more involved in the learning process.

• Polls and discussions may encourage students to reflect upon a statement and voice their opinions
• Visual diagrams, 3D simulations and even hands-on dissections can allow students to observe and experiment with something foreign
• Group work and activities can lead to friendly competition and help learners forge connections with their classmates

6. Conclusion

Teaching styles are not set in stone, and course delivery shouldn’t be placed in specific boxes. Every educator falls somewhere on a spectrum, from the authoritative expert to the student-centered facilitator and delegator. More important than defining where you fall on the spectrum—though this is useful to determine—is analyzing and observing your curriculum, students and subject matter and finding the best teaching style to match.

Teaching styles that match students’ learning styles, and that put student needs and learning at the forefront, can lead to more positive academic outcomes. Students tend to be more engaged, and thus better grasp the material.

Educators who are aware of their teaching style, who re-evaluate it, try new things and get feedback from students can take teaching to a new level.

• Bohren, A. (2019, March 8). Teaching styles: Everything you need to know about teaching methods and strategies. CogniFit. https://blog.cognifit.com/teaching-styles/
• Teaching Styles. (n.d.). Center for Research on Learning & Teaching, University of Michigan. https://crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tsts
• Mohanna, K., Chambers, R., & Wall, D. (2007). Developing your teaching style: increasing effectiveness in healthcare teaching. Postgraduate medical journal, 83 (977), 145–147. https://doi.org/10.1136/pgmj.2006.054106
• Teaching Style. (2018). ART 601: Teaching Assistant Seminar. http://art601.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/5/1/22512830/teaching_style.pdf
• Principles of Adult Learning Scale. (n.d.). Conti-Creations. http://www.conti-creations.com/Online_Page.htm
• The Constructivist On-Line Learning Environment Survey (COLLES). (n.d.). Curtin University of Technology. https://surveylearning.moodle.com/colles/
• Mohanna, K., Chambers, R., & Wall, D. (2008). Your teaching style: A practical guide to understanding, developing and improving. Oxford: Radcliffe.
• Grasha, A. F. (1994). A Matter of Style: The Teacher as Expert, Formal Authority, Personal Model, Facilitator, and Delegator. College Teaching , 42(4). 10.1080/87567555.1994.9926845.
• Heydarnejad, T., Fatemi, A. H., & Ghonsooly, B. (2017). An Exploration of EFL Teachers’ Teaching Styles and Emotions. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research , 4(2), 26-46.
• Shaari, A. S., et al. (2014). The Relationship between Lecturers’ Teaching Style and Students’ Academic Engagement. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences , 118. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.002.
• Hussain, Nasreen & Ayub, Nadia. (2012). Learning Styles of Students and Teaching Styles of Teachers in Business Education: A Case Study of Pakistan. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences. 69. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.12.122.
• Fall, A.-M. and Roberts, G. (2012), High school dropouts: Interactions between social context, self-perceptions, school engagement, and student dropout. Journal of Adolescence, 35: 787-798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.11.004

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An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Styles & Learning Styles

Student Learning Styles

A range of different teaching styles.

• Lifelong Education for Teachers: Impact of a Master's Degree

Hello, welcome to “An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Styles & Learning Styles.” Today’s discussion topic: How student learning styles affect educators’ teaching styles, and vice versa. Here is the syllabus for our key discussion points:

• Individual Student Learning Styles
• The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• Teacher-Centered vs. Student-Centered
• Teaching Styles: 5 Approaches to Education
• Lifelong Education for Teachers: Impact of an MEd
• Follow-up Quiz

Editor’s note: The decision to playfully craft this blog post to feel like a classroom lesson is a writing strategy intended to engage the reader for what we hope will be an informative discussion of important educational concepts and practices.

If you are a teacher, you know that no two students are the same and that there is a spectrum of different learning styles. An educator’s teaching style, therefore, can greatly impact a student’s ability to learn and comprehend. This is why knowledge of different learning styles is essential for teachers.

Does Andrea learn most effectively through images and graphics? She may be a  Visual learner .

Does Jeremy seem to grasp the material best by listening to lectures, asking questions and participating in group discussions? He may be an  Auditory learner .

Do Max and Emily prefer to gather information by reading, taking notes and writing reports or essays? They may be  Reading/Writing learners .

And what about Dylan? She is very hands-on, and seems to enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together — to learn by doing. She may be a  Kinesthetic learner .

That’s one common breakdown of the spectrum of learning styles, but of course it is not the only one. (One of the first lessons you learn when researching learning styles is that there are many different theories.)

One is the Theory of Multiple Intelligences , developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Harvard educator Howard Gardner (see video) , who believed that there are eight distinct “intelligences” that are closely connected to learning. These are:

• Visual-Spatial  — The ability to conceptualize and manipulate large-scale spatial arrays (e.g. airplane pilot, sailor), or more local forms of space (e.g. architect, chess player).
• Bodily-Kinesthetic — The ability to use one’s whole body, or parts of the body (like the hands or the mouth), to solve problems or create products (e.g. dancer).
• Musical  — Sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, meter, tone, melody and timbre. May entail the ability to sing, play musical instruments, and/or compose music (e.g. musical conductor).
• Linguistic  — Sensitivity to the meaning of words, the order among words and the sound, rhythms, inflections and meter of words (e.g. poet). Sometimes called language intelligence.
• Logical-Mathematical  — The capacity to conceptualize the logical relations among actions or symbols (e.g. mathematicians, scientists).
• Interpersonal — The ability to interact effectively with others. Sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations (e.g. negotiator). Sometimes called social intelligence.
• Intrapersonal — Sensitivity to one’s own feelings, goals and anxieties, and the capacity to plan and act in light of one’s own traits. It is not particular to specific careers; rather, it connects to the ability of every individual to make consequential decisions for oneself. Sometimes called self-intelligence.
• Naturalistic  — The ability to make consequential distinctions in the world of nature as, for example, between one plant and another, or one cloud formation and another. Sometimes called nature intelligence.

The idea behind multiple intelligence theories is not that people learn in only one way, but that people are stronger in different areas and can demonstrate their knowledge and abilities in different ways. For teachers, being attuned to such distinctions can be helpful in understanding how to best connect with individual students.

[Download] Get the Teaching and Learning Styles Guide PDF Now >>

There are two main buckets that most teaching styles fall into: teacher centered or student centered. Here’s a closer look at teacher-centered instruction vs. the student-centered approach :

Teacher-Centered Approach

The teacher-centered approach to education positions the teacher as the expert who is in charge of imparting knowledge to his or her students via lectures or direct instruction. In this approach (sometimes called “sage on the stage”), students are passive actors or “empty vessels,” listening and absorbing information.

This teacher-centered style is the traditional approach to teaching, but it’s not necessarily the best. And as educators learn more about effective ways to engage learners of every style, the teacher-centered approach is looked upon less fondly than it once was. However, there are also countless examples of students being challenged and transformed by a teacher or professor lecturing about a subject they have spent their entire life exploring.

Student-Centered Approach

The student-centered approach creates more equanimity between the teacher and student, with each playing a role in the learning process. In this approach, the teacher is sometimes referred to as the “guide on the side.”

While the teacher still holds authority, he or she is more likely to act as a facilitator, coaching students and assisting them in their learning. This approach champions student choice and facilitates connections among students. A couple of styles within the student-centered approach to teaching are:

Inquiry-Based Style This student-centered learning style encourages independence, autonomy and hands-on learning, with students leading the way and receiving guidance from their teachers.

Cooperative Style Cooperative learning is a student-centered approach that focuses on group work and social growth. Much like the inquiry-based style, the cooperative style encourages independence and hands-on learning but puts special importance on peer-to-peer work and community.

Question : How many teaching styles are there? Answer : This is sort of a “trick question” because, as you might expect, different educational theorists offer differing ideas about the range, scope, descriptions (and number) of different teaching style s.

Though this may be a case where there are no “right answers,” many educational resources break down the different styles of teaching into the following five primary categories :

Lecturer or Authoritative Style The authoritative teaching style follows the traditional teacher-centered approach, often characterized by lecture sessions or one-way presentations. In this approach (also called the “chalk and talk” style), students are expected to pay attention, absorb the information, take notes and ask questions.

Demonstrator or Coach Style Often used in math, science and music, the demonstrator style involves more “showing” rather than “telling” with teachers more likely to support the information with examples or experiments, demonstrations or multimedia presentations.

Facilitator or Activity Style The facilitator/teacher is focused on promoting self-learning and helping students develop critical learning and thinking skills. A student-centered approach, it involves creating learning plans and classes that require students to explore and discover the course content in creative and original ways.

Delegator or Group Style Well-suited for curriculums that include or emphasize group activities, the delegator style of teaching shifts much of the responsibility for learning onto the students, who are encouraged to work together in projects connected to the lesson themes (think science labs, debates, etc.). In this style, the teacher is an active observer working to guide students in the right direction.

Hybrid or Blended Style

The hybrid approach may integrate elements of the styles discussed above, often blending the teacher’s personality and interests with those of the students. While this method is considered inclusive, enabling teachers to tailor their styles to student needs within the subject matter, some educators believe it risks diluting the learning process by placing less emphasis on in-depth study than when following a single, focused approach.

The discussion above is not intended to reduce the organic practice of classroom teaching into neat categories or to pigeonhole educators into being characterized as one “type” of teacher or another — but rather to explore different methodologies to enhance our shared understanding of the teaching experience. What it boils down to is getting to know your students and using your skills and instincts to discover the most effective ways to engage both the individual student and entire classes with your curriculum.

Getting to know each student well enough to effectively teach them is especially challenging for high school and middle school teachers who have different students every hour. What works with one student or group might not work with the next.

That’s why it’s so important for educators to have both a strong sense of the range of different student learning styles and a firm grasp of the different teaching styles and strategies you can use to be the most effective educator you can be.

Lifelong Education for Teachers: Impact of a Master’s Degree

Educators who are motivated to develop a deeper understanding of different teaching styles, learning styles, instructional theory and much more will often pursue a Master of Education degree. Such programs not only present an opportunity to become a better educator, in many school districts obtaining an MEd will also earn teachers a salary increase.

To help expand educational opportunities for busy working teachers, the University of San Diego has developed an innovative, 100% online  Master of Education degree program  that gives teachers the option of earning their MEd on their own schedule, while interacting with and learning from fellow educators across the country.

The  MEd specializations  include:

• STEAM  (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics)
• Inclusive Learning: Special Education and Universal Design  (UDL)
• Curriculum and Instruction
• School Leadership
• Technology and Innovation

Follow-up quiz:

• What are some of your most effective teaching strategies?
• What aspects of education (or specializations) would you like to learn more about?
• Have you been thinking about taking your mastery of teaching to the next level?

If you answered “Yes” to Question 3, you may want to start a conversation with a USD advisor about how our master’s degree program could help you achieve your goals as an educator, and as a lifelong student.

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Guide to Teaching and Learning Styles

Download this free resource for an overview of how different students learn, and how you can support them. 

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Strategies for teaching online: the ultimate guide for educators.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: March 1, 2022

With COVID-19 nearly overnight transforming our traditional classrooms into virtual ones, it can seem like distance learning has appeared out of nowhere. But, the truth is, education’s shift towards distance learning had been steadily growing long before this pandemic. And it’s here to stay.

What We Review

Why Distance Learning is Here to Stay

Nothing is perfect, and distance learning isn’t a solution to all a school’s problems. However, it does meet a variety of both students’ and school districts’ needs that traditional, brick-and-mortar classrooms can’t.

Fully virtual schools have been sprouting up across states for years, and only growing in popularity. While some families have realized that full-time distance learning doesn’t suit their personal lifestyles, for others it’s essential. Competitive student-athletes with rigorous training schedules, students with mental or physical ailments, and families who just want the flexibility in their day, to name a few.

Even traditional schools are utilizing fully virtual courses for their in-person populations. For example, say a district wants to offer a film studies course to their students but doesn’t have the funding or the student numbers to justify a full-time film teacher in every building. This district will instead hire one teacher to virtually run the course through an online Learning Management System, like Canvas or Moodle. Students across the district can now take this virtual course at any period of the day, in their school’s computer lab.

We see districts investing in virtual tools, digital subscriptions, practice software, and broadband. Digital citizenship courses are on the rise as a key component in school curricula.

For educators new to distance learning, it can be difficult to know what online teaching techniques work best, or even where to begin. In this comprehensive post, we detail effective online teaching strategies, easy-to-use tips, and provide a number of accessible resources.

The 3 Keys to Teaching Online Classes Effectively

While everyone’s teaching style is a bit different, successful educators all follow the same best practices in online teaching. These 5 simple principles are the framework for all of the top online learning strategies.

1. Clear communication with your students’ families.

Families want to hear from you often and regularly. It can be easy for students and parents to start to feel disconnected. Reassure them your “virtual door” is always open, and share your email and phone number early and often in multiple places. Clear, respectful communication is the key to building relationships and classroom community.

2. Vary your types of lessons.

Your teaching should be a blend of both synchronous (happening in real-time) and asynchronous (unscheduled and self-paced). Synchronous teaching through phone calls, video lessons, or live chats allows students to ask questions and build relationships with you and each other. Asynchronous activities, like discussion boards or recorded lectures, allow your students to complete assignments at their own time and pace. Both styles have their benefits and are necessary in their own ways.

3. Select the right tools for your class.

Your school’s Learning Management System or LMS will most likely be the primary tool you use for your direct communication and posting assignments. Familiarize yourself with it early, and don’t hesitate to reach out to your more tech-savvy coworkers with questions. You’ll also need a separate tool like Google Voice o r Zoom or phone calls, live lessons, and video chatting. 

Beyond these basics, there are a huge variety of educational technology tools to transform your teaching and engage your students. This is the fun part! Use the tips and tricks provided later in this article for discovering, experimenting, and implementing new tools in your classroom.

Return to the Table of Contents

What are the Most Common Strategies of Distance Education?

Encouraging student engagement while ensuring they master their course content can be challenging in any setting. We provide vital online teaching ideas on how to make your lessons more interactive and foster active learning. We discuss these five most common strategies in distance education in more detail throughout this article:

1. Adapt your lessons to work online.

Revamp your in-person lessons to the online environment with engaging discussions, screen recordings, and interactive tech tools.

2. Set clear expectations with students and families.

Share your expectations and due dates early and often to prepare students and families for a successful year.

3. Build a strong online classroom community.

Classroom community is just as essential in the virtual environment and can be fostered with video chats, purposeful free time, and class message boards.

4. Connect with parents and keep them involved.

Keep parents involved consistently with frequent and engaging communications like weekly newsletters and personal phone calls throughout the school year.

5. Find and utilize the right EdTech for your needs.

Collaborate with fellow educators and identify specific needs to find and implement the best tools for your classroom.

Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Adapt Your Lesson Plans to Different Types of Learners

We know you’ve already put endless hours into your lessons plans, tweaking and perfecting them. Don’t feel like all that work has gone to waste! There are a bunch of different online learning strategies to adapt your in-person lesson plans to fit the virtual environment. It just takes a little creativity and the right tools.

1. Add discussions to increase engagement and comprehension.

An unbeatable tool for asynchronous discussions is Flipgrid . Instead of typing, students record themselves answering your posted questions. They can view and respond to each other’s videos, as well. This is a great option for reluctant writers, a strong way to boost engagement, and promote active learning.

For written discussions, Google Classroom is a great tool. You simply post the assignment instructions, let students post their answer, and then they can read and respond to others. Check out How to Teach From Home with Google Classroom and Albert for more tips.

For synchronous discussions, chat rooms like YO Teach allow students to message back and forth in real-time. Fair warning- these chatrooms require active monitoring from the teacher side. 

2. Utilize screen recordings to pre-record yourself and your lessons.

For the Powerpoints you’ve already created, screen recording software like Loom or Screencastify allows you to record your presentation on-screen as you speak and click through your slides. It even has the option to include a little window with your face on the screen, so your students can still see you. These videos can be downloaded or shared via weblink. 

Beyond just lessons, you can also record yourself explaining assignment directions, for those students who do better when verbally told what to do.

3. Make your lessons interactive and engaging.

Nearpod is one way to make online classes more interactive. It’s a dynamic tool that allows students to follow along and participate in your lessons on their own devices. First, you import your pre-existing lessons pdfs or Powerpoints. You then can add in places for student interaction: written responses, drawings, quizzes, polls, collaborate boards, and more. You can differentiate the type and difficulty of assignments for different student needs.

Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Set Clear Expectations with Students

Strong classroom management is as essential in the online environment as it is in the traditional one. Even though you won’t be physically seeing your students every day, read on for 5 effective online teaching strategies to hold them accountable.

1. Post behavior expectations in every live discussion.

Make your rules/expectations crystal clear from the outset, especially in live discussions. You’ll probably find even the quieter students feel more bold typing in the chat- which is great when it’s positive conversations, but not-so-great when it gets off-topic or inappropriate. 

In your first synchronous lesson, spend time discussing with your students what you as a class want your “Online Classroom Norms” to be. Create a list of around 8-10 norms, including specific rules like “stay on topic,” “always be kind and respectful,” “raise your hand and wait to be called on before turning on your microphone.” After you create the norms, review and share the document before every live lesson.

2. Set and enforce consequences in live discussions.

The same in any classroom, it’s just as important to enforce your expectations as it is to create and share them. If a student is negatively participating, you can easily mute or remove him or her from the lesson. Then, follow up afterward with a phone call home to discuss the situation.

3. Find your positive reinforcement.

My students used to love cleaning the whiteboard, or getting small pieces of candy. But online, these rewards don’t translate. However, it’s still just as important to reward students to reinforce their positive behavior. Some ideas include:

• Public shoutouts : Recognize star students in your emails to the class, during synchronous lessons, or post them on a public board. A board like padlet can even let students post shoutouts recognizing each other.
• Private shoutouts : Send students and their families individual messages when they’ve done a great job.
• Student choice : Allowing students to make even seemingly small choices can be motivating. Let a student choose which song to play before the lesson starts or choose a fun image for your virtual Zoom background.

4. Set clear due dates.

Many students struggle with time management. Without a rigid school day schedule, it’s easy for students to lose track of time and fall behind on their work. Set due dates for everything, and send frequent reminders. By the way, check out our free teaching strategy discovery tool .

Where possible, chunk large assignments into smaller ones to help students keep on pace. For example, if assigning an essay, set a due date for the outline, the rough draft, and the final essay. This helps force the “wait til the last minute” folks to move forward at a steady pace.

5. Use acknowledgement forms.

In this online environment, you’ll find yourself inevitably wondering, “Does anyone even read my emails?” To guarantee your students read and understand any especially important communications, add a link to a quick Google Form where a student and/or parent will type their name to acknowledge they read and understood it.

Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Build Rapport and Community with Students

Without the natural opportunities to make connections in a traditional classroom, it’s important to create these spaces in the online setting. We share easy best practices in online teaching to build your classroom community:

1. Use interactive Flipgrid discussions.

With Flipgrid, you and your students can respond to topics you’ve posted with a selfie video. Students can view everyone’s responses and then post a video reply. Though these aren’t synchronous discussions, seeing and hearing you and their classmates helps to form a community bond.

2. Incorporate purposeful free time .

Allowing 10 minutes before a live lesson for students to enter early to chat with you and each other, is a great way to foster important, informal connections. If possible, host a half hour recess once a week, where students can log into a live meeting room just to hang out. If conversation lags or needs direction, you can facilitate topics with fun icebreakers and “would you rather” questions.

3. Have a regular show and tell .

The virtual classroom makes show and tell easier than ever! You set the topic (their pet, their favorite outfit, something from a fun vacation), and students can turn on their video cameras and microphones to share in a lesson. Alternatively, you can include your show and tell in the bottom of a weekly email update. Students can share videos or just pictures and a caption- whatever works best for you!

4. Utilize a class message board .

Padlet is a great tool for creating a collaborative class message board. Students can wish each other happy birthdays, share exciting events in their lives, or post shoutouts and encouragements to each other. You can adjust Padlet’s settings so that all messages have to be approved by you before posting.

5. Remember the value of a personal phone call.

Just reaching out and speaking with your student one-on-one builds an essential bond. It can be overwhelming if you have a large class, so set a goal to speak with a certain number of students each week to ensure you’re reaching everyone. If you don’t have a work phone, create a free Google Voice account so families don’t have access to your personal number.

Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Connect with Parents

We know that parent involvement strongly impacts student performance in school. Research shows the importance of teachers and parents developing relationships based on trust, respect, and solid communication. 

In the online environment, parent involvement looks very different. As the person physically with the student, parents are now responsible for making sure their child is staying on-task and logging into the computer each day to complete assignments. It can take some parents a while to adjust to their new role. As the teachers, we must find ways to connect and support our parents, provide online learning strategies for students, and keep them involved throughout the school year.

