AEA 267 Leadership in Learning

Introduction

This page is dedicated to making it easier to implement a variety of teaching methods and techniques. Here you'll find scores of teaching strategies that help students take more responsibility for their own learning and enhance the process of teaching for learning.

In our work with experts like Pat Wolfe from Napa, CA, and from the literature from David Sousa, Richard Strong, Eric Jensen and others, we believe that the brain does benefit from enriched environments as it learns. Eric Jensen, in Teaching with the Brain in Mind, states,

Because of this notion advocated by these and other experts, such as de Bono, Slavin and the Johnson brothers, we have gathered teaching strategies, that when implemented in a non-threatening manner, enrich the learning environment making the acquisition as well the application of learning more likely.

What you'll find provided at this site, is a combination of the work of many great educational leaders, local as well as national; and the materials that they have shared in works that they have published. This site is a response to the request of teachers and administrators who ask that the volume of information be reduced to bare-bone simplicity. They asked to have a handy, practical, useable set of research supported teaching strategies that they could use to design the learning opportunities that would address multiple learning styles and intelligences.

| Top |

Screening Strategies

Attention to selecting which teaching strategies to implement should follow once the decision about what students will be asked to do to show their understanding has been made. This set of tools is designed to assist educators in answering the question: "How do I design learning opportunities consistent with what we know about how the brain learns?"

Note: Like all powerful tools, these strategies can be misused. The following set of screening questions, filters if you like, help busy educators consciously and deliberately pay attention to at least six of the basic principles from brain researchers. This basic checklist appears on each teaching strategy page as a constant reminder, coaching educators to develop lessons that have the greatest potential for all learners.

| Top |

Download Teaching Strategies

This table provides a quick scan of over 30 different teaching strategies. To view a detailed description of a particular teaching strategy, its implementation steps and suggested visual organizers, click on the PDF or Microsoft Word image to download/view the file.

To view and print PDF files you will need Acrobat Reader.

Teaching Strategy	Type	For Teacher	For Students
AGO: Aims, Goals, Objectives Device to get students to focus directly and deliberately on the intention behind actions.	C TS
Agree/Disagree Matrix To help students organize data to support a position for or against an idea.	TS
Baggage Claim Getting to know you, class participation process	C   V
Bio-Poem Getting to know you, class participation process	C
C & S: Consequences and Sequel Crystallization of the process of looking ahead to see the consequences of some action, plan, decision	TS
CAF: Consider All Factors Framework for decision making, planning, drawing conclusions	TS
Conduct and Interview Template for meaningful, thoughtful process of gathering information	C
Do I Really Know It? A flowchart to confirm clear understanding of a concept	TS
FIP: First Importance Priorities Process of picking out the most important ideas
Five WHYS? Process of asking why 5 times to detect the root cause or meaning of a situation	TS
Force Field Analysis Analysis of pro and con sides of an issue	TS
Fussing with Definition Strategy to enable students to grasp difficult, often abstract meanings of vocabulary words	TS
Four Corners Step-by-Step process for discussion of issues, without threat	C
Gallery Walk Strategy that requires demonstration of understanding of implications/applications of new learnings	V
How Do I Learn To Do It? Six steps for learning something new	TS
Jigsaw II Cooperative, collaboration strategy toward a common group goal	C
The Mind Map To clarify relationships between concepts	V
OPV: Other People's View Process to look at an issue from another point of view	TS
Partner's Projects A scaled-down version of Think-Ink-Pair-Share, developed with young learners in mind.	C
People Search A collaborative opportunity for learners to get to know each other and/or interact with the content being taught.	C
PMI: Plus-Minus-Interesting Process to evaluate, extend understanding	TS
Prepare-Present-Process Process to present information in a meaningful way	V
RAFT: Role, Audience, Format, Topic Way to incorporate writing into content area	TS
Reaching Consensus Group decision making strategy via reaching a common consensus	C
Ready, Set, Recall Review tool, quick and non-threatening	TS
Scored Discussion Process to monitor and validate student participation	C
Six Hat Thinking Sequential steps for group or individual problem solving	C TS
SQRRR: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review Study technique used in content area reading
SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Debriefing technique to analysis and improve group functioning	C TS
TGT: Teams, Games, Tournaments Cooperative strategy for learning content at different levels of proficiency	C
Think-Ink-Pair-Share Strategy to engage students in thoughtful class participation	C
Think/Pair/Share Strategy to engage students in thoughtful class participation	C
Venn Diagram Visual to aid compare and contrast thinking	V

| Top |

Acknowledgments

Sources for this collection of teaching strategies include:

• Silver, Hanson, Strong and Schwartz's book entitled, Teaching Styles and Strategies
• Hyerle's book entitled Visual Tools for Constructing Knowledge
• de Bono's book entitled, Six Thinking Hats
• Johnson and Johnson's book entitled, Circles of Learning
• Stover, Neubert, and Lawlor's book entitled Creating Interactive Environments in the Secondary School
• as well as others from workshops presented by Art Costa, Robert Marzano, Fred Newmann to mention a few.

This collection is intended to be a quick reference guide. Educators without an in-depth understanding and prior experience with these strategies are strongly encouraged to go to these sources for detailed guidelines and more elaborate background information.

Material Use

 Use of materials from this web site are provided to assist in the process of improving the quality of education everywhere. Therefore, you may use these materials freely, as is, if you are a full-time teacher or administrator for work within a school district. For all other uses, in part or whole, permission must be granted by the author.

Questions, comments, and other inquiries about Rubric, Teaching Strategies, Thinking Skills, or about the contents found on this page, can be directed to AEA 267 consultants.