Teaching Strategies

Overview of Instructional Approaches

  • Teaching strategies and instructional formats
  • Different ways of delivering instruction to students:
    • Interactive (command/direct) teaching
    • Station/task teaching
    • Guided discovery
    • Peer/reciprocal teaching
    • Cooperative learning
  • Distinction: Instructional approaches are not the same as teaching style
  • Teaching style = instructional/managerial atmosphere

Interactive Teaching (command/direct teaching)

  • Teacher directed and highly structured
  • Teacher makes all decisions; teacher does, students follow
  • Each command elicits a response
  • All students perform the same task
  • Teacher provides feedback
  • Suitable for:
    • Beginner teachers
    • New content
  • Implications:
    • Clear, predictable routine
    • Emphasizes teacher control and rapid feedback

Station Teaching (task teaching)

  • Student-centered learning
  • Teacher sets up task stations
  • Uses:
    • For already learned tasks ONLY
    • Distributed practice
    • Small group work
    • Students can work at their own pace
  • Requires taking responsibility for learning by students
  • Uses task cards at each station
  • Benefits:
    • Helps with wait time
    • Encourages independent pacing and movement among stations

Guided Discovery

  • Teacher-directed ideas but structured to let students exercise their own style
  • Learning through guided questioning
  • Encourages students to challenge themselves and be creative
  • Inquiry types:
    • Convergent Inquiry: encourages finding the same answer(s) to a problem
    • Divergent Inquiry: allows many possible solutions, e.g., “show me how you can …”
  • Outcome: Promotes higher-order thinking skills

Peer Teaching (Reciprocal Teaching)

  • Teacher presents concepts and clear criteria
  • Suitable for simple skills and tasks that are already learned
  • Core idea: students teach each other
  • Students provide feedback to peers
  • Students check for understanding
  • Roles:
    • One student performs the task; the other observes
    • The observer checks for understanding and provides feedback
  • Benefits:
    • Encourages peer input and accountability

Cooperative Learning

  • Student-centered approach
  • Promotes interdependence and individual responsibility
  • Key methods:
    • Jigsaw Approach: lesson components are divided; each student learns a component and teaches the home group
    • Co-op: small groups create a project with many components
  • Goals:
    • Develop interdependence among group members
    • Ensure individual accountability within a collaborative task

Instructional Goal Approach (from the grid on Page 8)

  • The instructional goal approach maps each instructional strategy to goals, teacher skills, student characteristics, content, and context.

Interactive Teaching

  • Instructional Goal: Efficient skill learning
  • Teacher Skills: Control-level clarity
  • Student Characteristics: New students
  • Content: Specific skills
  • Context: Whole class

Station Teaching

  • Instructional Goal: Skill learning / teaching independence
  • Teacher Skills: Monitor
  • Student Characteristics: Already learned
  • Content: Interdependent
  • Context: Large spaces

Guided Discovery

  • Instructional Goal: Skill learning / problem solving
  • Teacher Skills: Questioning level
  • Student Characteristics: New content
  • Content: Discovery
  • Context: Whole class

Peer Teaching

  • Instructional Goal: Skill learning / cooperation
  • Teacher Skills: Simple, clear
  • Student Characteristics: Active
  • Content: Monitoring
  • Context: Independent working skills
  • Additional context: Large spaces; cues; limited performance; suitable for large groups

Cooperative Learning

  • Instructional Goal: Learning interdependence
  • Teacher Skills: Ability to design meaningful tasks
  • Student Characteristics: Independent working skills
  • Content: Complex sequences; basic skills
  • Context: Groups

Key takeaways and connections

  • These approaches range from highly teacher-directed to highly student-centered, offering a spectrum of how instruction can be delivered depending on content, learners, and goals.
  • Interactive Teaching emphasizes structure and quick feedback; Station Teaching emphasizes distributed practice and pacing; Guided Discovery emphasizes inquiry and higher-order thinking; Peer Teaching leverages peer learning and feedback; Cooperative Learning emphasizes interdependence and collaborative task design.
  • The differences between instructional approaches and teaching style highlight that how content is delivered (approach) is distinct from the overall classroom atmosphere (style).
  • In practice, educators select and blend approaches to address new content, student readiness, group size, space, and the nature of the skills being taught.