1. Send frequent reminders with Remind 101 .

This is a great two-way communication tool, that allows you to send both mass and personalized text messages. Parents who aren’t fans of checking their email or logging into their LMS account every day benefit from receiving timely reminders like these directly to their phones:

• Class events, times, and locations
• Due dates for upcoming assignments or test days
• Links to resources, videos, and articles

2. Share out weekly newsletters.

Newsletter emails help keep families informed and involved with the happenings in your class and the school. We recommend including pictures and highlighting student achievements to keep parents engaged all school year.   Lucidpress offers a number of different, free templates to choose from.

3. Be clear and consistent with your expectations.

Parents want to know what they can do to support their child’s learning, but don’t always know where to start. Having clear conversations about your goals and expectations for the school year helps. In the transition to online learning, we can discuss parent expectations like:

• Checking their child’s due dates and what they’ve submitted each day
• Checking the posted grades for each class
• Reading and responding to teacher emails and calls
• Reaching out with any questions or challenges

Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Find the Right EdTech Tools and Curricula Supports

With so many different tools out there, it can be overwhelming to find the one that’s best for you and your students. Our distance learning hub is a great place to start. You can also use these simple strategies to make your selection process easy and effective. 

1. Utilize these 100+ Distance Learning Tools .

We provide a comprehensive guide of 100+ distance learning tools and strategies for effective student engagement. If you’re unsure where to begin, or just want to explore new technology, start with this list. It’s organized by both instructional need and content area.

2. Collaborate with colleagues.

Even though you’re not seeing your coworkers in the hallway every day, they’re still one of the most valuable resources you can find. It can be easy to feel isolated working home alone, but remember to reach out and ask what your fellow teachers are doing in their virtual classrooms. They’re all researching and testing out new strategies and tools just like you are, and sharing your mutual findings benefits everyone.

3. Supplement your Curricula Needs.

When you need to supplement your curriculum with ready-made online activities, Albert has engaging, standards-aligned resources across grade levels and subjects. While many resources are free, educators are encouraged to try Albert for free . Tips for teaching English online using Albert include varying our leveled readings in STEM and across topics to generate interest among different students.

4. EdTech Digital Promise Framework .

This process helps educational leaders select and run successful educational technology pilots in their schools. The steps include how to identify a need, discover and select a product, train staff, and much more.

5. Always do a test run before using a new tool in class.

After you’ve selected the new tool to try, create a mock class to assign work to. Log in and test out your activity as a student, so you can truly see if this will work for your class. Also, you’ll be able to help troubleshoot common problems that you might not have noticed from just your teacher log-in.

Common Mistakes Teachers Make When First Teaching Online

There’s a few common mistakes even the best veteran teachers make when first switching to the online environment. Keep in mind these strategies for teaching online when you get started:

1. Not setting boundaries with students and parents.

Working from home, it can be tough to disconnect from your work. It’s even tougher when you have students and families reaching out to you at all hours of the evening. It can be tempting to answer the phone or send a quick reply, but resist. 

Share the hours you’re available with your families, and stick to them. Mimic your normal school day, like 7:30am to 3:30pm Monday to Friday. It’s important you give yourself the time to disconnect, and anything your student needs can wait until the next morning. Teacher burnout is real.

2. Not testing new tools a few times before rolling them out to your students.

We all know- technology is great… when it works. Inevitably, something won’t always go as planned. But, that’s okay! Just like in the traditional classroom, teachers adapt and move on if something goes wrong. It can be intimidating to try out a new tool for the first time, so we suggest setting up a mock class and using some willing colleagues or family members as your guinea pigs before rolling it out with students.

3. Rolling out too much too soon.

Be wary of assigning complex tasks and assignments without training your students on how to use the technology first. Families and students will be capable of handling this complexity at some point, if you build them up to it. You don’t want your student spending more time trying to decipher the instructions than learning the actual content.

When assigning a learning task using a new tech tool, consider that it may take your families an extra 30min to one hour to get the hang of using it. Provide clear instructions with common troubleshooting tips. Better yet, assign a “mock assignment” of something simple, before actually assigning a lesson. For example, if it’s a discussion board, have students’ first posts be about their family pet or what they did for fun that weekend.

Wrapping Things Up: Things to Remember When Teaching Online

We’ve covered a lot of online teaching ideas and strategies. To wrap things up, here are 3 key takeaways to carry into your virtual classroom:

1. Stay communicative :

Share your expectations for behavior early and often. Keep lines of communication open, using different tools like emails, Remind 101, phone calls, and class message boards. Weekly newsletters are a great way to build community with families.

2. Continuously adapt your classroom :

Use the lessons you’ve already created, and adapt them to the online environment with different ed tech tools. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel- take advantage of the great resources already out there. Albert has a huge library of standards aligned lessons and activities for all ages and subjects.

3. Keep activities interesting with students :

Use a variety of asynchronous and synchronous activities to keep your students engaged, and meet different learner needs. Build in purposeful community-building activities like Show and Tell and time for free chat to foster strong student relationships.

We hope you found this Ultimate Guide for Educators helpful. Remember, one of the strong resources educators have is each other! What are you doing in your online classroom? Share your favorite tips for teaching and online learning strategies for students in the comments below.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like our post on 75 educational teacher websites , our viral post on distance learning tools here or our free 150+ teaching strategies discovery tool .

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How would you describe your teaching style? Interview questions answered

Learning is a lifelong activity for most of us. When we want to learn–be it at school , at work , from books , or from a website on the internet , beside a student there always has to be a teacher. Someone who conveys their message in the most appropriate way , and helps the student to understand the subject of learning. Different teachers, writers, and corporate leaders have different ways of conveying their message to their audience, different teaching styles .

Inquiring about your teaching style in an interview, the hiring managers (or the hiring committee members) try to understand whether your teaching style is a good fit for their organization , for the audiences you are supposed to teach in your new job.

Let’s have a a look at 7 sample answers to this interesting interview question. I purposely included also unconventional answers on my list, answers you can opt for while trying o stand out and say something else than the rest of the job applicants will say. Do not forget to read also my notes below the answers, for additional explanations and hints.

7 sample answers to “How would you describe your teaching style?” interview question

• I would describe my teaching style as coaching . Instead of offering answers to my students, I try to ask the right questions , and with the help of demonstration and group activities they should find the answers. In my opinion, the young generation lacks critical thinking and creativity . I try to help them develop these abilities, and that’s exactly why I prefer coaching to lecturing, the prevalent teaching style for this grade level. I just try to prepare my students better for the challenges they will face in the employment market.
• I would describe it as highly adaptable . I do not really prefer one teaching method, or one way of interacting with the students in the classroom environment. Because in my opinion, each class is different , so is each lesson, and a good teacher should always adjust their teaching to their audience, the level of discipline in the class, the difficulty of the lesson, and so on. I simply prefer individual approach to teaching , and I alternate between being an authority, demonstrator, facilitator, and delegator. So far it has been working great, so I have no reason to doubt the effectiveness of my teaching style.
• I would describe it as results driven . Since I typically work with students one on one, I always try to clearly define the goals with each one. Not what I want to achieve, but what they want to achieve, what they expect from our cooperation. Then, considering their current level of language skills, and what kind of personality they are, I come up with a clear plan for the entire year , including some milestones and tests, in order to evaluate our progress regularly. And just then do I choose my teaching methods, adjusting them to the plan and the ultimate goal we have with the student.
• To be honest, I cannot really tell . I am just starting my teaching career, and haven’t had a chance yet to find my way, to understand what works best with the students at this grade level . I hope to learn something from my new colleagues, who have more experience from the classroom environment. Anyway, the basic principle I stick to is that we are in the classes for the children , and not the other way around. I won’t opt for a certain teaching style just because it is the most convenient one, such as plain lecturing…
• I’ve been working as a manager for over a decade now. In my experience, nothing works better than empowering your people . You know, throw them into the water, give them responsibility, let them find the answers, let them fail so they can learn and grow on both personal and professional level. Maybe you can describe this management (or teaching) style as laissez-faire, and it has definitely been working great for me.
• I always put emphasis on practice doing . As many hours as possible in the lab, as much on hands on experience as students can get. First of all, students prefer such form of learning–at least most of them do. And secondly, we are preparing them for the real challenges they will face in the workplace , once they graduate. Because in the lab they work in teams, have conflicts, face deadlines, have to handle problems, record their findings, sometimes they even have to multitask… Of course, we cannot avoid the theory altogether. But my teaching style consists in maximizing the hours students spend working on practical tasks.
• To be honest, I do not support all these classifications of teaching styles and methodologies. It is a lot of theory, but it has little to do with the real environment of a classroom , where always different personalities meet, and one has to work with students of all levels of abilities. I simply try my best with each student –that’s the definition of my teaching style. It may mean one thing in one lesson and a completely different one in another. I may give a complete freedom to some students, but lead others with an iron fist. But I prefer not using some empty classifications that have nothing to do with the actual challenges we face in classes.

A good research can help you find the right answer

You can do your research about the school (company, organization), trying to understand what teaching style prevails there. Maybe the administrators encourage the teachers to use this or that style in the classes.

If it is the case (and you somehow find out the information), you can stick to it in your interviewer answer. Ensure them that you do not come to revolutionize the way they lead their school . On the contrary, you will be a new force in the staff room, and you are ready to learn from your colleagues, and apply the proven teaching methods in the classes.

* Special Tip : This isn’t the only difficult question you will face while interviewing for any decent job. You will face questions about prioritization, dealing with pressure, solving problems , and other tricky scenarios that happen in the workplace. If you want to make sure that you stand out with your answers and outclass your competitors, have a look at our Interview Success Package . Up to 10 premium answers to 31 tricky scenario based questions (+ more) will make your life much easier in the interviews. Thank you for checking it out!

Show your willingness to adapt

Let’s face it: one fits all approach to teaching does not exist . What works great with one student, may fail completely with another one. A teaching style that yields excellent results in one classroom will do little good in the next one. That’s how it is, since we live in a diverse and polarized world…

Bearing this in mind, you can always emphasize individual approach . Sure, you may not be able to work individually with each student (unless you work in special education or as a paraprofessional and actually work one on one with students), but you may at least adjust your teaching style to the lesson covered , and the situation in the classroom.

Job interview is not a school exam

You can refer to a widely-accepted classification of teaching style, but you definitely do not have to . You can talk about a results driven approach, or even describe your teaching style in your own words , without giving it any names, or classifying it in this or that way.

Remember that job interview is not a school exam, and that not every member of the interviewing panel will be aware of some general classifications of teaching styles. Hence it is always better to elaborate on your answer , even when you opt for one of the widely-recognized teaching styles. Because if the hiring committee members struggle to understand you, they won’t give you the job…

Ready to answer this one? I hope so! Check also 7 sample answers to other tricky interview questions:

• Teacher – what are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you want to be a teacher?
• What does diversity mean to you?
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Your teaching philosophy is a self-reflective statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning. It's a one to two page narrative that conveys your core ideas about being an effective teacher in the context of your discipline. It develops these ideas with specific, concrete examples of what the teacher and learners will do to achieve those goals. Importantly, your teaching philosophy statement also explains why you choose these options.

+ Getting Started

Your reasons for writing a teaching philosophy may vary. You might be writing it as an exercise in concisely documenting your beliefs so that you can easily articulate them to your students, peers, or a search committee. It might serve as the introduction to your teaching portfolio. Or, it can serve as a means of professional growth as it requires you to give examples of how you enact your philosophy, thus requiring you to consider the degree to which your teaching is congruent with your beliefs.

Generating ideas

Teaching philosophies express your values and beliefs about teaching. They are personal statements that introduce you, as a teacher, to your reader. As such, they are written in the first person and convey a confident, professional tone. When writing a teaching philosophy, use specific examples to illustrate your points. You should also discuss how your values and beliefs about teaching fit into the context of your discipline.

Below are categories you might address with prompts to help you begin generating ideas. Work through each category, spending time thinking about the prompts and writing your ideas down. These notes will comprise the material you’ll use to write the first draft of your teaching philosophy statement. It will help if you include both general ideas (‘I endeavor to create lifelong learners’) as well as specifics about how you will enact those goals. A teaching philosophy template is also available to help you get started.

Questions to prompt your thinking

Your concept of learning.

What do you mean by learning? What happens in a successful learning situation? Note what constitutes "learning" or "mastery" in your discipline.

Your concept of teaching

What are your values, beliefs, and aspirations as a teacher? Do you wish to encourage mastery, competency, transformational learning, lifelong learning, general transference of skills, critical thinking? What does a perfect teaching situation look like to you and why? How are the values and beliefs realized in classroom activities? You may discuss course materials, lesson plans, activities, assignments, and assessment instruments.

Your goals for students

What skills should students obtain as a result of your teaching? Think about your ideal student and what the outcomes of your teaching would be in terms of this student's knowledge or behavior. Address the goals you have for specific classes or curricula and that rational behind them (i.e., critical thinking, writing, or problem solving).

Your teaching methods

What methods will you consider to reach these goals and objectives? What are your beliefs regarding learning theory and specific strategies you would use, such as case studies, group work, simulations, interactive lectures? You might also want to include any new ideas or strategies you want to try.

Your interaction with students

What are you attitudes towards advising and mentoring students? How would an observer see you interact with students? Why do you want to work with students?

Assessing learning

How will you assess student growth and learning? What are your beliefs about grading? Do you grade students on a percentage scale (criterion referenced) or on a curve (norm referenced)? What different types of assessment will you use (i.e. traditional tests, projects, portfolios,  presentations) and why?

Professional growth

How will you continue growing as a teacher? What goals do you have for yourself and how will you reach them? How have your attitudes towards teaching and learning changed over time? How will you use student evaluations to improve your teaching? How might you learn new skills? How do you know when you've taught effectively?

+ Creating a Draft

Two ways of organizing your draft.

Now that you've written down your values, attitudes, and beliefs about teaching and learning, it's time to organize those thoughts into a coherent form. Perhaps the easiest way of organizing this material would be to write a paragraph covering each of the seven prompts you answered in the Getting Started section. These would then become the seven major sections of your teaching philosophy.

Another way of knitting your reflections together—and one that is more personal—is to read through your notes and underscore ideas or observations that come up more than once. Think of these as "themes" that might point you toward an organizational structure for the essay. For example, you read through your notes and realize that you spend a good deal of time writing about your interest in mentoring students. This might become one of the three or four major foci of your teaching philosophy. You should then discuss what it says about your attitudes toward teaching, learning, and what's important in your discipline.

No matter which style you choose, make sure to keep your writing succinct. Aim for two double-spaced pages. And don't forget to start with a "hook." Your job is to make your readers want to read more; their level of engagement is highest when they read your opening line. Hook your readers by beginning with a question, a statement, or even an event from your past.

Using specific examples

Remember to provide concrete examples from your teaching practice to illustrate the general claims you make in your teaching philosophy. The following general statements about teaching are intended as prompts to help you come up with examples to illustrate your claims about teaching. For each statement, how would you describe what happens in your classroom? Is your description specific enough to bring the scene to life in a teaching philosophy?

"I value helping my students understand difficult information. I am an expert, and my role is to model for them complex ways of thinking so that they can develop the same habits of mind as professionals in the medical field."

"I enjoy lecturing, and I'm good at it. I always make an effort to engage and motivate my students when I lecture."

"It is crucial for students of geology to learn the techniques of field research. An important part of my job as a professor of geology is to provide these opportunities."

"I believe that beginning physics students should be introduced to the principles of hypothesis generation, experimentation, data collection, and analysis. By learning the scientific method, they develop critical thinking skills they can apply to other areas of their lives. Small group work is a crucial tool for teaching the scientific method."

"As a teacher of writing, I am committed to using peer review in my classes. By reading and commenting on other students' work in small cooperative groups, my students learn to find their voice, to understand the important connection between writer and audience, and to hone their editing skills. Small group work is indispensible in the writing classroom."

Go back to the notes you made when getting started and underline the general statements you’ve made about teaching and learning. As you start drafting, make sure to note the specific approaches, methods, or products you use to realize those goals.

+ Assessing Your Draft

Assessing your draft teaching philosophy.

According to a survey of search committee chairs by the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, there are five elements that are shared by strong teaching philosophy statements:

• They offer evidence of practice (specific examples)
• They are student-centered
• They demonstrate reflectiveness
• They demonstrate that the writer values teaching
• They are well written, clear, and readable

Now that you’ve completed an initial draft, ask whether your statement captures these elements and how well you articulate them.

You might find it useful to compare your draft to other teaching philosophies in your discipline. It can also be useful to have a colleague review your draft and offer recommendations for revision. Consider printing out a teaching philosophy rubric from our “Rubrics and Samples” tab to provide your reviewer with guidelines to assess your draft. These exercises will give you the critical distance necessary to see your teaching philosophy objectively and revise it accordingly.

+ Rubrics and Samples

Rubrics and sample teaching philosophies.

Here are links to three teaching philosophy rubrics to help you assess your statement. We have included four different rubrics for you to choose from. These rubrics cover similar elements, and one is not necessarily better than the other. Your choice of which to use should be guided by how comfortable you feel with the particular instrument and how usable you find it. 

• Teaching Philosophy Rubric 1   This rubric allows a reader to rate several elements of persuasiveness and format on a scale of 1 to 5.
• Teaching Philosophy Rubric 2   This rubric contains prompts for assessing purpose and audience, voice, beliefs and support, and conventions.
• Teaching Philosophy Rubric 3   This rubric contains prompts for assessing content, format, and writing quality.
• Rubric for Statements of Teaching Philosophy  This rubric was developed by Kaplan et. al. from the University of Michigan.
• Marisol Brito – philosophy 
• Benjamin Harrison – biology  
• Jamie Peterson – psychology
• The University of Michigan has a wide variety of  samples  organized by field of study.
• Caroline Hilk
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Johanna Kawasaki

• August 7, 2023

There’s no single way to teach English and, in fact, there have been many popular approaches over the years. These are a few of the top ESL teaching methods, including communicative language teaching (CLT) and total physical response (TPR), used in the classroom today. Learn more about these and other methods and how you can apply them to a real-life classroom in Bridge’s Professional Certificate courses .

Whether you’re new to the different teaching methods or you need a refresher, download this guide to popular ESL methodologies to brush up on the definition and applications of the latest approaches developed by industry experts.

Why learn ESL teaching methods?

There are many reasons why learning a few basic ESL teaching methods is a must for ESL teachers. Here are some ways that learning the most popular methods of teaching ESL can help you as an English teacher:

• Demonstrating knowledge of these ESL teaching methods and strategies makes you more marketable.
• Using TEFL/TESOL buzzwords during an interview can improve your chances of getting hired.
• Using a variety of methods in the ESL classroom makes you a more effective and engaging teacher.
• Understanding pedagogy helps you design better ESL materials and lessons.
• Learning methodology can help you strategically use learning objectives that will benefit your students.

If you’re new to teaching, you’ll want to get initial training and qualification with a TEFL certificate . You can explore our online TEFL courses to get started!

What are some popular ESL teaching methods?

Method #1: direct method.

For the direct method, all teaching is done in the target language. Translations are not allowed in class, and the focus lies heavily on speaking instead of grammar. As a result, the direct method is a very student-centered strategy that has gained popularity in recent years.

Students are supposed to learn the target language naturally and instinctively, which is why the direct method is also called the “natural approach.” Mistakes are corrected as they happen in class, and teachers reinforce the correct usage of the language with praise. This method is frequently used when teaching English online . Many virtual ESL companies require teachers to only speak English during class to encourage an immersive experience.

Get more ideas for correcting students’ mistakes by taking Bridge’s 20-hour Micro-credential course: Error Correction in the EFL Classroom .

Method #2: Communicative language teaching (CLT)

Communicative language teaching is perhaps the most popular approach among the methods of teaching ESL today. CLT emphasizes the student’s ability to communicate in real-life contexts. As a result, students learn to make requests, accept offers, explain things, and express their feelings and preferences.

Additionally, since CLT focuses on teaching language through real-world assignments and problem-solving, it’s less concerned with grammar accuracy and instead focuses on fluency.

Promote communication and fluency in your classroom with these ESL speaking activities.

Method #3: Task-/project-/inquiry-based learning

This teaching strategy for ESL students can sometimes be considered a part of CLT, but it heavily emphasizes the students’ independence and individuality. Inquiry-based learning is a modern approach that is becoming widely popular in schools all over the world. By asking questions and solving problems, with the teacher as a mere learning facilitator, student motivation and participation in tasks and projects are thought to increase.

Find out more about task-based learning.

Method #4: Total physical response (TPR)

Next is the Total Physical Response (TPR) method. You may have heard of this teaching strategy for ESL before, but what exactly is TPR ? Total Physical Response has become a very popular approach in which students react to the teacher with movement. Some examples include miming, gesturing, or acting out the language.

For example, the teacher and students might make an exaggerated frown and pretend to cry when learning the word “sad.” TPR suggests that students learn the target language best through physical response rather than by analysis.

Additionally, TPR is often used when teaching English online and when teaching young learners, as it not only helps students remember vocabulary but also provides an outlet for their energy and helps them stay focused when sitting for long periods.

