Six teaching strategies that really work… (Part 1)

Every school leader and teacher wants the best from their pupils and for them to thrive and reach their potential.  So like many others, I listen to experts, observe excellent teachers and share best practise. However, education is tainted with teaching theories that just don’t add up, theories that are regarded as ‘best practise’ based on little or no evidence. The government is always changing and adapting what we have to deliver, like reciting poetry from rote or teaching roman numerals. Outside agencies and advisers come into our schools with the latest fad or rumour from the Ofsted machine and advise schools how to teach, only for the strategy to be pushed out a term later when the next great idea is cooked up by some Oxford educated politician with little or no experience of education… With this in mind I started reading, finding and reflecting on teaching strategies that have actually come from research based practise and are evidence based. By evidence, I mean large scale projects to one off bloggers, but they do all have something in common, they are reflections of teaching practise from where it really counts… the classroom.

These strategies are the ones that appeared again and again and strategies that I believe really work. They aren't rocket science and you will properly find you already do these to some extent when you're teaching. If you are going to put extra effort into developing your teaching, these are the aspects to focus on... 

In no particular order, here are my top six!

1.      Sharing clear learning objectives

These learning objectives shape and direct the lesson and are what the children will achieve by the end of the lesson. The pupils must clearly understand the objective and as the lesson progresses building blocks are laid to ensure the children achieve the learning objective. They need to be short, sharp and ambitious! In a nutshell, you ‘start at the end’… (think about that one, it does make sense!)

2      Share, model, guide and then do it yourself...

You share the information, model how you use it, work with the children through an example and then it’s over to them… you could use some catchy vocab to develop the routine.

 

Don’t forget the self-verbalize when you model, the children need to know what you’re thinking so they can apply it when it’s their turn!

3.      Feedback

Properly the most important one of the bunch and don’t forget quality feedback is just as important for teachers as well as the pupils. Giving quality, timed and meaningful feedback is a high quality skill on its own  and takes years of practise and CPD to become great at it. However, the process put basically is simple… tell the children how they have performed and then what they should do next!

Three ideas to get you started, number 4 – 6 next time!

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