If you like TPR, you might also like using drama as an ESL teaching method.

Method #5: An eclectic approach

Many teachers choose from the collection of humanistic approaches (TPR, for example) and communicative approaches (the direct method and CLT). Often, they incorporate bits and pieces of many other teaching strategies for ESL learners and use what works best for their individual students. Generally speaking, there is no one-size-fits-all methodology. Each group of learners will have varying learning styles and preferences. For that reason, conducting a needs assessment is a great starting place for teachers who aren’t sure which methodology, or methodologies, to apply.

For example, a teacher who uses mostly the direct method may occasionally do a lot of grammar explanation when preparing students for English proficiency exams , such as teaching Pearson Test of English (PTE) test prep , or a CLT advocate may borrow some aspects of the direct method or use TPR.

• Pro Tip: Another great way to combine or develop teaching methods is to frequently reflect on your teaching style by using a journal where you write down comments, note adjustments, and brainstorm how you can change certain methods or procedures if necessary.

The list of ESL teaching styles doesn’t have to end here! You can find your own favorite TEFL/TESOL method from among those listed above, combine several strategies for teaching your ESL students, or develop your own ESL teaching methods and techniques. For a full breakdown of the different methodologies and how to evaluate your students’ needs, download Bridge’s ESL Methodologies Guide .

Delve deeper into these and other ESL teaching methods and techniques with Bridge Professional TEFL/TESOL Certificate courses.

After backpacking Australia on a Working Holiday visa, Bridge graduate Johanna traveled to Japan for a year to teach English. She then moved to New Zealand for another two years before returning to her chosen home country, Japan, where she currently lives. Now, with more than eight years of professional English teaching experience, Johanna enjoys her expat life in Japan teaching teenagers at a private junior and senior high school, where she recently received tenure after only two years. When she’s not teaching, Johanna continues to travel regionally and explore new places.

List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)

Use this list of 107 classroom teaching strategies for your lesson plan or teaching portfolio. This can help demonstrate pedagogical knowledge and the ability to apply theory to practice.

Or, try some of these strategies out when you’re low on ideas and looking for a fresh way to teach in the classroom. Note that these are just some examples of teaching strategies – I’m sure there are even more out there!

Tip: Bookmark this page so you can come back to it every time you need some new teaching strategies!

Teaching Strategies Examples (List)

1. flipped instruction.

Description

Flipped classrooms involve asking students to complete the reading, preparation and introductory work at home. Then, during class time, the students do practice questions that they would traditionally do for homework.

• Flipped instruction enables the teacher to offload the direct instruction elements of education like Introductions to homework. This enables teachers to spend more time on student-centered differentiated support .
• Students may not complete their assigned pre-class homework, which will undermine the lesson.

Theoretical Link

Social Constructivism / Socio-Cultural Theory : The teacher can spend more time supporting students in a student-centered environment.

• Assign a video introducing a concept for homework.
• Spend the first 10 minutes of the lesson assessing students’ comprehension of the video
• Jump straight into student-centered practice tasks
• Walk around the class helping students who need additional support for the rest of the lesson

See my full article on Flipped Classrooms Pros and Cons.

Related Article: 25 Teaching Styles Examples

2. Play-based learning

Students learn cognitive, social, and physical skills during play tasks. Tasks can be teacher-led with specific goals (e.g. volume transfer in a sandpit) or unstructured student-led play.

• Engagement: students may be more engaged during active play-based learning compared to teacher-centered instruction.
• Cognition : students get the opportunity to learn through discovery and trial-and-error, helping to build neural pathways
• Social: students play together, developing communication, groupwork, and negotiation skills.
• Physical: play engages fine and gross motor functions , helping to improve physical abilities.
• Many traditionalist, including many parents and potentially your head teacher, may consider play to have no educational or academic benefit.
• Parents may frown upon this method for older students, despite its benefits across age groups.
• Many people consider that the risks of injury during play-based learning are too high.

( Read More: Pros and Cons of Play Based Learning )

Social Constructivism. Students learn through social interaction and building knowledge in their minds through trial and error.

Play is also encouraged in all 5 Contemporary Early Childhood Perspectives (Froebel, Reggio Emilia, Forest Schools , Steiner-Waldorf Schools, and Montessori).

• Use modelled instruction to show students how to play with developmentally appropriate resource-rich toys and puzzles. Consider puzzles that require mathematical skills that link to current curriculum outcomes.
• Provide students with the puzzles and allow free unstructured play time
• Mingle with the students, helping them with prompting and guiding questions
• End the lesson with a whole group discussion of what they learned during the lesson.

See my full article on Play Based Learning Pros and Cons .

3. Project-based learning (PBL)

Project-based learning requires students to spend an extended period of time (e.g. a week or more) on a single project to gain in-depth knowledge about the task. The projects should be personally meaningful and give students freedom to go in-depth on areas of interest.

• Students have the opportunity to become ‘experts’ on topics. By going deep on a topic, students may become very knowledgeable and feel empowered.
• A balance is struck between ensuring students focus on curriculum-linked projects and giving students the freedom to explore the details of a topic that are of personal interest.
• Students tend to have increased freedom using this approach. So, students need to learn self-regulation skills before beginning the task.

Constructivism in the Classroom : Students work independently using their own intellect and resources to learn. By doing personal research, students ‘construct’ knowledge in their minds and apply that knowledge to the project to demonstrate their knowledge.

• Teacher assigns students a research question, such as “What are the key characteristics of mammals?”
• Students work in small groups to come up with an idea for a poster, diagram, or presentation project on the topic.
• Teacher approves or asks for amendments of students’ proposed projects.
• Students are provided a series of lessons over a 2-week period in computer labs and in resource-rich classrooms to complete their project.
• Teacher checks-in intermittently to ensure standards are upheld and to stimulate students to improve upon their projects.
• The project concludes with students presenting their project to their parents.

4. Authentic Learning

Authentic learning involves having students learn about concepts in real-life (or near real-life) environments. Similarly, authentic assessment refers to assessments in real-life (or near real-life) environments

• By learning a task within its context, a student will understand its value for them outside of the classroom.
• Engagement: students may be more engaged in a task if they understand its practical application rather than just its theoretical purpose.
• Cognition and Memory: Students may find it easier to recall information if they can reflect on an instance in which they applied the knowledge to a real-life task.
• Authentic learning tasks are difficult to set-up from within a classroom.
• It is debatable whether so-called ‘authentic’ environments are genuinely authentic. A mock supermarket experience for practicing counting money, for example, lacks the potential for environmental distractions of a real-life situation.
• Some information is by its very nature academic and theoretical rather than practical, and this information is still of value to students.

Constructivism: Authentic learning environments are designed for students to be active learners who ‘construct’ knowledge through personal experience.

• An ESL teacher provides students with a set of conversational tasks to complete during a day’s field trip to the city.
• Students complete the tasks in the ‘real world’ by walking around the city asking for directions, buying lunch, etc.
• Class comes together at the end of the day to discuss and reflect on their experiences of applying their knowledge in the ‘real world’.

5. Discovery Learning

Discovery learning involves allowing students maximum freedom within a resource-rich environment to ‘discover’ answers to challenges. It requires students to build upon prior knowledge and use resources available in the environment to increase their own knowledge.

Discovery learning is often held in contrast to teacher-centered approaches, as students are not ‘told’ information; instead, they must discover knowledge for themselves..

• Students generate knowledge for themselves rather than being told what is right and wrong.
• By discovering truths, students will have a firmer understanding for the reasoning behind why something is true.
• Too much student freedom may distract students from the learning outcomes.
• This can be a time-consuming technique as students discover information at their own pace. It can therefore be difficult to implement in education systems that are packed with curriculum outcomes that must be met.

Construcitivism: Students generate their own knowledge through engagement with their environment rather than having truths ‘told’ to them by an authority figure.

• Teacher places the appropriate resources in the classroom to allow students to discover truths themselves. These resources may include science experiment stations, newspaper articles, etc.
• Teacher transparently presents the lesson objectives to the students, i.e. “What is heavier – sand or water?”
• Students are given minimal guidance, but sent to the learning stations to try to answer the prompt themselves.
• Teacher provides minimal guidance, recognizing that making mistakes and trying the ‘wrong thing’ is also a part of the discovery experience.
• Students get together at the end of the class to discuss what they ‘discovered’.

6. High Expectations

Setting high expectation involves requiring students to put in maximum effort during their lessons. HIgh expectations does not mean expecting all students to meet a certain standard. Rather, it means expecting each student to try to beat their own personal best.

• High expectations are necessary to ensure students continue to strive for improvement. Without high expectations in the classroom, students can become lazy and lose respect for education.
• Teachers need to be aware that sometimes students have ‘off days’ where they cannot succeed at their normal level. This may be due to health, hunger, or environmental factors .
• Teachers need to balance high expectations with compassion for their students. Try not to let burnout occur due to strenuous demands.
• Measure students’ prior knowledge to ascertain their current developmental level.
• Have students aim to achieve at or above their current ability in a given task.
• If students underperform, provide formative feedback and insist they readdress their work to make edits and improvements.
• Allow students to progress to subsequent tasks only when their work has met or exceeded the minimum standard you set for that individual.

See my full article on High Expectations in the Classroom .

7. Parent and Community Engagement

Parent and community engagement involves bringing students together with their community. It can involve bringing parents and community members into the classroom, or bringing students out into the community on field trips.

• By engaging with the community, students come to see themselves as a member of their community.
• It can help students to get to know important members of their community to give them a sense of belonging, and help them see (and, in the future, seek) support networks.
• By bringing role models into the classroom (especially minority and female role models), students can come to see that they could potentially become female firefighters, politicians of color, etc.
• Students can learn from more than just one teacher to get a variety of perspectives.
• Safety concerns often require teachers and community members to fill-in forms and complete background checks before community engagement can occur.
• Finding members of the community willing to work with teachers can be difficult.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: Students learn within family and community contexts (children’s ‘first teachers’) in order to respect and carry-on culturally engaged learning.

• Teacher does networking to find community members willing to come into the classroom.
• Teacher finds relevant curriculum links that community members can help them teach about.
• Teacher and community members meet to discuss a lesson idea.
• Community members and teachers team-teach in the classroom.
• Students are given the opportunity for one-on-one time with community members.
• Students present the results of their lesson to community members before community members leave.

8. Unconditional Positive Regard

Unconditional positive regard involves teachers consistently and unconditionally viewing students as capable and competent. When students make mistakes, fail, or misbehave, it is the teacher’s role to continue to let students know that they believe in the student and their abilities.

• Empowering: when students are given unconditional positive regard, they know that their teacher believes in their ability to constantly do better.
• Shows Empathy and builds Trust: children come to learn to respect and trust their teacher when they know their teacher is always on ‘their side’.
• Teachers need to ensure that they still let students know that inappropriate behavior or lack of effort is unacceptable. The teacher should follow-up their discipline with comments about positive regard.

Humanist theory of Education : Humanist Carl Rogers invented this approach. He believed unconditional positive regard was necessary for building students’ self-confidence.

• “Even though you did not do well today, I expect that you will come to school doing better tomorrow.”
• “The quality of your work does not match your potential. Let’s talk about some strategies for improvement before you go away and do it again.”

See my full post on the Humanist approach to Education .

9. Modeled Teaching

Modeled teaching is an instructional strategy that involves the teacher ‘showing’ students how to do a task. The teacher shows the task while also breaking it down into small steps. This helps students to see how to complete the task.

• A very effective way to introduce new topics.
• The teacher maintains control when introducing a new idea to ensure students have appropriate understanding and safety knowledge before trying for themselves.
• Shows that learning can occur passively – students can learn simply by watching.
• Not appropriate as a standalone strategy. Students need to eventually try things alone to show competency. Therefore, consider matching modeled teaching up with the I Do, We Do, You Do method

Bandura’s Behaviorism: Bandura blends behaviorism with constructivism by showing that learning can occur through observation only.

See my full post on Behaviorism in Education , which has a segment on Bandura’s modelled instruction approach.

10. I Do We Do You Do Method

The I Do, We Do, You Do method is a scaffolding strategy that provides gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student. It involves three steps: (1) I Do: Teacher models the task; (2) We Do: Student and teacher do the task together; (3) You Do: Student attempts to complete the task alone.

• Students are provided an appropriate balance of support and freedom.
• Teacher has ample time to assess students’ abilities to make adjustments to their pedagogy as they move through the 3 steps (particularly in step 2)
• In large groups, students may fall behind at Steps 2 and 3.

Sociocultural Theory: Students learn through social interaction with a more knowledgeable other (see: Lev Vygotsky).

• Teacher asks all students to sit on a mat at the front of the class.
• Teacher models the steps required to complete the day’s task (I Do).
• Teacher re-does the task. This time, instead of telling the students the steps, the teacher asks students to raise their hand and tell the teacher what to do next (We Do)
• Teacher asks students to complete the task in small groups. Teacher walks around providing support (We Do)
• Students complete the lesson by doing the task alone. Teacher only intervenes for the few students who are still struggling (You Do)

See my full guide on implementing the I Do, We Do, You Do method .

11. Guided Practice / Cognitive Apprenticeship

Students follow along with their teacher as an ‘apprentice’. By working side-by-side, they learn the subtle little things (‘ tacit knowledge ’) required to know in order to master a skill.

• Students get very close one-to-one interaction with an expert, helping them learn.
• By learning-by-doing, the student learns not only the theory but also the skills required to complete tasks.
• An approach predominantly used for young children in Indigenous communities, which is not applicable on a wide scale in Western mass education systems.
• Requires one-to-one support, which is not often available.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Rogoff studied Guatemalan Indigenous teaching methods to come up with this approach. It fits under the socio-cultural theory because its emphasis is on social interaction between master and apprentice.

Common in trade schools for students studying to be mechanics, engineers, etc.

See my full guides on the Guided Practice teaching strategy and cognitive fexibility .

12. Scaffolding

Scaffolding involves providing support to students while they cannot complete a task alone. Then, when the student can complete the task alone, the teacher withdraws their support.

• Students feel supported while learning tasks that are just outside of their grasp at the present time.
• A clear way of guiding students towards new skills.
• May require a lot of one-to-one support, which can be difficult to provide in a classroom environment.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Scaffolding was invented by Jerome Bruner ( not Vygotsky).

• The teacher models a task before students try it themselves.
• The teacher provides the student with a visual aid (the scaffold, in this instance) that breaks the task down into small parts.
• After 15 minutes of practice with the visual aid, the aid is withdrawn and the students try the task alone.

13. Direct Instruction (a.k.a Explicit Teaching)

Direct instruction (also known as explicit teaching) is a teacher-centered approach that involves the teacher using simple straightforward language to explain concepts to students.

• Provides clear and direct knowledge to students
• Is sometimes the only way to teach something, particularly when introducing a new idea.
• Students cannot consolidate their knowledge with direct instruction alone. Explicit teaching should be followed-up with other teaching strategies that involve more active learning so students can practice and demonstrate their knowledge.

Behaviorism: Traditionally, direct instruction was embraced by behaviorists who believed in teacher-centered teaching. Today, it is used in most teaching approaches.

14. Repetition (Rote Learning)

Repetition involves giving students time to retry tasks over and over again until it is consolidated in their minds. The information should be safely in a student’s long-term memory before moving on.

• Repetition commits information to memory, and is often one of the only ways to ensure something is truly remembered long-term.
• Repetitive rote learning that lacks contextual background is hard to remember. Sometimes, giving context through doing tasks through real-life scenarios can be better for memory long-term.
• Repetition can disengage students and demotivate them.
• Doesn’t account for social and cognitive aspects of learning.

Behaviorism: Repetition is central to a behaviorist approach. Pavlov, a famous behaviorist found that he could teach his dog through repetitively associating a bell with food. The dog came to learn through repetition that the bell meant ‘food’.

See my full post on Behaviorism in Education.

15. Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition builds on simple repetition. Spaced repetition involves gradually increasing the space between times you repeat something. Repetition of a task should be very common. Over time, the task should be re-examined less and less often.

The idea behind spaced repetition is that the concept being learned is re-engaged with just before it is forgotten so that it is consistently recalled into memory and gradually sedimented into long-term memory.

• Provides long-term support to ensure students remember information over a sustained period of time.
• Perfect for revision and standardized test preparation.
• Can be disengaging and boring for students who tend to prefer active learning.

Behaviorism: Spaced repetition was invented by behaviorist theorist Ebbinghaus in 1885.

• Provide students with a sprinkle of review tasks as a part of their weekly homework.
• Start lessons (or set aside some time each week) with revision of tasks from months previously to jog students’ memory.

16. Prompting

Prompting involves providing students with nudges, guides and questions that will help them to move closer towards an answer. A prompt is a suggestion to a student that they pay attention to a particular aspect of a task that will help them get closer to the answer.

• Prompts are used regularly by teachers to get beyond blocks in student learning. Without prompts, students may never develop or improve.
• It is hard to know exactly how much prompting to give and at what stage. Students need time to think things through and make mistakes. Too much prompting too soon can prevent students from thinking for themselves.

Social Constructivism: Social constructivists believe teachers have a role in helping students to build knowledge in their minds. Teachers’ interventions can help spur knowledge development.

• A teacher might ask a question to get the student to look at the task from a different perspective.
• A teacher may point at a section of a diagram and ask them about that section.
• A teacher might start a sentence and ask a student to finish it.

17. Differentiation

Differentiation is a teaching strategy that requires teachers to change their teaching styles and educational materials to meet the diverse needs of students within a classroom. It generally involves grouping students into several sub-groups in the classroom based on ability, skillset or learning preferences.

• Enables the teacher to more effectively address the diverse needs of students in a large classroom.
• Ensures learning is more personalized in the hope that no child will be left behind in a lesson.
• Differentiation is often used as an excuse to dumb down a task – differentiated instruction should be paired with high expectations to ensure all students are working to their maximum potential.

Socio-cultural Theory: This approach acknowledges that all students have different social and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, each student requires a personalized learning approach. It realizes that one size fits all will not work because all students are different.

• Separate students into three ability groups: Advanced, Middle, and Lower. The advanced students can be provided with project-based learning tasks to complete while the teacher works with the middle and lower groups to provide additional support.
• Provide students with a range of tasks that addresses the same learning outcome. Students can choose between different tasks depending on their learning preferences.

18. Manipulatives

Manipulatives are physical educational toys (or: ‘tools’) which are used to support learning. Providing students with physical manipulatives during learning enables them to visualize their learning in a 3D space.

• Students can learn more actively when they have manipulatives than when learning through teacher-centered direct instruction methods.
• Helps students who need to visualize information to learn.
• Creation of physical models helps students to form mental models (‘ cognitive schemata ’).
• It can be expensive to gather enough materials for all students in a classroom.
• Providing students with toys can distract them from the task. Strong classroom management skills are required.

Constructivism: Constructivists including Freidrich Froebel and Maria Montessori have advocated for the use of educational toys to help students to explore and discover in student-led active learning contexts.

• Base Tens ‘Dienes Cubes’ are cubes that can be bunched into singles, groups of ten, groups of 100, and groups of 1000 to help students visualize the decimal system of counting.
• Colored beads can be used to help students in early childhood learn to recognize patterns.
• Froebel’s Gifts are 9 manipulative toys that students can use to solve developmentally appropriate puzzles.

19. Prior Knowledge Assessment

Prior knowledge assessment entails assessing students’ knowledge at the beginning of a unit of work in order to teach students at an appropriate level. If prior knowledge does not take place, teachers may teach content at a level that is either above or below a class’s optimal learning level.

• Ensures the content being taught is at an appropriate level.
• Respects the fact that students come into the classroom with pre-existing knowledge.
• Identifies misconceptions students may have about a topic.
• Enables teachers to take into account students’ cultural knowledge when preparing a unit of work.
• Ensure you assess prior knowledge well in advance so you can plan lessons based on prior knowledge. I’ve assessed prior knowledge at the start of a class before and realized the lesson I planned was completely useless!

20. Student-Teacher Conference

A student-teacher conference is a one-on-one discussion between a student and a teacher to take stock of a student’s needs. The conference usually involves a discussion of both strengths as well as areas for improvement. The conference should conclude with a list of goals for the teacher and student to mutually strive toward.

• An opportunity for both the teacher and student to express concerns and anxieties
• Helps students to feel ‘seen’, valued and cared for by the teacher
• Hard to achieve in every lesson. Teachers could consider systematically conferring with one or two students per lesson until all students are met with.
• There is a power imbalance in the student-teacher relationship which may prevent students from speaking candidly.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Interactions between teachers and students are important to learning within the socio-cultural approach.

• Print a list of your students with a column for ‘achievements’, ‘goals’ and ‘struggles’. Over the course of a week, meet up with your students and discuss with them what they’ve achieved in the current unit of work, what their goals are, and what the barriers are to achieving those goals.

21. Fill-In the Gaps (Cloze Passages)

A simple teaching strategy that involves asking students to fill-in an incomplete piece of text. This can happen verbally (starting a paragraph and asking students to complete it) and in writing (a traditional cloze passage).

• Helps students to jog their own memories by prompting them slightly.
• Enables teachers to quickly assess students’ knowledge (just-in-time assessment).
• Cannot be a consistently used strategy as students also need to learn through more challenging approaches such as discovery learning and project-based learning.
• Paper cloze passages involving a story in which the key phrases are removed.
• Prompting questions like: “Can you finish this sentence? The first king of England was …”

22. Peer Assisted Learning (PAL)

Has the teacher step aside and allows students to take charge of the learning environment.

• Students can often explain concepts to one another in a clear way because they’re on the same level and closer in their learning journey than the teacher, who probably learned the content years ago!
• Peer assisted learning is not the same as the students doing the teaching. Students should continue to view each others as partners in learning.

Socio-Cultural Theory: students learning through collaborative discussion fits firmly into the sociocultural theory of education .

• Invite students from a grade level above to come into the classroom and act as moderators of discussions on topics of interest.
• Pair stronger students with weaker students. Have the stronger students demonstrate their knowledge by supporting the weaker students. I find this works really well because children can often explain things in a clear language that other children can understand.

23. Poster Presentations

A poster presentation is a great way to demonstrate knowledge at the end of a lesson or unit of work. Provide the students with posters, pens, and printing materials if required.

• A fast, effective way of presenting knowledge to the class.
• Allows students to practice demonstration skills.
• Ends up with a physical product that can be photographed and added to the student’s portfolio to prove that outcomes have been met.
• Can be a lazy way to achieve presentation of knowledge. Ensure the focus remains on the content and not the coloring-in or drawing pretty pictures.
• Not useful for all lessons: when students can create a working model, diagram, etc. this would be preferred.
• Have students work in groups to write up their knowledge in a visually engaging way.
• Then, have each group verbally present their poster to the class.

24. Two-Minute Presentation

Two Minute verbal presentations, like posters, are an effective way of having students demonstrate their knowledge at the end of a lesson or unit of work. Each student gets two minutes to present their knowledge on a topic to the rest of the class.

• An effective, fast way of doing summative assessment.
• It is an inefficient use of other students’ time having them listen to 20 other two-minute presentations when they could be engaging in higher-order learning during that time. Students find it very boring and frustrating to sit through the assessment of other students.
• Use the two-minute presentation method for the final lesson in a series of lessons on one topic.
• Have students read over their notes from previous classes and write a summary of the top 10 points.
• Have students prepare their two-minute presentations by adding the notes to palm cards. With 10 points, students have about 12 second per point!
• Ensure students have time to practice with one another and instruct them on how to take additional notes on their palm cards for points they forgot during practice.
• If each student has a different topic or angle to present engagement may be enhanced during the class presentations.

25. De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats

De Bono’s 6 thinking hats strategy asks students to look at an issue from multiple perspectives. It can be used for groups or individuals. Depending on the hat a student is provided, they have to think from a different perspective.

The Six Hats

• White hat: Provide the facts.
• Yellow hat: Explore the positives.
• Black hat: Explore the negatives (devil’s advocate).
• Red hat: Express your feelings and intuitions . Include concerns, dislikes and likes.
• Green hat: Be creative. Come up with new ideas and alternatives.
• Blue hat: The manager who ensures all the hats are sticking to their lane.
• Helps students to think outside of their own perspectives.
• Encourages students to attack an issue from many different angles.
• Teachers group work skills if used in a group.
• I often find it’s hard to get groups of 6, so sometimes one student has to use two hats.
• Introduce a contentious topic with a video or reading.
• Distribute hats to the students.
• Have students spend some time brainstorming what they would say on the issue from their perspective. If you have a large class, group all the white hats together, red hats together, etc. to work in groups for this part.
• Then rearrange students into groups where there is one colored hat per group (groups of 6 is ideal, or 5 with one person taking the role of blue hat as well).
• At the end of the class, have a whole group discussion summing up our points and list the details of the topic on the white board. Hopefully students will see that the issue is a very complex one!

26. Pop Quiz

A pop quiz is a short test that takes place with no prior warning. The quiz can be formative or summative. Link the quiz to rewards to keep students motivated to do well and be prepared at any moment.

• Can be motivating for students who enjoy the challenge of competing with themselves or others.
• Keeps students on their toes which encourages ongoing review and homework on the part of the students.
• May worry some students who are unprepared.

27. Democratic Vote

Taking a democratic vote is a progressive education strategy that attempts to empower students in the classroom. Have students vote on what or how they will learn within the classroom. This can be done at a small scale in a lesson plan by asking students to vote on how a lesson will progress, for example.

• Can empower students, giving them a sense of ownership over the classroom.
• Can build trust and rapport between the students and the teacher.
• Helps the teacher take the pulse of the class and understand what they want and need.
• Teachers may lose their power and control over the class if they overuse this approach.
• Just because the majority supports something, it doesn’t mean it’s best. A small group of students may fall behind and have their voices drowned out by the majority.

Progressive Education: Progressive educators such as Alfie Kohn advocate for empowering students through increased democracy in the classroom.

See my full post on Citizenship Education .

28. Non-Verbal Gestures

Using non-verbal gestures are powerful ways to help students learn, as well as to manage the classroom. Educators can explicitly teach signs or use gestures common in society.

• Teachers can give individual students instant feedback that is subtle and does not disrupt the rest of the class.
• Students feel acknowledged when small gestures are used just for them.
• It is a non-intrusive way of prompting students.
• Cultural sensitivity required. Different cultures ascribe different meanings to non-verbal gestures.
• Nods of approval can let a student know you have recognized their good work without disrupting the flow of the lesson.
• Pointing can be used to direct students’ attention toward prompts around the room or on worksheets that may help stimulate thinking.
• Tapping a watch can remind students to pay attention to time limitations of a lesson.

29. Environmental Manipulation

Environments have a strong impact on learning. Temperature, lighting, seating plans , colors and posters on the walls can all affect learning.

• A non-intrusive way of supporting learning.
• Helps students feel more comfortable in the classroom.
• Your classroom has limitations which may prevent the ideal environmental settings.
• Different students may work better in different environments (e.g. heat settings)

Humanism: Teachers pay attention to the conditions required for creating an optimal learning environment.

Classical Conditioning (Behaviorism): Students are ‘conditioned’ by cause-and-effect mechanisms that are subtle and that they aren’t even aware of.

For more, see my full post on behaviorism in education.

• When a class is too loud, try subtly turning off the fan. It’s amazing how often this small environmental manipulation can quiet down a class.
• Ensure the classroom is not too dark. A dark classroom can impede reading, especially for students who do not have perfect eyesight.
• Heat and noise can both prevent learning.
• Calm colors on the walls can help students relax into the learning environment.

30. Associative Learning

Associative learning takes place when several ideas are introduced to a student that are mutually reinforcing. In the classroom, this means presenting students with several stimulus materials that help a student to recall a fact.

• Is very effective during revision for an exam.
• Has questionable long-term benefits as at this stage the concept is not yet solidly consolidated in long-term memory. The recall of information is dependant on other associated information.

Behaviorism (Pavlov’s Dog): Most famously, Pavlov managed to get a dog to associate the ringing of a bell with food. The dog would salivate whenever the bell rang, whether or not there was food around.

Cognitive Constructivism: while associative learning is most commonly associated with Pavlov, constructivists also have an explanation. The more associations someone has with a topic, the more neural pathways are created connecting ideas. This helps improve memory recall.

See Also: Non-Associative Learning

• The teacher presents students with rhyming pairs to help a student associate one word with another. This can be effective in teaching vocabulary.
• When attempting to recall a fact, you can try to reflect on where you were and what else you were talking about when that fact was first introduced to you.

31. Cooperative Learning (Group Work)

Cooperative learning is a teaching strategy that involves having students work together rather than in competition. Usually, this takes place in small groups where the success of the group is dependant on the students working together to achieve a common goal (also known as positive interdependence). See more: Cooperative learning examples .

• Minimizes destructive competitiveness in the classroom which may undermine a collaborative and collegial atmosphere.
• Requires students to talk to one another which can help them learn from each other’s perspectives.
• Students need to be explicitly taught group work skills before participating.
• Some students may become lazy and let others do the work for the whole group.

Sociocultural Theory: Learning is stimulated when students converse with one another. They get to see others’ viewpoints which may help each student build upon or challenge their existing views.

32. Agenda Setting

The teacher presents the students with the agenda at the start of the day. The use of visual aids may be helpful here, allowing students to see a timeline of the day’s events on the board at the front of the classroom.

• Very effective for students with autism who often feel calmed knowing there is some structure to their day.
• Helps relax students into a day or even a lesson by giving them certainty about what’s to come.
• Any benefits that may arise lack scientific backing.
• Download a card set of images that represent different lesson types and activities. Use this card set to lay out a visual timeline for the students every morning.

33. Team Teaching

Instead of one teacher delivering a lesson to a group of students, several teachers get their classes together to teach one lesson to a larger group.

• Teachers can be more flexible. One teacher may take the role of presenter while the other acts as a support with students falling behind.
• Teachers can share the workload, particularly for preparation.
• Large groups may lead to some students falling behind without the teachers realizing.
• There is the potential for more noise distractions and subversive behavior in large groups.
• Teachers need to have the same work ethic for this to be effective.
• Large class sizes required.
• Consider having one teacher take the lead on all mathematics lessons and the other take the lead on all literature lessons. This enables each teacher to become more expert on their topic.

34. Directing Attention

Directing attention involves diverting students away from negative non-learning behaviors and towards positive behaviors by presenting them with engaging learning materials or ideas.

• Prevents negative behaviors without confrontation.
• Focuses on creating engaging lessons.
• Can be done multiple times in one lesson whenever a teacher sees a student is distracted.
• Tends to be more effective with younger children than older children.
• Use visual aids, worksheets and manipulatives to help direct and maintain students’ attention on something physical. With adults, I use flipchart paper (also known as butcher’s paper) as the prop to direct attention.

34. Visual Aids

Visual aids are any objects used in the classroom to attract students’ eyes and therefore immerse them more into a lesson. Visual aids can have both cognitive benefits (see: cognitive tools) and engagement benefits.

• Engagement: students are more likely to pay attention if they have something to look at.
• Cognition: some students may benefit from visualizing a concept to help them order ideas in their minds.
• Visual learning : some learners prefer learning visually than aurally (see: learning styles).
• A visual aid needs an educational purpose. Consider why you are using the visual aid before deciding to use it.
• Graphic Organizers
• Educational toys (see: Manipulatives)

35. Flexible Seating

Allowing students to sit where they choose, rather than having assigned seating, has had a resurgence in popularity in the past decade. A flexible seating classroom often has a range of differently organized workstations, allowing students to select a spot to sit that’s most comfortable for them and which best suits the style of learning that will be occuring in that lesson.

• Can reduce sedentary periods of time by allowing students to move around more during a lesson.
• Enables students to sit at a table that best suits their learning (computer table, group table, individual table, on a bean bag, etc.)
• There is often not enough space at workstations, meaning students end up not actually sitting where they choose.
• Often students like to have a spot they can call their own. It helps give students a sense of place and belonging.
• This approach is very common in the Agile Learning Spaces and Flexible Classrooms movement.

See my full post on the Common Classroom Seating Arrangements .

36. Formative Assessment (a.k.a Assessment for Learning)

Formative assessment involves assessing students’ learning throughout the learning process, not just at the end. Formative assessments can take place at one point in a unit of work or regularly throughout a lesson.

• Allows teachers to adjust their teaching if students are not quite up to where you expected, or if they are exceeding your expectations.
• Students get feedback on their progress before the summative assessment, allowing them to adjust.
• Gives the teacher a better understanding of their students. If a student fails a summative assessment but the teacher knows the student could do the task at the formative stage, more investigation can take place to see why there is a discrepancy.
• Can be time consuming to constantly assess students’ abilities.
• Formative assessments often lack the authority of summative assessment pieces.
• Formative assessments can be simple stops to get feedback and ongoing questioning of students.
• They can also take the form of pop quizzes or student-teacher conferences.

37. Summative Assessment

Summative assessments take place at the end of a unit of work and are often the formal final / overall grading of a student’s knowledge.

• Summative assessments are necessary for providing a final grade for a student and are often required by school boards.
• Summative assessments give students something to strive toward which may keep them motivated and encourage them to study.
• They are seen as too high-stakes and can cause stress for students.
• If a student does poorly, the assessment is right at the end, so the teacher and student often don’t have any more time address the problems and help progress the student’s learning.
• Standardized tests.
• Assessments for student portfolios.
• End-of-year exams.
• Entry exams.

38. Gamification

Gamification involves implementing elements of gameplay in your lessons. This can be as simple as creating a competition out of a mathematics quiz.

Recently, computer software such as excel and programming languages have been used in the classroom as elements of ‘digital’ gamification.

Don’t confuse gamification with game-based learning, which is discussed next.

• Gamification can make boring lessons fun , thereby increasing the engagement and motivation of students.
• Teachers must not lose focus on the learning outcomes that must be met. ‘Fun’ is not the goal, it is the means for achieving the goal, which is always learning .
• Get your students into two groups and have them compete in a trivia contest based on your lesson content.
• Give students table groups and reward tables with points depending oh how well they do.

See my full article on the pros and cons of digital play.

39. Game-Based Learning

Not to be confused with gamification, game-based learning involves the use of actual games (board games, computer games, sports games, etc.) into a lesson.

While gamification involves using elements of gameplay into lessons (points, competitions), game-based learning involves using actual games in a lesson.

• Students often love video games at home, so they get excited that they can play them in school as well.
• Games can also support cognition by prompting students to complete and practice tasks to win games. See also: cognitive tools.
• Parents may feel playing games in the classroom is not acceptable. Make sure parents know your reasoning behind using games.
• Ensure the focus remains on the learning outcomes, not just on ‘having fun’.
• Minecraft is a very popular computer game that is used in classrooms.
• Sim City is a popular game for city design courses.
• Use card games to teach counting. I teach ESL students counting using the game UNO.

See my full article on game-based learning as well as my explanations about how to use minecraft and sandbox games in the classroom .

40. Coaching

A coach does not stand in front of players and simply tell them what the ‘facts’ are. A coach stands behind a player. He watches the player and gives feedback on their performance. His job is to encourage, suggest adjustments and be the support network for the player.

Coaching is one of the great metaphors for teaching . A teacher who uses coaching as a strategy tried to emulate the role of the coach: observing and offering support and suggestions for adjustments.

• Student-centered : the student is the focus and the teacher is the supporter.
• Personalized: each student will get unique feedback based on their performance.
• Sometimes the teacher needs to introduce new ideas, meaning coaching may not be as useful as another approach such as modeling or direct instruction.

Sociocultural Theory: In sociocultural theory, teachers tend to encourage active learning and provide social support.

41. Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning involves the teacher presenting a problem for the students to solve by making their own inquiries. It is similar to discovery learning, but is different in that inquiry based learning generally involves the teacher setting out a puzzling problem to solve at the start of the lesson.

• Students ‘find’ the answers rather than being given them by teachers.
• Answers emerge out of exploration, problem solving and discovery, meaning students learn why something is true, not simply what is true.
• Significant support is required to help guide students through their inquiry. Students need to be taught how to inquire and given the right inquiry tools (such as books, appropriate websites, etc.)

Constructivism: Students learn through constructing ideas in their heads rather than being told the facts.

42. Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching involves having students facilitate their own small group lessons. It is usually used in reading lessons.

The teacher first models how to guide group discussions before sending students off to facilitate their own lesson. In groups of four, students usually take the roles of: questioner, clarifier, summarizer and predictor. Students read stimulus materials then self-facilitate a group discussion about the text.

• Students learn self-regulation learning skills which are essential for later in their lives.
• When students are trained up, the classes work very effectively and the teacher can fade into the background.
• Students learn group work, communication and negotiation skills. They also learn how to speak up in a group.
• Students learn to be mature even when the teacher isn’t looking. By taking on responsibility as ‘teachers’, students should rise to the challenge.
• Requires a lot of pre-teaching so students have the required skills for these sorts of lessons to work.

Sociocultural theory: working in groups, communicating and sharing ideas help stimulate thinking and encourages students to challenge their own ideas in order to improve them.

Example (Modelled off the I Do, We Do, You Do approach)

• The teacher should model the four roles required in front of the whole class, with several volunteers to act as the demonstration group.
• The teacher assigns groups and the four group roles: questioner, clarifier, summarizer and predictor.
• When students do the activity in small groups for the first time, explicitly walk the students through the steps. Use a bell or similar audible cue to cycle students through the group work steps.
• Allow the students to work in independent groups – walk around and help groups who are struggling.

43. Blended Learning

Blended learning involves a mix of online instruction and face-to-face learning. This strategy can be employed by giving students part of their instruction as homework online and part of it in class. It differs from flipped learning because a flipped classroom involves at-home instruction and in-class practice. Blended learning can have both practice and instruction occuring at home and/or in class

• Gives the teacher flexibility to teach partially during homework time and partially in class.
• Students need access to technology at home unless the at-home parts are only reading and printouts.
• Usually only suitable for university students who are short on time. Blended learning allows them to do some of the learning in their own time.
• Used regularly for distance learning students and rural and remote students.
• Used regularly at university level.
• If using this method, I recommend taking a look at the flipped learning model for some ideas of how to split your distance and in-class segments efficiently.

See my List of 10 Pros and Cons of teaching Online .

44. Growth Mindsets

A growth mindset focuses on teaching students that they have the power to improve and succeed if they put their effort into it. The opposite would be students refusing to try because they don’t think they have the power in their own hands to succeed.

Teaching growth mindsets is all about modelling positive behaviors. Include growth mindset in your lesson plans by finding points in the lesson to discuss specific strategies to move toward success, strategies for studying, and positive thinking.

• Focuses on helping students see that they have ‘ agency ’ (in other words, they are capable of improving their lives)
• Motivates students to improve their own lives
• Many students have many barriers to success. If you ignore those barriers and simply say ‘you can work harder’, this will make students feel disempowered. Teachers need to show students the pathways to success.
• Ensure the content is actually achievable for your students.
• Break down tasks into manageable chunks so that students know the steps toward success. Then, use encouragement to motivate students to put in their effort.
• Celebrate success to show students that they are competent and capable.

45. Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching is an instructional strategy that involves ensuring students’ cultures are integrated into lessons. This includes celebrating students’ cultural backgrounds when relevant and using learning styles that are dominant within your students’ cultures.

• Includes children from cultures that have been traditionally marginalized within the classroom.
• Minimizes the impact of Westernization of education.
• May make new students from cultures that are different to the majority in the class to feel a sense of inclusion and belonging in the classroom.
• Helps all students see the world from a variety of perspectives and learn to respect pluralism.
• Teachers need to be sensitive to cultures different to their own.
• Teachers should consult parents and community members about best strategies for the cultural needs of the students in the class.

Sociocultural theory: sociocultural theory believes

• Have role models from minority backgrounds come into the classroom to share their backgrounds.
• Consult with parents about ideal teaching methods within their culture.
• Avoid nonverbal gestures that have different meanings in different cultures.
• Another example: eye contact is considered respectful in Western cultures but acts of defiance in Indigenous Austealian culture.

46. Teaching to Mastery

Mastery learning and teaching is a strategy for ensuring all students meet a certain standard of understanding or ability before moving on.

Teachers set a benchmark of knowledge 9r ability for students to meet. Then, all assessment in this method is formative, where students are given feedback and as much time as possible to improve before progressing.

• Students are not left behind and gaps in their knowledge are not overlooked.
• Students may feel less stressed or rushed with this approach.
• There is no talk of inability or failure in this method as teachers and students keep working away at the task until success is achieved.
• There is not enough time in traditional school systems for this approach.
• The difference in abilities between students means some students will get a long way ahead while others remain a long way behind.

Humanism: there are elements of unconditional positive regard in this approach (see Carl Rogers).

• An example.may be that all students must get 80% on a test to progress to the next unit of work.
• This approach is common for getting a “handwriting license” in primary / elementary school.

47. Stimulus Materials and Props

Stimulus materials are tools that a teacher provides during lessons to spur students into engaging with the lesson or thinking more deeply about the content provided. They include videos, educational toys (manipulatives), worksheets, visual prompts, objects from outside the classroom, and so on.

Without stimulus materials, the classroom feels empty and detached from real life. Bring stimulus materials into the classroom to help students make stronger connections to things going on outside.

• Provides something for students to focus on which can focus students’ minds.
• Helps students to learn actively if they have the opportunity to touch and manipulate the props.
• Can inspire and draw-in students at the start of the lesson.
• Stimulus materials can be very expensive.
• Students can get distracted playing with the materials rather than listening to their peers or the teacher.
• Students need to learn to share materials.

Constructivism: constructivists encourage the use of props so that students can ‘learn by doing’ and be ‘hands on’ in their learning.

• Place several props into a bag. Have the students put their hands in the bag and see whether they can guess what the props are.
• Place an unusual prop related to your lesson in the middle of the classroom. Get the students to guess what it is before beginning the lesson.

48. Service Learning

Service learning involves having students meet learning outcomes while contributing to and ‘giving back to’ their community. This often involves volunteer work, internships and placements within the community where assistance is needed.

• Students can increase their sense of belonging within the community.
• Connections between learning and life are made explicit in this sort of learning.
• Learning moves from the theoretical to the practical.
• Students can come to see how they are connected to a wider ecosystem, and that they have an important part to play in serving that ecosystem for the good of all.
• It can be hard to place all your students in a service learning placement if there are many students to allocate.
• It may be impractical given safety and security requirements.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: EST highlights that people are situated within community from whom they get their values and beliefs. By being more connected to the community, students learn who they are and how they’re connected to a society and culture that surrounds them.

• Prepare your students in the classroom. Consider having organizers or community members come into the classroom to tell the students what to expect.
• Have students write preparatory notes about what the intend to learn, who they intend to speak to, and what their day-by-day goals will be whilst doing the service learning.
• Have students complete their service learning / voluntary work in groups or individually.
• Meet with the students intermittently during the service learning and have student-teacher conferences on how it is progressing. Intervene where needed.
• Have students come together at the end of the project to reflect on what was learnt and how their understanding of their place in the community has evolved. Discuss possible future involvement and engagement in the community to emphasize that community involvement is an ongoing project.

49. Situated Learning

Invented by Lave and Wegner, situated learning involves learning by being embedded within a professional environment and slowly picking up the ways of doing and speaking within that context.

It has similarities to other instructional strategies outlined in this article such as service learning and cognitive apprenticeships. However, its defining feature is the slow absorption of knowledge through prolonged exposure to an authentic professional setting.

• Students learn the most important practical information required for a job.
• Students learn the ways of speaking and behaving that are required within a professional situation.
• Not practical as a teaching strategy in classrooms. It works best as an apprenticeship model for new graduates from university.

Sociocultural theory: the situated learning approach emphasizes the importance of learning from ‘more knowledgeable others’.

50. Sixty-Second Strategy

The sixty second strategy involves having students review one another’s work in three steps which take 60 seconds each. The steps are: respond, reflect and review. This usually takes place after a student presentation where the students give a cumulative 3 minutes of feedback and reflection on the presentation.

The goal is not just to give feedback to the presenter, but for the listeners to also think about how they would have done the presentation and what their own thoughts on the topic are.

• Students learn how to give feedback to others in positive and constructive ways.
• It is a great way for students to actively engage with other students’ presentations.
• Students need to know how to be positive in feedback and not be hurtful.
• Have the student who is presenting their work give their presentation.
• The students who watched the presentation have 60 seconds to write their thoughts on the topic that was presented.
• Next, the students have 60 seconds to write down feedback on the presenter’s work.
• Then the students have 60 seconds to provide positive affirmation and praise.
• At the end, have the students share their feedback with the presenter in small groups so that the environment is not so intimidating for the presenter.

51. Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up

Thumbs down, thumbs up is a simple strategy for getting immediate feedback from students. During a lesson, pause after each step to get instant thumbs down, thumbs up feedback on whether students understand the previous step.

If there are thumbs down, the teacher should ask those students if they have direct questions or whether they might want that section to be covered again in different language or more slowly.

• Enables the teacher to gauge students’ reactions in real time.
• Gives the students an opportunity to give the teacher feedback immediately so that they don’t fall behind or become frustrated.
• If the majority of students give thumbs up but only one or two give thumbs down, this is not endorsement to move on. Rather, the teacher should make sure no students fall behind.

52. Summarizing and Paraphrasing

For this teaching strategy, either the teacher or student summarizes something someone previously said in their own words in order to ensure they understanding each other without any misconceptions.

• In having a student repeat the teacher’s statement in their own words, the teacher can see whether students actually understand something.
• In repeating a student’s statement in different language, the teacher can see whether they truly understand what the student means.
• The biggest risk here is in the teacher ‘putting words in the student’s mouth’. This may give the student a free pass.
• The teacher explains a concept, then asks the student to repeat it without using the same words. A pause of a few minutes between the teacher’s explanation and the student’s response can be helpful in preventing the student from directly copying the teacher’s language. As time passes, the meaning should stay but the exact words should be forgotten.
• Alternatively, the student makes a statement, and the teacher translates it in their own words and finishes with “Is that what you meant?”

53. Demonstration

Demonstration involves showing the students a practical example of something that is being learned in class.

The difference between demonstration and modeling is that a demonstration usually:

• does not involve explicit explanation of all the steps, and
• is usually not followed by students having a go themselves.

Demonstration (rather than modelling) may be necessary when the concept being demonstrated is dangerous or requires expertise.

• Having something complex or theoretical demonstrated can be exciting to link theory to practice.
• Demonstrations may require expensive field trips or inviting experts and expert equipment into the classroom.
• A demonstration could be as complex as going to watch a space rocket launch or as simple as a ranger demonstrating how to use bear spray.

54. Role Modelling

Role modelling involves demonstrating the requisite behaviors or ideal way of acting within a learning environment. Role modelling has the intention of positively influencing students into copying the teacher’s positive learning behaviors.

• Students are socialized into behaving and learning in socially appropriate ways.
• A teacher who sets personal high expectations for their own learning will have those high expectations flow on toward the students.
• A teacher needs to be aware that all of their behaviors rub off on students. This means they need to ‘put on their happy face’ despite what’s going on in their private lives.

Bandura (Social learning theory): Albert Bandura believed that observation was important in influencing how people will behave and learn. See his famous Bobo doll experiment where children were more aggressive toward a doll when they observed an adult being aggressive toward it.

• Male teachers may role model positive masculinity, such as politeness and respect to all people regardless of gender.
• A teacher can be a role model my demonstrating engagement and volunteering within the community, insisting on respectfully welcoming guests when they enter the classroom, or having high regard and respect for reading, learning, and apologizing.

55. Predicting

Predicting involves asking students to make predictions or ‘guestimates’ before a study is undertaken. The teacher may make a prediction for the students to respond to, or ask students to make predictions themselves.

• It stimulates students to think about the logical flow-on effects of the things they are learning about (such as in science: gravity, momentum, etc.)
• Students are asked to think forward rather than simply react in the learning environment.
• At the start of a lesson (before introducing too much information), ask students what they think will happen during the lesson.
• Show the students a diagram or comic strip demonstrating sequence of events with the last few events missing. Have students fill-in the gaps.

56. Intentional Mistakes

The teacher inserts intentional mistakes into their teaching materials (such as misspellings in their presentations) or their speech in order to:

• Check students’ depth of knowledge,
• Make memorable teaching moments, or
• Keep students critically engaged.
• It keeps students on their toes throughout the lesson, particularly during the boring parts.
• It can make learning into a game if you let the students know to look out for the mistakes in advance. You could also offer a reward for the person who identifies the mistake.
• It can lead to critical discussion about common mistakes that students make in a topic.
• You may risk having students believe you had made the mistakes intentionally.
• Students may believe the mistakes are truths and end up believing things that are untrue.
• Create intentional spelling errors in your worksheets and powerpoint presentations.
• Mispronounce a word and see if students realize.
• Flip two words in a sentence and see if anyone realizes.

57. Reflection-in-Practice / Immediate Feedback

Immediate feedback is any feedback that takes place during a lesson rather than after a lesson or exam has been completed.

There are two primary types of immediate feedback: feedback from students to teachers, and feedback from teachers to students.

The feedback’s purpose should be to make impromptu changes during the lesson before it is too late.

• Teachers can adjust their teaching methods in the moment to ensure the lesson is a success.
• Students can adjust the ways they are going about completing a task to ensure it is successful.
• In large groups, one-to-one feedback can be difficult.
• Teachers need to be able to think on their feet to make immediate adjustments.

David Schon’s ‘Reflection in Practice’: According to Schon, successful practitioners reflect in practice rather than just on practice. Reflection in practice requires practitioners to reflect on what they’re doing while they’re doing it.

• Asking for a thumbs up / thumbs down from students to see if they understand something.
• Looking over the shoulder at children’s work to see how they’re coming to their conclusions.
• Accepting ‘hands up’ questions at any point during an explanation or lecture.

58. Whole Group Class Discussion (a.k.a Circle Time)

A whole group class discussion gets all students in the class talking to one another in one group. When I use this strategy, I try to get students sitting in a conversation circle. The benefits of students sitting in a circle include:

• There is a neutral power structure with no one at the head of the discussion.
• All students can see one another.
• Whole class discussions encourage all students to develop the confidence to share their own views publicly.
• If the whole class gets into it, there can be a lot of great back-and-forth.
• Often, the loudest and most confident students dominate the discussion.
• Some students are too shy to speak up.
• It is easy to embarrass a student, so be careful to be sensitive.
• Use a speaking stick so only one person speaks at a time. The only person who can speak is the person with the speaking stick.
• Use discussion circles so that all students can see each other when talking.
• If conversation is slow to start, consider asking individual students direct questions.
• Use open-ended questioning to force students to answer in full sentences.

59. Concentric Circles

Concentric circles is a method that builds on the whole group circle time discussion. Students sit in two concentric circles with the inner circle facing the outer circle. The students in the inner circle should be paired one-to-one with a student in the outer circle (like speed dating).

The teacher poses a question and the pairs are given 60 seconds to discuss the problem. Then, the students from the inner circle rotate one person to the right so they are facing a new partner for the next question.

• Disagreements about pairing and students working with their friends are resolved because each student gets a turn working with another student.
• Students get to learn and communicate with other students they don’t usually spend time with.
• Discussion can help students see perspectives that they did not come up with on their own.
• There needs to be an even number of students in the class so each student has a partner to work with.

Sociocultural theory: students learn by interacting with others to help them test, challenge and extend their own ideas.

60. Hot Seat

One student takes the role of a character from a book, history, etc. They dit in front of the class and get interviewed by their classmates. The student must stay in character and answer the questions from the perspective of that character.

• Students explore topics from perspectives other than their own, helping them to develop lateral thinking skills .
• Students need time to research their character and brainstorm their character’s perspectives on various topics before being put in the hot seat.
• Shy students or students who are not confident with the material may be intimidated by this instructional strategy.
• This strategy can be linked up with strategies like De Bono’s thinking hats where students would answer questions from a particular perspective.

61. Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are visual aids in the classroom designed to help students visualize and conceptualize ideas and their relationships with other ideas. Examples of graphic organizers include flowcharts, mind maps and venn diagrams. Use them to help students think more deeply about topics.

• Very useful for students who are visual learners.
• Provides a framework for deeper and critical thinking.
• Provides structure to help students who are unsure of how to proceed with critical thinking.
• Don’t stick to just one framework as the frameworks narrow the scope of thinking in exchange for depth. Mix up your graphic organizers.

Cognitive Constructivism: cognitive constructivists such as David Jonassen believe graphic organizers help students to share their cognitive load with the organizer, helping them to organize and sort ideas in their heads more effective.y

• Flow charts
• Venn diagrams
• Concept maps
• Network or family tree
• Spider diagram
• Compare-contrast matrix
• Series of events chain
• Character charts

62. Think Pair Share

This is one of the simplest, most frequently used, but also most effective classroom teaching strategies. Students think about a topic on their own. Then, they pair up with a partner and discuss, compare and contrast their thoughts together. Thirdly, the pair share what they discussed with the whole class.

• Moves students from individual thinking to social thinking in a clear process.
• Helps students to vocalize their own thoughts in small and large groups.
• Helps students to see other people’s perspectives by encouraging communication, compare and contrast.
• Students need the confidence to speak up in front of the whole class. I have found some students like to have the comfort of flip chart (butcher’s) paper as a prop when presenting their discussions to the class.

Sociocultural theory: learning through conversation allows students to see diverse perspectives and therefore improve on their own perspectives.

• Step 1: Think. Students are given 2 minutes to think about the topic on their own and take 5 bullet points on their own.
• Step 2: Pair. Students get together in pairs (or groups of 3 if appropriate) to compare and contrast their own ideas. Students discuss the ideas and come up with a collective group of ideas.
• Step 3: Share. Each group shares their own thoughts with the whole class. As each group presents, other classmates can challenge ideas or take additional notes to add to their own group’s thoughts.

63. Group Roles

Assigning group roles for students who are doing small group work is another simple instructional strategy to try. There are many group role types to be found online. I tend to use the roles of: timekeeper, moderator, notekeeper, and collector. All students should be equal discussion contributors, and this is managed by the moderator.

• Helps to structure the activity, give students certainty in what they are doing, and reduce the uncertainty from group work.
• Encourages communication to get students hearing other students’ ideas and perspectives
• Students must be explicitly taught the group roles and need time to practice them.

Sociocultural Theory: By communicating with peers, students widen their perspectives and (with more knowledgeable peers) have their knowledge scaffolded.

• Ensure you model the group roles before beginning the activity. Consider using a fishbowl method by having a sample group sit in the middle of a circle modeling the roles to the rest of the class.
• For the class’s first attempt at group roles, structure it very clearly by getting the students to follow a clear step-by-step guide. Slowly release responsibility to students when they are ready.

64. Barometer

The barometer method gets a measure of students’ opinions by asking them to stand on a line from 0 to 10 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = unsure or conflicted, 10= strongly agree).

• Students tend to find this a non-intimidating way of sharing their opinions.
• Can be a good way of getting students talking. Once they stand on the line, you can ask them to explain why they stood where they did.
• It may be beneficial to prevent students from taking a neutral “I don’t know” stance without sufficient defence of this position.

Critical theory : The barometer could be paired with critical theory if students critique assumptions in society with a focus on the perspectives of marginalized groups.

• Introduce a complex or controversial issue through a book, video or class discussion.
• Ask students to stand on an imaginary line from 0 to 10 representing their opinion.
• Place students into three groups based on their position in the line: agree, unsure and disagree. Have the three groups present their 5 best arguments to the class.

65. Cognitive Tools

Cognitive tools are educational technologies designed to promote thinking beyond what a student can do without the technology. This might include using wearable technologies to help students map out their own movements to then test their knowledge of geography, use of excel sheets to create financial estimations, etc.

• Educational technologies can help us do things we couldn’t do without them.
• Can engage students who love computers and technology in learning tasks.
• Teachers must ensure technology use is focused on helping students learn more or at a higher level of critical thinking than if they didn’t have technology.

Cognitive Constructivism: this approach, invented by david Jonassen, emphasizes that computer technologies should be used to extend and promote higher-order cognition.

See my full article: Examples of Congitive Tools in Education .

66. Anticipation / Guestimation

Anticipation and guestimation is an instructional strategy designed to get students thinking about the consequences or flow-on effects of actions. Teachers ask students to make predictions based on limited knowledge about a topic

• Students often have to use mathematics and logical reasoning to succeed in this task.
• Students are required to be resourceful and seek clues that will show them the possible consequences of action.
• It is important to strike a balance between giving enough information to make informed guesses and not too much information that the students can deduce the full answer.

67. Silent Conversation

A silent conversation is a way of getting students to communicate without having them speak up in front of the class. Students write their responses to a prompt on sheets of paper but cannot speak while doing so. They should then also write responses to one another’s points so that they are ‘conversing’ through writing.

• Students who are shy to speak up my be more willing to participate, especially if their written response can stay anonymous.
• It can often be easier to respond in writing than speaking because students have time to reflect and think about the wording of their response before writing it.
• Only one student at a time can write their response. Consider what other students will be doing during this time.
• Students must be competent writers.

Sociocultural theory: we learn and extend our knowledge through social interaction. By seeing others’ points, we can improve or amend our own.

• One way to do this is to have a flip chart paper sheet (butcher’s paper) on a wall with a discussion prompt written above. Have students walk up to the paper intermittently thought a lesson to write responses to the prompt. After the first few students write their responses, the rest of the students must respond not to the prompt but to the answers written by previous students – how can they add to or challenge what someone else has already said?
• The second common way of having a silent conversation is to pass a piece of paper around the class and have students write their responses to conversation chains on the piece of paper.

68. Devil’s Advocate

A devil’s advocate is someone who argues for an opposing point of view in order to stir up an argument and poke holes in other points of view. The devil’s advocate does not necessarily need to believe the points they are arguing. Either the teacher or students can be the devil’s advocate I’m this teaching strategy.

• Encourages students to see their own blind spots or misunderstandings.
• Helps students to see a diversity of points of view.
• Improves students’ debating skills.
• Students and parents may interpret you devil’s advocate position as an attempt to teach unsavory views in the classroom.

Critical theory: A devil’s advocate can help students with skills desirable within critical theory, like seeing views of people who are not commonly heard in society and the capacity to critique dominant narratives in society.

• The teacher can note in their lesson plan moments when they believe there are opportunities to play devil’s advocate role promote debate.
• The teacher can give students debating points where one person acts as devil’s advocate and another as the person defending the dominant perspective.

69. Strategic Pauses

Strategic pauses are one of the most important tools in a teacher’s toolbox of teaching strategies. A strategic pause is a gap between statements to let a point sink in or linger, or to give students a moment to think about an answer before the teacher moves on.

•  An excellent classroom management strategy
• Encourages students to think and not rely on teacher prompting
• Emphasizes important points
•  Can leave students confused
• Requires follow-up and knowledge testing

Cognitive load theory: Too much information at one time can cause a student to lose track. Time is required for the mind to interpret, sort, stack, save and withdraw information in their mind (‘create cognitive schemata’).

• Pause after a question for 10 seconds before discussing the answer.
• If the class has started getting unsettled, often a pause in the teacher’s speaking is enough to settle them again and remind them to re-engage with the learning materials.
• Slow speech with sufficient pauses between ‘chunks’ of information (seeL ‘chunking’ strategy) can help students arrange information in their minds appropriately.

70. Chunking

Chunking involves presenting information in manageable ‘chunks’ to allow students to sufficiently process information before moving on to the next section of a lesson or task.

Teachers should present only a manageable amount of information to students before giving them a chance to consolidate the information and practice their new knowledge.

Without giving sufficient time to consolidate information before giving new information to a student, the student will struggle to keep up with the information and old information may fall away before it is secured into their memory.

• Less students will be left behind, confused and disillusioned in the classroom if they are given consolidation time.
• There is often not enough time in a crowded school curriculum to chunk information well enough.
• It is hard to tell how much is ‘too much’ information, and how long is long enough before knowledge is consolidated into memory.

Cognitive Overload Theory: If students are given too much information, their mind becomes ‘overloaded’ and they are unable to process more information. We only have a limited amount of working memory space in our minds. See: John Sweller’s cognitive overload theory .

• Only teach two or three key points per lesson.
• Provide a lot of discussion and practice time before moving on to presenting new information.
• Consistently use formative assessment and reflection in action during the lesson to see when is the ideal time to move on.

71. Snowball Discussions

Snowball discussions are another twist on the think-pair-share method. For snowball discussions, students start in pairs and share their thoughts and ideas together. Then, the pairs join up with another pair to create a group of four. These four people share thoughts together, compare notes, debate ideas, and come up with an agreed list of points on a topic.

Then, groups join up again to make groups of eight. The groups of eight compare points and perspectives, then join up to create groups of 16, etc. until it ends up being a whole class discussion.

• An effective strategy for promoting discussion between students. It can be useful for getting students to compare how different groups of students approach points from different perspectives.
• The class group needs to be large (20+) for enough rounds of this strategy to happen.

Sociocultural theory: social interaction helps students see perspectives that are not their own and challenge their own views. This helps them pick holes in their own points and improve their misconceptions.

72. Homework: Knowledge Consolidation

Yes, homework is a teaching strategy! A traditional approach to homework sees it as an opportunity for students to consolidate information that was taught in class. Studying for upcoming exams is often also an important part of homework.

Other homework strategies like flipped classroom are possible – see the flipped classroom discussion earlier in this article.

• Help students to consolidate information learned in class.
• Ensures students have an opportunity to keep information fresh in their minds and be reminded of information learned in previous months.
• Excessive homework can impede students’ rights to enjoyment, sports and extracurricular activities out of school.
• Students often do not have support at home if they get stuck.

Behaviorism: repetition over time helps memory retention.

73. Active Listening

Active listening involves using strategies to pay close attention to what someone is saying. Teachers can explicitly model active listening by giving students strategies like pointing their bodies at the speaker, keeping their eyes on the speaker, nodding when they agree, and putting hands up to ask questions or clarification.

• Active listening encourages respect in the classroom.
• It could help students to remember better because it minimizes distractions.
• Students may be more likely to contribute questions if they are paying more attention.
• Some students (such as students with autism) need stress balls, fidget toys, etc to help them concentrate.

Examples that show active listening include:

• Facing the speaker square-on
• Eye contact
• Asking questions
• Repeating, paraphrasing or summarizing the speaker’s statement.

74. Connect, Extend, Challenge

The “connect, extend, challenge” teaching strategy is a three-step strategy designed to get student thinking about how their knowledge is progressing.

In step 1, students ‘connect’ what they’re learning to their prior knowledge. In step 2, students think about how the new knowledge ‘extends’ what they already knew. In step 3, students reflect on what ‘challenges’ they still face: what is still confusing to them?

• This is a framework that gets students to explicitly think about how they are progressing in their learning.
• The clear steps give students guidelines to help them achieve success.
•  Requires prompting and scaffolding

Social Constructivism: This strategy has implicit links to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. Students look at how their backgrounds impact their thinking, what level they are at, and what is still sitting in their ‘zone of proximal development’ (.e.g what they need to learn next).

• Split a piece of paper into three columns to help students in this task: one column for ‘connect’, one for ‘extend’, and one for ‘challenge’.

75. Create a Headline

While a seemingly simple activity, this instructional strategy gets students to refine the topic they’re exploring down to one simple sentence that catches the essence of the issue.

For this strategy, have students come up with a headline for the lesson as if they’re a journalist reporting on the issue at hand. Get them to think about how it can be catchy, explain the problem at hand, and provide an engaging ‘hook’ to draw readers in.

• Helps students identify the key point of a lesson, forcing them to think about what is really important in the lesson.
• Some issues are complex and refining it down to one sentence may risk simplification.

To extend this activity, have students write a journalistic piece to go under the headline.

76. Lesson Objective Transparency

Being transparent about a lesson objective is a teaching strategy designed to help students understand the purpose of the lesson. By knowing the objective from the outset, the students are less likely to get confused about the purpose and direction of their lesson.

• Students are aware of the purpose of the lesson, which may make it more relevant .
• Students can more objectively measure how successful they have been in the lesson.
• Lesson objectives are often worded for adults not children, so the wording may just confuse the students at times.
• Write your lesson objectives on the first slide of lecture slides if relevant.

77. Open-Ended Questioning

Open-ended questioning involves asking questions that require an elaboration in the response. In other words, it cannot be a question that can be answered with “yes” or “no”.

• Students are required to provide explanations and justifications for the points they make.
• Teachers get a more detailed appreciation of students’ levels of knowledge .
• Make a habit of using open ended questions when talking to students about their work.
• Write all assessment tasks with open ended questions.
• Pose open ended questions as stimulus prompts.

78. Fishbowl

The fishbowl strategy gets a small group of students to sit in a circle in the center if the classroom with the rest of the class sitting in a circle around the group.

The students in the middle of the circle complete a discussion or task as a demonstration for the students observing.

• Teachers can use advanced students in the middle of the group as a way of modeling skills or behaviors for the remainder of the class.
• More knowledgeable students can model behavior for less knowledgeable students.
• Students get a chance at performing in front of others.
• Many students will find doing a task I’m front of their peers intimidating.

Bandura’s observational learning : Bandura argues that students can learn from observing the modeling of others.

• Get older students from higher grades to sit in the middle of the fishbowl.
• Or, use the fishbowl as the “we do” step in the I do, we do, you do method.

79. Four corners

Use the four corners of the classroom as different stations for answering questions proposed by a teacher.

The stations may have answers like: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. Another example may be periods of time for a history exam: the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Or, the corners may have specific answers in the corners related to the questions being asked.

• This activity may be appealing for kinesthetic learners who want to move about to stay engaged.
• Provides a visual comparison between different views of students in the class.
• When students head to the corners, the teacher needs to ask students to explain their decisions to ensure depth is achieved in the lesson.

Multiple Intelligences: The lesson can help students who are kinesthetic learners.

80. Give One, Get One

This strategy involves getting students to trade ideas with one another.

Students write down their answer or thoughts to a TEACHER’S question. Then, they pair up. The students give their answer to their partner and take their partner’s answer. They discuss the differences between and merits of each answer.

Students then split up and find a new partner to repeat the activity.

• Writing down an answer ensures all students participate and that all students provide an explicit response.
• Seeing other people’s answers helps students get a broader perspective on a topic.
• Pre-plan for what to do when you don’t have an even number of students in the class.

Sociocultural theory: students learn from their peers through discussion. Discussion can help broaden horizons and allows students to see multiple perspectives on an issue.

• Present a discussion topic or question to the class.
• Have each student write down 3 points on a piece of paper to answer the question.
• Pair students up to discuss their answers. Get them to consider similarities and differences as well as pros and cons of each answer.
• Have students break apart and trade answers in another pair.

81. Brainstorming

Brainstorming involves asking students to come up with their initial thoughts on an issue. The thoughts do not have to be refined or correct. Instead, the students should use the brainstorming time to get their mind flowing and discussion started. Usually, this activity takes place using flip chart / butcher’s paper.

• A good way to start discussion among students, especially if they don’t know each other well or are shy.
• The students may need to assign some roles to group members. Consider rotating the role of ‘writer’ between students (usually one person writes an idea for the whole group on the brainstorming paper).
• A good way of doing this activity is to place students in small groups and provide them a large sheet of paper to write down all their initial thoughts.
• Students can then report all their thoughts back to the class.

82. Expert Jigsaw

The expert jigsaw method teaching method involves having students split into groups of ‘experts’ and then ‘topics’.

First, each ‘expert’ group focuses on a sub-area of a topic to develop their ‘expertise’ as a group.

Once the initial group work discussion has concluded, the ‘expert groups’ split.

The teacher then forms new ‘topic groups’ with one student from each of the original expert groups in the new groups.

The idea is that each group in the second part of the lesson will have an ‘expert’ on a particular area of a topic. Every expert will be able to contribute their perspective to the group

For example, if the topic is dinosaurs, the initial ‘expert groups’ may get together to discuss separate issues: Group 1 will discuss extinction, Group 2 will discuss bones, Group 3 will discuss diets, and Group 4 will discuss geographical locations.

When the ‘topic groups’ converge, they should contain one expert on extinction, one expert on bones, one expert on diets and one expert on geographical locations. The topic group will therefore have a broad range of expert knowledge to discuss and share.

• Gives each student a sense that they have something meaningful to contribute because they will be an expert on something when converging in the ‘topic’ groups.
• Encourages collaboration and positive interdependence in group work.
• Requires forethought and organization by the teacher.

Social Constructivism: social interaction helps students construct ideas in their minds. Each student gets to hear the expert perspective of another student who is a ‘more knowledgeable other’, while also acting as the more knowledgeable other when it is their turn to share their expertise.

83. KWL Charts

A KWL chart is a type of graphic organizer that can be used throughout the course of a lesson to help students keep track of their learning.

The chart can be on a simple piece of paper split into three columns: (K) What I already know; (W) What I want to know in this lesson; (K) What I learned.

At the start of the lesson the students can fill out the first two columns. The first column will help the teacher assess prior knowledge. The second column will help the teacher and students guide the lesson by outlining what they want out of it.

At the end of the lesson, the third column can be filled-in: (L) What I learned in the lesson. This helps students reflect on the lesson to show them that they did actually learn something!

• Students can keep track of their own learning.
• There is physical evidence of what was learned that teachers can use in students’ final report card comments and teaching portfolios.
• It is a good structured tool to help guide a lesson.
• It would be good if there was a fourth column for ‘what I still want to know’ so student can leave the lesson with more questions that can be addressed in future classes.
• Students sometimes place topics in the (W) What I want to know column that are relevant but not covered in a pre-made lesson plan. This can require the student to get a bit creative in re-arranging their lesson on the fly.

84. SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is a teaching tool used to help students identify their own Strengths , Weaknesses , Opportunities , and Threats .

It is often used at the beginning of a term or unit of work to help students self-identify how best to proceed in their studies.

A SWOT analysis starts with a piece of paper split into four quadrants. The top-left has ‘Strengths’, top-right has ‘Weaknesses’, bottom-left has ‘Opportunities’ and the bottom-right has ‘Threats’.

There are plenty of templates online you could download also.

Students then fill out the SWOT sheet, identifying their strengths and weaknesses (e.g. ‘I am organized’ or ‘I am time poor’) and opportunities and threats (e.g. ‘I have the opportunity to work with my peers to improve’ or ‘I have an upcoming swim meet that will take up more of my time’).

• Students are taught to self-assess and plan ahead to avoid upcoming challenges in their lives.
• Students can balance affirming statements about their own skills with honest recognition of their weaknesses.
• I often find students use generic phrases copied from their neighbors. It’s a good idea to insist on depth of engagement and thinking when doing this strategy .

85. Read Aloud

Read aloud is a strategy that involves the teacher reading a text out loud to students. The strategy relies on the teacher using strategic pauses, pitch and tone changes, pace and volume changes, and questioning and comments. These reading aloud strategies help students to become more engaged in a lesson and get more out of the reading experience.

• Can be more engaging than getting students to read to themselves.
• By using strategic pauses and asking questions of students, the text can both be read and analyzed at the same time. This may improve comprehension.
• I’ve found many pre-service teachers get nervous doing this task. Remember that people of all ages love being read to.

86. SIT: Surprising, Interesting, Troubling

A SIT analysis asks students to list aspects of a lesson that were surprising, interesting and troubling. It is useful following the viewing of a short film or reading a book about a topic that seems bizarre or a fact that is counterintuitive.

Like a KWL chart, you could do this task by splitting paper into three columns: one for ‘surprising’, one for ‘interesting’ and one for ‘troubling’.

• Gets students to take a critical stance and make judgements (particularly for ‘troubling’)
• Is a good way to take stock of students’ interests in order to create follow-up lessons based on topics the students have already demonstrated concern for.
• The ‘troubling’ part is often hard for students to complete – consider explicitly modeling a sample response before asking students to complete it alone.

Critical theory: students can use a SIT analysis to critique the justice or inequality issues presented in a text.

87. Higher Order Thinking

When writing a lesson plan, it’s often a very good idea to note any time you’re encouraging higher order thinking – especially if there’s a column in your lesson plan for ‘teaching strategies’. This help people reading the lesson plan to see that you’ve been intentional about promoting higher order thinking.

Following Bloom’s taxonomy, higher order thinking usually includes tasks that involve verbs like : Judge, Appraise, Evaluate, Compare, Criticize, Assess, Estimate, Deduce, Hypothesize and Generalize.

• Helps a teacher to be more explicit in their language and to ensure a lesson is challenging for students.
• Ensures students are practicing their critical thinking skills rather than just repeating a teacher’s ‘facts’.
• For higher order thinking tasks, it’s important that you don’t give students the answers. Instead, give them hints, pointers and resources that will help them to come up with the answers on their own.

Constructivism: Bloom was a constructivist who believed learning happens when students build knowledge in their mind rather than just copying facts from an authority figure in the classroom.

88. Debating

Getting students to debate an idea is a great way of getting them to build coherent and logical arguments in defence of a position. It requires them to gather, analyze and sort facts before they present them to an audience.

• Students learn to identify positive arguments on a topic even if they disagree with it, helping them to see things from multiple perspectives.
• Students may require resources to do background research to come up with strong points for or against a position.
• Split the class into two groups and assign each group a position for or against a statement.
• Give each group 15 minutes to come up with some arguments for their side of the argument. Each student in the group should have one argument to make for the team. The student writes their argument down on a piece of paper.
• Line the two groups of students up facing one another.
• Go down the lines getting each student to make their point for or against the position. Zig-zag from one group to the next as you go down the line
• Once the students have completed, do an anonymous poll of the class to find out which position is most convincing. For the poll, students do not have to vote for their team’s position.

89. Note Taking (Cornell Method)

Note taking involves getting students to actively listen out for key points in a speech or video and synthesize it into key points for remembering later.

A popular framework for not taking is the Cornell method. This involves splitting a page into two columns.

The column on the left is a ‘Cue’ column. In the cue column write key words, phrases or Quotes as if they were headings or headline points to remember.

The column on the right is the note taking column. This column is larger and allows space to add detail and diagrams explaining the ‘cues’ that were written on the left in more detail.

• Turns passive learning during a didactic explicit instruction lesson into a more active learning environment.
• Helps students organize and synthesize their thoughts.
• Helps with studying for exams later on.
• Teachers may talk too fast for students to take detailed notes. Remember to use strategic pauses and remind students at strategic times that they need to be taking notes.
• Feel free to download cornell method worksheets off the internet. Just look for them on your favorite search engine!

90. Lesson Recording

Recording a lesson involves using either video, audio or Screencast technology to save the lesson for revision later on.

• This method is very useful for students with learning disabilities who may require more time to process information. They can rewatch later on and make use of pause, rewind and slow functions during the revision.
• Great for when students miss a day so they can catch up.
• Whenever you work with technology, be prepared for issues to arise that may delay the lesson.
• Use Screencasts when teaching a lesson online.
• Screencasts can also save your work when writing on an Interactive Whitenoard. Revision at a later date will show the steps you took in doing the ‘working out’.

91. Word Wall

Word walls are sections on the walls of a classroom where teachers and students can record new vocabulary, quotes or key terms they encounter during a unit of work.

• Word walls can be visible evidence of progression through a unit.
• Students can refer to the word walls when trying to explain their points and ideas to the class.
• During exams, remember to cover the word walls so students can’t cheat by looking over at the answers.
• Word walls can be great props for refreshing students’ memories at the start of a lesson. Start the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary learned in the previous lesson.

92. Goal Setting

Goal setting involves explicitly instructing students on how to set short (within a lesson), medium (within a unit of work) and long term (through the year) personal targets for success.

The goals can be for a whole group or individual.

• Goal setting gives students something to strive toward.
• It is a way of gamifying education. Students can challenge themselves to reach their step by step goals.
• It helps students understand where they are headed and what the purpose of the lesson is.
• Ensure goals are achievable lo that students do not become disillusioned.
• Have students prepare their daily goals at the end of the previous day or start of the current day.
• Reflect on medium-term goals weekly.

93. Worked Examples

A worked example is a completed piece of work that students can look to as models for their own work.

A worked example could be a sample of a completed diagram our 3D model, a completed essay or anything else that is a finished product of something the students are about to attempt.

• Students feel more secure knowing what they are working toward.
• Students can get ideas from the worked sample that they can adapt for their Ken work.
• Sometimes students copy the sample too closely rather than using their own thinking. Consider using a sample that requires similar skills and processes but a different end product.
• Make sure you spend time discussing the steps it takes from going from nothing to the completed product.
• Provide students with past examples of creative writing pieces and discuss the strategies used by the authors.
• Show samples that are good and poor. Get students to discuss how the poorer samples could be improved.

94. Multiple Intelligences

Students have different learning styles (or more accurately, different learning preferences ).

One theory proposes that there are eight ‘intelligences’. A student may have one that is dominant and others that are weaker.

The eight intelligences are:

• Visual-Spatial : Prefers learning through images and visual arts. Uses diagrams to model relationships between concepts.
• Linguistic-Verbal : Prefers learning through storytelling, reading and writing.
• Interpersonal : Good at working in social situations, gets energy from social interaction, and can empathize with others easily. Enjoys group work.
• Intrapersonal : An introverted person who prefers learning alone. They do a lot of thinking and reading but mostly like to think through things in their own time (see: intrapersonal skills ).
• Logical-Mathematical : Sees patterns easily. Enjoys mathematical puzzles.
• Musical : Enjoys learning through music, songs and rhymes.
• Bodily-Kinesthetic : Learns through movement. Prefers lessons that require moving about.
• Naturalistic : Has an affinity with nature. Learns well in calm natural environments.

A teacher can integrate different activities into a lesson plan that appeal to different people’s learning preferences. In this way, they create a more inclusive classroom for multiple different types of learners.

• Inclusion: Teachers can use this theory to engage students who do not learn well in traditional lessons.
• Attempts to be student-centered and teach in ways that are appealing to students.
• In 2004, a detailed study in Scotland found no evidence or scientific toxic basis for the theory that different people have learning styles. Furthermore, it argued that the 8 styles in the multiple intelligences model were a arbitrarily contrived. Thus, learning styles may simply be learning preferences.
• It is unclear whether a teacher should create lessons catered to a student’s learning preference or help students strengthen their skills in areas students identify as their weaknesses.
• If students are not given a chance to practice all “styles” (not just their preferences) they may miss important skills, such as mathematical skills or literacy skills.

Howard Gardner: The theory of multiple intelligences was invented by Howard Gardner in the United States.

95. Non-Interventionism

Non-interventionism involves a teacher taking the role of ‘unobtrusive observer’ while students learn. The students are left to come to their own conclusions, face up to their own challenges, and ‘struggle’ through the lesson.

The teacher’s intervention may come through changing what they plan for the next lesson based on what they see, or lightly intervening after the students have struggled for some time.

Other reasons for intervention may be for safety or fairness reasons.

• Struggling to find an answer is Important for learning. Students can make mistakes and learn why the mistakes are wrong instead of just being told what us correct.
• Without a teacher imposing their views, students can come up with creative and thoughtful solutions to problems that the teacher dis not foresee.
• Students develop independent minds.
• Many parents and mentors watching your lesson may come away with a sense that you were lazy or did not do enough to help the students. This approach needs to be clearly explained and justified in lesson plans (I’d recommend referring to Montessori in your justification) and situations when you would go from observer to intervener should be spelled out in advance.
• If students are struggling too much, learning may not occur – there is a limit to this approach!

Montessori Classrooms: The role of the teacher as “unobtrusive observer” was pioneered by Maria Montessori.

Montessori argued that children learn best when placed in resource rich environments and left to explore. Our interventions may impede creativity, self-belief, autonomy and self-discovery.

96. Constructive Alignment

Constructive alignment involves explicitly linking the lesson assessment tasks to the compulsory learning outcomes in the curriculum.

This is an impressive thing to see in a lesson plan.

Use language (including verbs and nouns) from the learning outcome in the assessment task. Furthermore, make sure to provide a criteria for what constitutes pass or fail.

• Teachers can easily justify their lesson choices to their boss or assessor.
• The assessment tasks are always relevant and focused.
• Students can see the relevance of the assessment task to their learning goals.
• If the language of the curriculum objectives are complex or obtuse, it may just confuse students to use that language in their assessment task.

Biggs: Constructive alignment was invented by John Biggs who designed this method to ensure all lessons are relevant and move students a step closer to completing all learning outcomes.

97. Zone of Proximal Development

The ‘ zone of proximal development ‘ is a phrase used to explain the ideal difficulty level for a lesson.

A lesson that is too easy won’t help a student progress.

A lesson that is too hard will disengage a student who just won’t be able to do the task.

But a lesson that is difficult but achievable with effort will push a student forward. These lessons that are just hard enough but not too hard are lessons in the “zone of proximal development”.

• Students get lessons catered to their own needs.
• There is always catered support for any student in the class.
• By creating lessons that are always challenging, you are setting high expectations for all students.
• Differentiation like this can lead to bug Differences in ability levels across the whole class.
• You’re often under pressure to teach content that is too hard for students to meet standardized curriculum requirements

Sociocultural theory: Lev Vygotsky, one of the most famous educational psychologists, invented this approach to help teachers provide lessons that are at the right level for progressing a student’s learning.

• Weave the ZDP into a lesson plan by stating that you will assess a student’s current ability then teach them the thing that is the logical next.step.
• Another way to do this is create three student worksheets for three different ability levels. State in your lesson plan that you will assess each student’s ability and give them the appropriate worksheet. Each worksheet should build on the previous to help students move through their ZPD one step at a time.

98. Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is the use of praise, stickers, candy or other rewards to show students that they have done a good job.

Teachers can stack positive reinforcements so students can take steps to get small, medium and large rewards to encourage students to keep on trying and working hard consistently.

• Students get clear signals to know when they have done well.
• Students get encouragement to keep going and keep trying in order to get the reward.
• Too much positive reinforcement can come across as insincere and lose students’ respect. Furthermore, students may become desensitized to praise if it occurs too much. Praise ‘scarcity’ makes occasional praise more valuable.
• Explicit reinforcements are extrinsic motivation . The best sort of motivation is intrinsic motivation (wanting to do something for the pleasure of doing it). For more, see my full guide on intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation .

Behaviorism: Positive reinforcement is believed to be beneficial for changing behavior over time. See: John Watson’s operant conditioning examples .

• Sticker charts
• A subtle nod or wink
• Certificates and awards

99. Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of a privilege, points or tokens when a student gets an answer wrong.

This is often confused with punishments. For me, negative reinforcements should not punish but be used in limited learning scenarios as part of the learning ‘game’.

An example might be losing points in a gamified lesson so the student is less likely to win against their opponents. Students know it is part of the game and not a punishment designed to distress the student.

• Provides very clear messages to students about what is correct and incorrect, helping them to learn quickly.
• Parents often do not like any negative reinforces, so be very careful to set clear guidelines and use this strategy in limited circumstances.
• Be careful not to embarrass students in front of their classmates.

Behaviorism: Watson brought negative reinforcements into education, arguing that repeated use of them can change students’ behaviors.

• Losing points in a class contest.
• Failing a level in an educational computer game.

100. Drop Everything and Read

Drop everything and read (DEAR) involves getting students to stop what they are doing and read for 10 minutes.

It is a strategy that helps build students’ literacy skills (especially when students can choose their own book). However, it is also useful for helping students get more depth of knowledge on a topic being taught when you give them all an article or book to read to help them have more knowledge for subsequent parts of the lesson.

• An effective way of getting students to spend intense time learning about a topic.
• Helps integrate literacy into your daily activities.
• There will always be a small group of students who squirm and struggle when asked to read. Consider alternatives like the Read Aloud strategy or using videos instead if DEAR doesn’t work for your class.
• Make sure to follow up DEAR time with discussion and comprehension tasks.
• Introduce a topic with initial information to engage the class.
• Set a 10 minute silent reading task based on the topic.
• Discuss what was read with comprehension prompts.

101. Gallery Walk

A gallery walk involves a teacher placing stimulus questions on flip chart paper (butcher’s paper) around the walls of the classroom.

The charts the teacher has put up are stations that students will stop at during the activity.

The teacher places students into groups. If there are 5 stations around the room, the teacher will create 5 groups.

Students get a set amount of time at each station to read the prompt questions. The students can write on the chart paper with their group response and also respond to other groups who have already written their points.

Once all students have rotated through the stations, the students end up back at the station where they began. The teacher the. gives each group 3 minutes to present to the class a summary of the comments written on the paper at their station.

• Students get to learn from others and see other groups’ responses.
• The students are up and moving about which may help the concentration of bodily-kinesthetic learners.
• Some students may not participate fully. Consider getting students to rotate who writes on the paper at each station to mitigate this challenge a little.

102. Metacognition

Note whenever you would encourage metacognition in a lesson within your lesson plan. This will help anyone reading it know that you’ve thought about giving students strategies for “thinking about thinking”.

Metacogntion is about thinking about how you think. Strategies include:

• Thinking aloud
• Writing your steps to reach an answer
• Explaining your thought processes
• Reflecting on your learning and considering faster ur more efficient processes
• Helps students understand the processes required for thinking deeply about an issue.
• Gives students the strategies and skills to learn any task, not just the ones at hand.
• Metacognition is difficult because it requires explanation of your thinking. However, it is necessary if people want to know how to think .

103. Case Studies

Case studies are in-depth examples of an issue being examined. A case study should show how an issue or theory looks in real life. Teachers can present case studies through videos, newspaper articles, magazine articles, guests coming into the classroom, etc.

• Case studies help students to see how theories and ideas look in real life. This can also help a student understand the relevance of the topic being studied.
• A case study may help students make sense of a complex idea by putting it in real concrete terms.
• Case studies might not be representative of a generalized issue – they may be outliers or flukes. Pick your case study carefully and discuss whether it is a typical or outlier sample.
• A case study of city planning may be an innovative city that has recently been designed.
• A case study in mathematics may include looking at the mathematics underpinning a famous bridge’s construction.
• A case study during a unit of work on refugees might look at the experiences of one real-life refugee.

104. Mystery Making

Educators can create ‘mystery’ in their classroom by carefully structuring lessons that give ‘clues’ to a mystery that needs to be solved by the students. Ask the students to act as detectives and place clues around the classroom (like a gallery walk). Have students move around the classroom taking notes on the mystery which will reveal an answer after thorough investigation.

• Creates a sense of excitement in the classroom, helping students to engage.
• Forces students to use critical, logical and lateral thinking in order to find the answer.
• Ensure the mystery is not too far outside a student’s zone of proximal development so that the mystery can be solved.

105. Storytelling

Storytelling in the classroom involves teaching through narrative-style stories rather than telling (‘didactic learning’). Teachers can tell stories by reading books (see: Read Aloud strategy), turning a dry explanation into an allegorical story off the cuff, or bringing people into the classroom who have an engaging personal story to tell.

• Stories can draw students into a topic through the creation of a sense of excitement and entertainment.

Steiner-Waldorf Schools: Rudolf Steiner called the teacher the ‘chief storyteller’ whose role is to create a sense of enchantment around learning through stories.

• Invite guests into the classroom who have stories to tell.
• Use stories that have a moral of the the story, then analyze the moralistic message.

106. Newspaper Clippings

Use newspaper clippings to link topics and theories to current affairs. Teachers can bring in recent newspapers to let students search through them for relevant stories or use old newspapers to search for how a topic was discussed in the past. Alternatively, teachers can get students to search for newspaper articles online.

Teachers could also assign reading through newspapers and bringing newspapers to class as a part of their homework.

• Newspaper stories can show students how the topic being discussed plays out in real life.
• They also show students how the topic is relevant to the present-day lives of people in the community,
• Newspapers are increasingly uncommon – consider adjusting this to use online news sites and printing out articles from the web.
• Some topics won’t have relevant news articles associated with them. Do a search in newspapers and online yourself for articles before using this teaching strategy.

107. Self-Paced Learning

Self-paced learning involves.letting students progress from activity to activity in their own time. For this approach, a teacher lays out a list of 10 – 20 lessons that students can work on at their own pace. Students work on the activities while the teacher walks around and gives support.

• Students are encouraged to reflect on their own learning development and only move on when they are confident that they have consolidated the knowledge from an assessment.
• Less students will fall behind if the teacher doesn’t pressure them to move on.
• Teachers have time to work one-on-one with students while students work away at student-led tasks.
• Fast students will need extension tasks or personal projects to complete once they have finished and are waiting for slower students.
• There is often not enough time for slower students to finish.

These teaching strategy examples are clearly not the only ones out there – there are probably thousands! But, in my time teaching, these have been the most effective and common teaching strategies that I have come across. Use this teaching strategies list for your own lesson plans to demonstrate pedagogical knowledge and depth of understanding of how to educate a range of different learners.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 15 Animism Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 10 Magical Thinking Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?

4 thoughts on “List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)”

this is valuable in my course production of Instructional materials in social studies. maraming Salamat!

Thank you very much for these valuable teaching strategies & techniques which can be used to enliven the classroom atmosphere, encourage students to do their tasks and learn more in the process. God bless!

As a student of Curriculum and Pedagogic Studies and also the Curriculum Lead in my school, this is best of resources I have had on the subject of teaching strategies. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, these are very helpful and remind me that some of my teaching styles are already mentioned here.

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Essay: Teaching styles

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Abstract Students’ learning style is the most important factor in determining how well he might learn the second language. Success depends largely on this factor and on teacher’s teaching style. However, mismatches happen a lot between the students’ learning styles and the teachers’ teaching style and therefore language learners do not learn effectively. To learn a language effectively, students must be actively engaged in using language. The teacher of English must create opportunities within the classroom situation to enable learners to think through language. In this paper the following questions will be answered to outline the impact of the teachers’ styles on the students’ language learning: How can we identify the elements of teaching style? What impact do teaching styles have on English Education? What are the classifications of teachers according to their styles? Why should we have to consider the learners’ learning styles? Why should we have to understand / know our learners’ styles? And how can we match between the learners’ learning styles and teachers’ teaching styles?. Key words: teachers’ styles, learners’ learning styles, English Education Introduction Data about teaching styles is just a single portion of teacher-student association. Similarly as instructors have favored methods for educating, understudies have comparable inclinations for how they wish to learn. These manners are marked learning styles of which allude to those individual characteristics that impacts learners’ capacity to get data, to connect with companions and teachers, and take an interest in learning encounters. As a result, the teaching-learning association is even more a teacher-student exchange. The two are associated with endeavors to shape each other into commonly advantageous types of relating. teachers and students embrace specific styles of instructing, learning and conveying keeping in mind the end goal to be effective. Such things are created through changes in the teacher and student view of each other, their activities towards each other, and their new parts in instructing/learning forms. “A variety of cognitive, social factors, motives, emotional, problem solving abilities, memory and perceptual processes, and information processing capabilities were used to identify the learning styles of students” (Garden, 1993). Identifying the Elements of teaching styles While numerous individuals have contended that the learning style is vital in educating, distinguishing the components of the teachers’ styles has became troublesome. One reason is that customarily, the idea of style has been seen in a disparaging way as outlined by ” (Eble, 1980). Thus, to give style a good definition and to use it effectively require moving beyond negative trend in which it is sometimes understood. Style in teaching as in art, music, athletics, managing people, and other areas of endeavor is not something that is put on for the occasion. Style, Eble argued, was “What one is” (p. 95). Teaching style represents teacher’s continual manners and personal qualities that show how he mange and lead his classroom. Thus, it defines teacher and directs his pedagogical processes of which effects both the students and their ability to learn. Although observations may enlighten the common components of teachers’ styles, still they are insufficient. If style represents what a teacher is so, there will be many different styles as there are teachers which make it difficult to use observations as a technique to help in enlighten the nature of the teachers’ styles. To study specific types of teaching styles in a systematic manner, it would be beneficial to categories the personal qualities and behaviors that shared by all the teachers. Which make it easy to examine how particular characteristics affect students and their subsequent ability to learn. Understanding our teaching styles would be enhanced if we had a list of the elements of style that we use a basis for examining ourselves. There is, however, no clear consensus about the common components of style, it largely depends upon whom you ask – or at least what you read. Several approaches to understand teachers’ styles appear in literature. Various authors emphasize different aspects of how people teach, and thus there is little agreement about the elements of style. Instead, various aspects of our thoughts and behaviors are highlighted by those attempting to describe teaching style. The impact of teaching styles on English Education The shift in the language teaching paradigm in the twentieth century lead to the changing in the teaching styles. This helps in changing the lesson from traditional styles such as a translation based-instruction or grammar-based instruction to a communicative approach. Consequently, the roles of the teachers and of the learners have been changed to met the new education purposes. Breen and Candline (1980) describe teacher roles in the following terms: “The teacher has two main roles: the first role is to facilitate the communication process between all the participations in the classroom. And between these participants and the various activities and texts. The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group. The latter role is closely related to the objectives of the first role and arises from it. These roles imply a set of secondary roles for the teacher; first, as an organizer for resources and as a recourse himself, second as a guide within the classroom procedures and activities…. A third role for the teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much of contribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities actual and observed experience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities”.(p.99) Lessons now are student-centered in classrooms, they are designed according to the general principles of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The philosophy of this approach based upon varied teaching practices which increase the students’ interaction in order to acquire communicative skills or even for keeping students’ attention. Besides, these practices within the lessons focus on meaning rather than in the form of at the early stage and on both in the advanced one. Moreover, the atmosphere of classroom in this type is relaxed and encouraging for students’ participation. In this respect what collectively termed learner’s learning style, the different ways he acquires, retains and retrieves information. Therefore, teachers have to acknowledge of the different learning styles among their students which are nowadays differ from the ones that have been used in the past, so they can consciously adjust, adapt, organize or modify their teaching approach to much students’ learning preferences in order to increase their communicative learning ability. Students’ own views of their schooling are important are important as they have impact on their lives (Krueger,1997). Their views can also give teachers and teachers educators a better understanding of preferred teachers’ characteristic, teaching styles and schooling experiences “Teacher’s behaviors have significant bearing on students’ motivation, goal setting, selections of learning strategies or interest in the course” (Wang, Gibson & State, 2007. P. 3). Effects on students resulting from teacher’s behavior can be positive or negative. According to the previous researchers, students can blossom or wither because of the affects, behaviors, and methods of a particular teacher. In addition, teacher’s behaviors can affect students motivation and interest in a subject or a course and their approach to learning (Wang, Gibson & State, 2007). The Classification of Teaching Styles: Just as people have individual learning styles, teachers have teaching styles that works best for them. There are a number of factors that have their influence on teachers in selecting a certain teaching approach or style to address of various types of learners. According to Grasha (1996), the students’ capabilities to handle a course demands, and the teacher’s response to students’ learning preferences are important elements in demanding what teaching style would be more appropriate to adopt. Two models are used her to classify teachers according to their teaching styles. The first one is Grasha’s Model (1996) of which includes five the following styles: expert, formal authority, personal model, facilitator, and delegator. They can be illustrated in the following way: Expert Teacher who has expert teaching style possesses knowledge and expertise that students need. He strives to maintain statues as an expert among students by displaying details knowledge and by challenging students to enhance their competence. Formal Authority Teachers as the transmitter of information who tend to focus on content and have a formal authority teaching style. This style can be characterized as a teacher-centered, where the teacher is the source of knowledge and the students are the recipients. Teachers with this teaching style are not concerned with building relationship with their students nor is it as important that their students from relationship with other students. Demonstrator or Personal Model Demonstrator are the teachers whose their classes are teacher- centered ones. They tended to model the skills and knowledge. Moreover, they keen on empowering understudies cooperation and adjusting their introduction to incorporate different learning styles. learners are required to assume some liability for realizing what they have to know and for requesting enable when to comprehend something. Facilitator Teachers who have a facilitator display showing style tend to center around exercises. This showing style underlines learner focused learning and there is considerably more duty put on the learners to step up with regards to taking care of the requests of different learning tasks. This style works best for learners who have the cooperation spirits and can effectively engage in collaborate with other learners. Teachers with this style regularly configuration amass exercises which require dynamic learning, cooperation and critical thinking. They will regularly endeavor to configuration learning circumstance and exercises that require understudy handling and use obviously content in innovative and unique ways. Moreover, the teacher with this type controls and coordinates by asking the students questions, investigating their choices and their recommending options Delegator teachers who have a delegator style tend to put much control regarding learning on learners whether individuals or groups. They will frequently give learners a decision outlining and actualizing their own unpredictable learning projects and will act in a consultative way. Moreover, he builds up the learners’ capacity to work independently. Learners are frequently requested to work autonomously or in groups and must have the capacity to keep up inspiration and center for complex tasks, they working in this kind of setting take in more than simply course particular points as they additionally should have the capacity to viably work in amass circumstances and oversee different relational parts. According to Grasha, everyone who teaches, possesses each of the four teaching styles but to varying degrees. The second model is Teach with Style Model which was designed by (Teeters, 2001) who classified teachers into the following four styles: The Systematic type: Systematic-type teachers, as described by Teeters, view teaching as a partnership between learners and teachers. They collaborate with learners, assess students’ needs and set clear and meaningful goals to reach and fulfill their needs. The stimulating type: Stimulating teachers motivate their students through active learning such as presenting information in interesting ways and in encouraging students’ participation. The spontaneous type: This type of teachers gives learners the opportunity and permission to try out new ways of viewing thing. It breaks away from old types of traditional teaching and learning. Also teachers who adopt this style function as facilitators to make learning as enjoyable as possible through the use of arts, imagination and stories, in addition to encouraging risk-taking. The safe type: the safe type of teachers is based on building confidence with learning through openness and in making learners relaxed to share their experiences. Besides, it helps learners get acquainted with each other (Teeters, 2001). To get an indication of what any teacher’s main teaching style is, teaching style quiz can inform him / her. See (Appendix, A),( cited in Stein, Steeves, Mitsuhashi, 2002) Enhancing our teaching Style Gilakjani and Ahmadi ( 2011) study is an analysis of learning styles for Iranian EFL students. The reason for this investigation is to expand faculty awareness and understanding of the impact of learning styles on the instructing procedure. Previous studies alongside with analyzed data decide how learning styles influence the instructing procedure. The conclusion of this study shows that teachers should endeavor concentrated to educate in a multi style form that both achieves the best degree of learners in a given class and difficulties all learners encounter to grow as learners. Teachers’ growing, changing, and progressing largely depend on the reflection they receive from their students. “As teachers, we need to see ourselves accurately through the eyes of our students and colleagues” (Teeters 2001, p. XV). Research on student perceptions of teachers has revealed a range of preferred teachers’ qualities. “Effective teachers have been to be human, professional, and subject centered as well as students centered” (McCabe, 1995, p125). Another study of pre service teachers’ perceptions of teacher effectiveness by Minor, Onwuegbuzie, Witcher and James (2002) found seven emergent themes: student-centered approaches, effective classroom and behavior management, competence as an instructor, ethical, enthusiastic about their teaching, knowledgeable and professional. Characteristics such as knowledge, enthusiasm, approachability, consistency, fairness, respect of students and making learning relevant to their lives are identified as important to students in (Groves & Welsh, 2007). Dahin (1994) also argues that internal debates and analyses about our instructional processes “mark teachers as problem solvers and negate the concept of teachers as technicians, waiting for researchers or legislators to tell them what they need to do in their classrooms” (p.60). He adds that teachers need to justify what they are doing, and the insights that gained from self-reflection help them communicate the mode of inquiry in which they operate to others. It also can help in managing personal change in teaching. Garcia (1986) indicates the importance of having concerned teachers in the classrooms those who provide a solid base of understanding students’ needs, abilities, and differences, most likely do so because they are able to relate to classroom as a whole, and also to students as individuals. She believes that the excitement and enthusiasm that a teacher is able to create in the classroom play a major role in assisting students in learning the subject not only with more positive energy, but also help them be interested in topics that they would normally not interested in. So obtaining new perspectives on our teaching styles is an important part of enhancing our teaching style. This process involves exploring underlying attitudes, values, and assumptions about teaching and learning. It also entails challenging long-held beliefs about ourselves, our students, and the complex processes of teaching and learning. This will initiate processes for personal growth and development. Self-reflection plays an important role in examining the new perspective about our styles as teachers. This reflection can occur during our private moments, in discussions with colleagues and students, in a journal or as statements about our teaching that appear in teaching portfolios. The ultimate goal of self-reflection is to learn from our experiences in order to produce better teachers. Learners’ Learning Styles learning style can be characterized in different ways, yet the most illustrative definitions allude to two basic viewpoints: a) the learning style speaks to a person’s favored methods for reacting (psychologically or behaviorally) to learning undertakings which change contingent upon the earth or setting (Peterson, et al., 2009), and b) the learning style alludes to the possibility that people contrast as to what sort of guideline is best for them (Pashler, et al., 2008). Along these lines, the learning style demonstrates a general inclination for learning and incorporates intellectual, affective, psychomotor, and physiological dimensions from the students’ perspective (Knowles, et al., 2005). Then again, the learners have diverse styles in their learning which considers challenges , in light of the fact that the ideal direction assumes diagnosing people’s learning styles and fitting guideline in like manner and this from the educators’ point of view, (Pashler et al., 2008). learners learn in varied ways, by observing and hearing; reflecting and acting; thinking sensibly and naturally; retaining and picturing. Showing strategies additionally differ. A few teachers address, others exhibit or talk about, some attention on guidelines and others on cases, some accentuate memory and others understanding. How much a given learner learns in a class is administered to some degree by that learner’s native ability and prior preparation but also the compatibility of his or her characteristic approach to learning and the and the teacher’s approach to teaching (Felder, Henriques, 1995, p.1). Slick (2000) visualizes learning theories as a set of glasses that provide lenses to focus on the educational experience. In such context, he believes that one prescription may not be enough. Therefore, she thinks it may take bifocals to focus and combine theories to produce the desired outcome. In defending her point, she claims that each eye sees slightly differently, and that some adjustments in educational plans may be necessary. Methods of teaching, ways of presenting information, and personality characteristics of teachers all affect learning and affect different learners differently (McKeachie, 1995). We learn differently simply because we are all different from each other in many aspect. Likewise, a learning method that may be appropriate for many students may be ineffective for other students who could learn more easily with a different approach. Entwistle (cited in Pilkington and Groat, 2003) has shown that person’s preferred learning style can have far-reaching effects, often influencing subject choice in tertiary education. In an analysis of students’ approaches to problem-solving tasks, Laurillard & Ramsden (cited in Pikington, and Groat, 2003) found that all students varied their approach to different tasks depending on the nature of the task and the context in which learning takes place is important. Ramsdan, found that students were more likely to develop a deep-level approach when they were interested in a subject for its own sake, but adopted a surface one when attempting to meet externally imposed criteria. Everyone has away or style of learning which works best for them. There are a variety of ways to identify students’ learning styles. Two of these models are presented here. The first one is the learning style questionnaire developed by Kolb (1984) who categorizes learners as Diverger. Assimilator, Converger, or Accommodator. This learning style model shows Diverger learns from concrete experience, Assimilators learns from reflective observation, Converger learns from abstract conceptualization, and Accommodators learns from active experimentation. Violand-Sanchez (1995) identified Diverger as learning from feeling, Assimilators as learning from watching and listening, Converger as learning from thinking, and Accommodators as learners from doing. The need for being aware of learning preferences seems important especially in a teacher centered classroom; otherwise, the activity might not keep the attention of many of the students. The second model is the perceptual Learning Style by Reid, it includes six groups of learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Kinesthetic, Group, and individual. Learners use these styles as major learning styles, minor learning styles, or negligible learning styles (Reid, 1984). They can be illustrated in the following way: Visual Individuals who have a visual learning style learn best if a noteworthy segment of the material or lesson is something they can see or watch. This student works best with composed materials and guidelines, outlines, blurbs, and exhibits. The data which the visual student takes in is converted into and put away as pictures or pictures in their brains. These students are normally perfect and efficient. This learning style will function admirably for anybody needing to do course work by means of separation instruction which enables the students to control their learning condition making it more helpful for their learning. Auditory Individuals who have an auditory learning style learn best if there is an oral segment to the material being found out. Verbal directions, taped addresses and eye to eye guideline work best. These students channel the data they hear and store the important information however don’t really shape pictures around it. When utilizing critical thinking, auditory students like to “talk it out”. While talking they may utilize phrases which identify with how they learn, for example, “I hear you”. Unnecessary noise can be a distraction for the auditory learner. Tactile The tactile learning style is quite often joined with the kinesthetic learning. The two styles include substantial development, and are fundamentally the same as, however the tactile style is more direct. It includes the feeling of touch, and fine motor developments, as opposed to the huge, entire body developments found in the kinesthetic learning style. The tactile Learning Style learns through the feeling of touch and has a great eye-hand coordination. At the point when in a store, people with a tactile learning style may feel like they need to touch, and investigate numerous items to ‘comprehend’ the qualities of these objects. Hand-on learning is the essential technique for instructing tactile students. tactile students appreciate manipulative, utilizing diverse media, for example, finger-paints, craftsmanship materials, building ventures, pieces or questions for math, hands-on science tests, making models, dioramas, and so forth. Kinesthetic Individuals who have a sensation or tactile learning style learn best when they can touch or feel what they are learning about. The utilization of body and sentiments are vital to those students so active ventures work best for them. Sensation students don’t generally have a decent time sense or feeling of precision or tidiness. They regularly live for the minute and don’t have a dream without bounds. Sensation students will frequently discuss their learning regarding sentiments, introducing explanations with “I feel”. Individuals who have this learning style will tend to move around while endeavoring to tackle an issue. These students will have the most trouble with the “run of the mill’ composed separation instruction course. They have to search for courses which are more task arranged where course substance can be learned by doing it or utilizing it. Group learners learn best when they are effectively associated with the learning process. Moreover, they learn more if they working in small groups as researchers reported. Learners who work in cooperative groups additionally seem more happy with their classes. Different names have been given to this type of instructing, and there are a few qualifications among these: agreeable learning, communitarian learning, aggregate getting the hang of, learning groups, peer educating, peer learning, proportional learning, group learning, contemplate circles, consider gatherings, and work gatherings. However, with everything taken into account, there are three general sorts of group work: casual learning groups, formal learning groups, and study teams. Individual learning It is the ability of individuals to experience personal growth in their interactions with the outside world. Through a process of assessment, reflection, and taking action, every individual will be responsible of his own learning and development It is also taking personal responsibility for one’s own learning and development. The more learning styles learners use as their major learning style, the more flexible and successful the learners are. If students use limited learning styles as their preference, it is more challenging for them to “adjust” to teachers’ teaching styles. Recognizing the weaknesses of their own styles and the strengths of other learning styles is important for students in order to be effective learners. Learning styles quiz can be used to get an indication of what any learner’s main learning style is. See (Appendix, B),(cited in Stein, Steeves, Mitsuhashi, 2002). The importance of understanding/knowing our learners’ styles Recognition of students’ styles and understand them help teachers to explore ways to accommodate variations in their styles in their teaching. Some teachers sometimes recognize differences in the personal qualities of students but fail to act upon this knowledge. Others acknowledge variations in learning styles and take actions to modify their styles as teachers accordingly. Some teachers try to teach the basic-classes differently than advanced ones. Others recognize that gender differences exist among students.Thus, they present appropriate tasks of male and female. When teachers are aware of the diversity of learning styles, they will begin to consider various activities. A variety of activities will enhance learning, and students will expand their learning styles through different tasks. teachers should have enough knowledge about their individual students’ style preferences, to be able to provide the needed instructional variety. For example, Some learners might need instruction presented more visually, while others might require more auditory, kinesthetic, or tactile types of instruction. Many educational research approved that knowledge of student learning preferences has a lot of benefits, for example, Diaz and Cartnal (1999) compared two learning styles of two online health education classes. They found significantly differences in learning preferences for both groups of students and concluded that knowledge of student learning preferences influences learning performance. Felder and Silverman (1988) and Felder and Dietz (2002) found that knowledge of students’ learning preferences were a determinant of student success. Teacher’s understanding of his students ‘physical, social, emotional, moral, and cognitive development might influence learning and help him/her to decide the instructions to be used depending on these factors. In addition, his awareness of expected developmental progressions and ranges of individual variation within each domain (physical, social, emotional, moral, and cognitive), can identify levels of readiness in learning, and understanding how development in any one of these domains may affect performance in others. Furthermore, he could help them to develop self-confidence and competence. Bridging the Gap Between Students’ Learning Styles and Teachers’Teaching Styles The gap between students’ learning styles and teachers’ teaching styles and the lack of instruction on learning strategies might hinder students’ language learning. According to Rao ( 2002 ), “Bridging the gap between teaching and learning styles can be only achieved when teachers are first of all, aware of their learners’ needs, capacities, potentials, and learning style preferences in meeting these needs” (p.7). Felder (1995) proposed that when mismatches often occur, it might have bad effects on students’ learning and attitudes to class and to the English learning itself. Felder added that students may get bored and may quit the course. Educational researchers claimed that matching teaching and learning styles can improve learners’ performance. Felder(1995) and Reid (1996) added that all learners can have an equal chance in the classroom, and build self-awareness if there is a matching between teaching styles and learning styles. A study conducted by Yazici (2005) in the University of Winconsin, USA, however, reported that learning styles influence individual’s motivation in learning, especially when the learners’ preferences do not match with the teaching style of the teachers which may then lead to the change in behavior and affect the students’ level of motivation as well as their interest in learning English. This might then result in bad performance in the subject. The study confirmed that the situation is resulted from the mismatch between learners’ learning preferences and the activities or techniques used in their learning processes. Yazici, proceeded that, when learners and teachers do not choose the appropriate activities and techniques that match their learning styles and preferences, this will then affect their performance in the subject. In addition, the students learn better when they work out on activities meet their preferences. Students, who are allowed to choose among learning activities that they prefer based on their preferences, will learn better (Lewis and Hayward, 2003). Therefore, teachers should play their role in ensuring that their teaching approaches and techniques match with the learner’s preference and style of learning to ensure effective learning, if not this might negatively affect students’ learning and performance (Wallace and Oxford, 1992). On the other hand, when learners’ learning styles are matched with appropriate approaches in teaching, their motivation, performances, and achievements would increase and be enhanced(Brown, 1994 ). A research carried out by Cassidy & Eachus (2000) investigated the relationship between students’ evaluation of their own academic proficiency, learning style and academic achievement. The study has proved that learners’ proficiency is positively correlated with a strategic learning approach, and negatively correlated with an apathetic learning approach. Teacher needs to take into consideration the learners’ learning styles while choosing the teaching and learning approaches as well as the techniques to be implemented in the teaching and learning process. If teachers accept and consider the suitable students’ learning styles in the teaching approaches implemented, this would somehow help in increasing the students’ attitudes toward learning, productivity, academic performance and creativity (Griggs, 1985). Reid ( 1996 ) concludes that when teaching style matches with learning style, learners will have an equal chance in the classroom, and builds student self-awareness. He outlined that using a balanced teaching style will overcome the mismatch with the learning style; which means that teachers should try to accommodate all learning styles. Peacock ( 2001 ) is one of the researchers who investigated matching the teaching style and learning style in the real setting. He concluded that serious mismatches exist among the learning styles of the students and teaching styles of the teachers. To match teaching and learning in the classroom means that teachers should try to accommodate different learning styles of the students. Felder and Henriques (1995 ) concluded that teachers who wish to address a wide variety of learning styles need not make drastic changes in their instructional approach. The way they normally teach addresses the needs of at least five of the specified learning categories: regular use of at least some of the instructional techniques which illustrated below should suffice to cover the remaining five and these are: *Motivate learning as much as possible, teach new material (vocabulary, rules of grammar) in the context of situations to which the students can relate in terms of their personal and career experiences..etc. *Balance concrete data (word definitions, rules for verb conjugation and descriptor thing assention) (detecting) and calculated data (grammatical and semantic examples, correlations and diverges from the understudies’ local language)(intuition) in each course at each level. The adjust does not need to be equivalent, and in rudimentary courses it might be moved intensely toward the detecting side, yet there ought to intermittently be a comment the initiators’ advantage *Balance organized instructing approaches that stress formal preparing (deductive, consecutive) with more open-finished unstructured exercises that underscore discussion and social settings of the objective dialect (inductive, worldwide). *Make liberal utilization of visuals. Utilize photos, illustrations, draws, and kid’s shows to represent and strengthen the implications of vocabulary words. Show films, video tapes and live performances to represent lessons in writings (visual, worldwide). * Do not fill each moment of class time addressing and composing on the board. Give interims however short to students to consider what they have been told; dole out brief composition works out (intelligent). Bring up issues and issues to be dealt with by students in little groups; order exchanges and small dramatizations; hold group rivalries (dynamic). *Give students the alternative of collaborating on at any rate some homework assignments (dynamic). Dynamic students by and large learn best when they cooperate with others; on the off chance that they are denied the chance to do as such, they would be denied of their best learning device. *Balance inductive and deductive presentation of course material. Instruct some or all of the class in the language being taught, to facilitate language acquisition and develop skill in oral communication (inductive). In parallel, provide explicit instruction in syntax and semantics to facilitate formal language learning and develop skill in written communication and interpretation (deductive). All things considered, showing teaching styles and learning styles are interrelated; we can’t have one without the other. In this way, crossing over any barrier between students’ learning styles and teachers’ teaching styles will be an effective intends to direct the students toward fruitful learning. . Conclusion Teaching and learning are active processes and go hand in hand with each other where teachers and students are interdependent on each other. I will quote Felder and Henriques’s( 1995) advice to teachers who wish to address new teaching: The idea, however, is not to adopt all the techniques at once but rather to pick several that look feasible and try them on an occasional basis; keep the ones that work; drop the others; and try one or two more later in the course or in the next course. In this way a teaching style that is both effective for students and comfortable for the teacher will evolve naturally, with a potentially dramatic effect on the quality of learning that subsequently occurs ( p. 29). Furthermore, understanding our teaching styles would be enhanced if we had a list of elements of style that we use as a basis for examining ourselves. Teachers should consider students’ learning styles and enhance their learning strategies for their successful learning. One of the teachers describes learning a foreign language without good guidance as similar to sailing without a good map. When teachers are aware of the importance of their teaching styles and the students learning styles and learning strategies, they can provide a good map to their students so they can find their ways without obstacles (sail in open seas). References Amber, D.(1994). The Teacher as a Reflective Professional. College Teaching, available on line: http: //www.icte.org/Tg8 Libracy/LMREFDOC.PDF. Breen, M.P. Candlin, C.(1980). The essentials of a communicative curriculum in language teaching. ( Applied Linguistics 1/2 98-112. Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by principle. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Diaz, David P. and Cartnal, Ryan B. (1999). Comparing Student Learning Styles in an Online Distance Learning Class and an Equivalent On-Campus Class. College Teaching, 47, (4): 130-135. Eachus, P & Cassidy, SF. (2000). Learning Style, Academic Belief Systems, Self-report Student Proficiency and Academic Achievement in Higher Education. Educational psychology, 20 (3) 307 – 322. Eble, K. (1980). Teaching Styles and Factuality behavior. In K.E.C.A. (Ed.) Improving Teaching Styles. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Felder, Richard M. and Dietz, E. J. (2002). The Effects of Personality Type on Engineering Student Performance and Attitude. Journal of Engineering Education, 91, (no 1): 3-17. Felder, R., & Henriques, E. R. (1995). Learning and teaching styles in foreign and Fleming. available online: http://search.yahoo.comSearch=fllearninstyle. Felder, Richard M. and Silverman, Linda K. (1988). Learning and Teaching Styles In Engineering Education. Engineering, 78, (7): 674-681. Garcia,V. (1986). What Should be the Relationship Between Teachers and Students?. available online at http: //www.csun.edu/-vmg29386/linkl.html. Gilakjani,A and Ahmadi,S ( 2011). The Effect of Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic Learning Styles on Language Teaching. International Conference on Social Science and Humanity IPEDR, 5. IACSIT Press, Singapore. Grasha, A. F. (1996 ). Teaching with style: A practical guide to enhancing learning by understanding teaching and learning styles. Pittsburgh, PA: Alliance Publishers. Grasha, A. F.( 1994). A matter of style: the teacher as expert, formal, authority, personal model, facilitator, and delegator. College Teaching. 42: 142-149. Griggs, S. A. (1991). Learning Style counseling. NC: ERIC Counseling and Student Services Clearinghouse. second language education. Foreign Language Annals, 28(1), 21-31. Groves, R. &. Welsh, B. (2007). School Students’ views of learning and the school Experience?. Australian Association for Research in Education. Fremantle, Western Australia. Klob. D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. Teeters, J. ( 2001 ). Teach with style: A Comprehensive system for teaching Adults. ED 453405. X-XV. Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., III, Swanson, R. A. (2005). The adult learner. (6th ed.), Boston: Elsevier Krueger, T. (1997). Oral communication skills necessary for successful teaching: The students’ perspective. Educational Research Quarterly, 21(2), 13-26. Lewis, L. Hayward, P. (2003). Choice-based learning: Student reactions in an undergraduate organizational communication course. Communication Education, 52(2), 148-156. McCabe, N. (1995). Twelve high school 11th grade students examine their best teachers. Peabody Journal of Education, 70(2), 117-127. Minor, L. C., Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Witcher, A. E., James, T. L. (2002). Pre-service teachers’ educational beliefs and their perceptions of characteristics of effective teachers. Journal of Educational Research, 96(2), 116-127. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles. Concepts and evidence, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9:105-119. Peacock, M. ( 2001 ). Match or mismatch? Learning styles and teaching styles in EFL. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11:1-20. Peterson, E. R., Rayner, S. G., Armstrong, S. J. (2009). Researching the psychology of cognitive style and learning style: Is there really a future?. Learning and Individual Differences, 19: 518-523. Pilkington, R. Groat, A.( 2003). Styles of Learning and Organizational Implications. Part 111, Available online: Fill://W /researchpage.html. Rao, Z.(2002). Bridging the gap between teaching and learning styles in East Asian context. TESOL Journal, 11(2), 5-11. Reid, J.( 1994 ). Changes in the Language Classroom: Process and Interactive. FORUM, .32 No.1: 8-9. Reid, J. (1995 ). Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom . Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Slick, J.(2002). Learning theories as guidelines for instructional design. Available online http: //planet.tvi.cc.nm.us/idc/Documents?learning theories.htm. Stein, J. Steeves, L. Smith-Mitsuhashi, C. (2002). Have You Got What It Takes?. Retrieved (2007), from Online Teaching:” http://members.shaw.ca/mdde615/tchstycats.htm#formal. Violand-Sanchez, E. (1995). Cognitive and learning styles of high school students: Implications for ESL curriculum development. In J .M. Reid (Ed.) Learning styles in the ESL/EFL classroom (48-62). New York: Heinle & Heinle. Wallace, B., R.L. Oxford. (1992). Disparity in Learning Styles and Teaching Styles in the ESL Classroom: Does This Mean War?. AMTESOL Journal 1: 45-68. Wang, J. Gibson, A.M. Slate, J.R. (2007). Effective teachers as viewed by students as a 2 year college: A multistage mixed analysis. Issues in Educational Research, 17. Wymen,Pat.(2003). The Power of your Personal Learning Style. Available online: http: //WWW..howtolearn.com/personal.html. Yacizi, H.J (2005). A study of Collaborative Learning Style and Team Learning Performance. Educational Training, 47(3), 216-229.

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Learning and Teaching Styles

Introduction, learning styles, teaching styles, referencing list.

Advanced Education has in the recent past brought increased learning and teaching styles. The education sector has improved over the past years making it easier for learners to acquire information through different styles. The learning process depends on one’s understanding as some people are slow learners while others are fast learners. Methods used to teach always vary from one instructor to the other because they have different preferences. This paper, therefore, is aimed at addressing the different learning styles and different teaching styles. To achieve this goal, the paper will be divided into three sections in which the first part will address the different learning styles. The second section will address the different teaching styles while the last section will be a conclusion of the paper.

Learning is a diverse process of conveying information to students as it involves seeing and hearing logical reasoning and visualizing. Students can transform their learning styles as they mature and progress from one education level to the other (Ropo, 1987, par, 2). How a student learns may depend on the approach taken towards the instructor or a particular subject. However, there are people whose understanding relies on their background, heredity, or environmental demands. There are three types of learning styles which include, kinesthetic, visual, and auditory. Some people would prefer the combination of the three styles while others would only pick on one or two styles. This shows that for one to understand a concept, it will entirely depend on the learning styles used (Slavin, 2009, par3).

Looking at each style, kinesthetic style is where an individual has to do something practical to have a clear understanding. Kinesthetic learning requires a student to carry out a physical activity like experiments, acting, or sporting activities. Such learners are in a position to focus on two different things at the same time. They can get instructions and at the same time do something physically. An example is in a music class where an individual can sing and dance at the same time without losing track. Kinesthetic learners are people who can get a concept through realistic examples. These learners must always perform a given task for them to comprehend an idea. One advantage of the kinesthetic style is that learners can always reflect on what their bodies was doing. Learners also have a high hand and eye organization which makes the learning process easier (Hunt, 1987, par, 4). This style is efficient because learners can remember what they have done in classrooms or outside class. Visual learning primarily involves what is seen, observed, or a reflection of a given concept. Those who use visual style will normally prefer using materials such as maps, images, and colors. Students who use visual style tend to have a high instinctive path and can simply visualize things. Visual style can benefit learners especially when teachers use blackboards to demonstrate points or ideas (Brown, 1980, par.4). Contrary to the visual style, auditory learning is where learners depend on what they hear. The auditory style requires learners to be attentive as they learn best through listening. In class, auditory learners will always pay attention to what lectures say for them to comprehend. Some get concepts by listening to music while others can easily understand without any backups.

There are four main teaching styles which include permissive, authoritative, detached, and authoritarian. Permissive teaching entails friendship between instructors and students as there is no strict discipline. Teachers who use the permissive style normally favor learners and may not take disciplinary measures when students make mistakes. Such teachers can even go to the extent of pleading with students to make them active in class. Authoritative teaching is where a teacher uses orders to instruct learners and involves firm discipline. Although this style is ideal, it may not be easy to teach because learners are not free with their teachers. In other words, learners may find it difficult to approach the instructor. Detached teaching involves teachers who do not care about their learners. Such teachers can teach without caring about the progression of a student’s performance. A teacher using the detached method may prefer sitting at the back of the class while they are teaching students. The authoritarian style requires students to obey what their teachers tell them. This kind of teaching may involve a teacher screaming in case the students do not obey instructions (Wagaman, 2009, par.4)

Ultimately, learning and teaching are processes that require both the students and teachers to be committed. Learning styles are essential as they enable students to comprehend concepts much easier. For effective learning, teachers should identify the best teaching styles for the students. Teachers should also be aware that there are students who are fast learners while others are slow learners.

Brown, D. (1980). Principles of Language Learning And Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall. Web.

Hunt, D.E. (1971). Matching Models in Education: The Coordination of Teaching Methods with Student Characteristics. Toronto: Institute for Studies in Education. Web.

Slavin R. (2009).Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice. NY: Johns Hopkins University. Allyn & Bacon. Web.

Ropo, E. (1987). “Skills for Learning: A Review of Studies on Inductive Reasoning.”  Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 31(3): 1-39. Web.

Wagaman J. (2009) Understanding the Four Teaching styles. Web.

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Best Teaching Styles, Essay Example

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Learning Strategies in Teaching and Best Teaching Styles

There are numerous learning strategies and teaching methods teachers use to help children learn. Various teaching styles apply depending on what the teacher wants to portray and depending on the type of student the message is being portrayed due. For example: if a teacher is trying to teach writing to young scholars she may want to use persuasive methods or applications coupled with character education to bring innovative learning skills together. I will focus on cooperative learning for this paper because Cooperative Learning is used when students have the opportunity to engage in the learning process which helps them to learn faster and enjoy a more positive learning experience. “Teachers do not get off the hook with this type of teaching, for they must guide the learning process and facilitate its success along the way.” (“Cooperative Learning.” In many schools that offer gifted and talented centers it’s a way of having children take charge and making decisions that can help them with workplace skills and further personal development skills. This is a team building exercise that helps students work collaboratively in a group hence building team building skills and promoting a strong inner sense and good self-esteem. A typical hypothetical classroom skillful play might be having a child play the role of facilitator, recorder, project leader or developer or CEO.”  Every student has a role and participates in the entire process. This is an individual role with collaborative effect.

Cooperative Learning has been implemented in more schools because it is an innovative and effective role playing tool to teach children to take positive aim to develop interpersonal business skills as well as to develop a sense of personal achievement that can mature them into responsible young adults. The teachers guide them through the entire process but do not conduct the work for them. This is not a traditional teacher/student program of learning.

Cooperative Learning (2010) Retrieved July 5, 2010 from, http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/cooperative/front_cooperative.htm

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.