EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

TOPIC TO BE DISCUSSED
 Give The characteristics of an effective instructional strategy
 Cite research-based effective instructional practices
 Give recommendations on the basis of the given research findings to
improve teaching practice

(If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, an effective teaching strategy is that
which yields results, that which makes students learn? But what are the
characteristics of an instructional strategy that makes students learn? Here are
big words that characterize an effective strategy 

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

 Interactive
o Method of acquiring information through hands on
o Teaching strategy is in keeping with the principle that learning
is an active process
o Common method employed in schools today and often
involves the use of computers and other tangible equipment

(No one can learn for you. You learn only for yourself. I learn only for myself.
The more you involve yourselves in the learning process, the more learning you
get. The more you refuse to take active part in the lessons, the less learning you
get. The amount of learning you get is always equal to the effort you exert. For
maximum and optimum learning, the student must, therefore, be actively
engaged in the learning activity)

 Integrated
o Their purpose is to direct and coach the student through the
learning experience
 o May be understood not as “drill and practice” programs but as
“testing and practice” programs
 Introspective
o A system exploits explicit representation of its own
organization and desired behavior to determined when, what
and how to learn in order to improve its own reasoning
 Reflective contextualized
o Teachers are pressed to extend their craft to prepare more
diverse students for the challenge of work and life and beyond
school
o They are challenge to provide more authentic instructional
contexts and activities than traditional knowledge-based
curricula.
o Teachers must be reflective and analytical about their own
beliefs and practices and they must acquire a deep
understanding of cognitive and motivational principles of
learning and teaching
 Experiential
o Organize and facilitate direct experiences of phenomenon
under the assumption that this will lead to genuine learning
o Teacher role is to “give” information/knowledge to student
and to prescribe study/learning exercises which have
“information/knowledge transmission” as the main goal.

(She/he himself/herself, must do, go through, and experience directly the

learning activity to make learning truly experiential)

 Collaborative
o Involves group of learners working together to solve problem,
complete a task or create a product
o Grouping and pairing of learners for the purpose of achieving
learning goal
  Cooperative
o Work together to maximize their own and each other’s
learning
o Working together to accomplish shared goal

(How can you make these modes of interaction happen? The use of cooperative
and collaborative learning gives your students an opportunity to interact with
one another. The most important resource for learning is the student
himself/herself. Group interaction “kicks off and scratches” what is in the mind.)

MODES OF INTERACTION
 Interact with teachers
o By your skillful questioning and reacting techniques, as you
were taught you will be able to stimulate your students to ask
questions and to respond to your questions
o Your personality is a big factor in making student-teacher
interaction happen. Remember, you are so powerful that you
are so powerful that your mod determines the climate in the
classroom
o Offer classes many opportunities for group work like skit,
dramatization, role playing, group project like research and
output presentation are just some of the few
 Interact with the Instructional materials
o Presentation of materials like visual, audio, audio-visual and
multi-sensory instructional materials
o Make yourself presentable and attractive all the time to get
your students attention
o Go beyond the ordinary use of chalkboard and chalk
o Bring novelty and variety
(It adds life. Help yourself with a variety of novel materials day after day. You
feel good when your students look forward to your class because almost
everyday there is a new, interesting material to touch and to manipulate or
activity to do)

 Interact with self

o Learning for the students also means interacting with
himself/herself
o Your students learn when they reflect on the facts, concepts,
skills and attitudes taught in class
o When they engage themselves in introspection or self
reflection they connect
o What they learn in the classroom with themselves, with their
experience with their life
o As a result, classroom learning acquires deeper meaning and
the learner becomes more human
 Integrative Teaching
o Integrative comes from the word “integer” which means to
make whole
o An effective instructional strategy is also described as
integrative
o Contrast with choppy and isolated teaching that takes place in
several classroom
o Meaning must be made out of these facts by seeing
connectedness
o When you make connection and synthesis of facts, you come
up with concepts, generalizations
o When you connect concepts and generalizations to life, you
inevitably end up discussing values
o Teaching is integrative when you include the experiences of
your students
 o Your students life experiences and developmental level
become the context of your lessons
o You do not speak above their heads rather you speak and
appeal to their hearts because either life experiences that you
talk about

(Then learning becomes completely integrative because it puts together facts,

skills, concepts and values)

 MI-INTERGRATED TEACHING STRATEGY

o Teaching is also integrated when it includes all learners
with multiple intelligences and learning styles

(There are teaching strategies that are more effective for each intelligence and
learning style. These are the examples of classroom activities for the different
intelligences)

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES FOR DIFEERENT INTELLEGENCES

 Verbal Linguistic
o Discussions
o Debates
o Journal Writing
o Conferences
o Essays
o Stories
o Poems
o Storytelling
o Listening activities
o Reading
 Logical Mathematics
o Calculations
o Experiments
 o Comparisons
o Number Games
o Using evidence
o Formulating and testing hypothesis
o Deductive and inductive reasoning
 Spatial
o Concept maps
o Graphs
o Charts
o Art projects
o Metaphorical thinking
o Visualization
o Videos
o Slides
o Visual presentation
 Bodily Kinesthetic
o Role playing
o Dance
o Athletic activities
o Manipulative
o Hands on demonstration
o Concept rooming
 Musical
o Playing music
o Singing
o Rapping
o Whistling
o Clapping
o Analyzing sounds and music
 Interpersonal
o Community involvement projects
 o Discussions
o Cooperative learning
o Learn games
o Peer tutoring
o Conferences
o Social activities
o Sharing
 Intrapersonal
o Student choice
o Journal writing
o Self evaluation
o Personal instruction
o Independent study
o Discussing feelings
o reflecting
 Naturalist
o Ecological field trips
o Environmental study
o Caring for plants and animals
o Outdoor work
o Pattern recognition

(To integrate your students varied learning styles, you also have to employ
different instructional activities)

 KIND OF INTELLEGENCE
o MASTERY- Exercise –Practice
 Direct instruction
 Drill and repetition
 Demonstration
 Competitions
  Organizing and managing information
 Practicing a skill
 Observing
 Describing
 Memorizing
 Categorizing
 INTERPERSONAL- Experience – personalize
o Team games
o Learning circles
o Role playing
o Group investigation
o Peer tutoring
o Personal sharing
o Activities that focus on
 Describing feelings
 Empathizing
 Responding
 Valuing
 UNDERSTANDING –Explain- prove
o Inquiry
o Concept formation
o Debate
o Problem solving
o Independent study
o Essays
o Logic problems
o Activities that focus on:
 Classifying
 Analyzing
 Using evidence
 Applying
 Comparing and contrasting
  Evaluating

 SELF-EXPRESSIVE- Explore- produce

o Divergent thinking
o Metaphors
o Creative Art Activities
o Imagining
o Open-ended discussion
o Imagery
o Creative problem solving
o Activities that focus on:
 Hypothesizing
 Synthesizing
 Symbolizing
 Creating
 Metaphorical expressions
 Self-expression

(Your teaching is also integrative when you include the experiences of your
students. Your students’ life experiences and developmental level become the
context of your lessons. You do not speak above their heads. Rather you speak
and appeal to their hearts because it is their life experiences that you talk
about. Then you can claim that your teaching is contextualized and experiential)

(To be integrative in approach, you must also incorporate research findings in

your teaching process. There are nine categories of instructional strategies that
research has found effective. Researchers at the Mid-Continent Research for
education and Learning (McREL) analyzed more than 100 studies of instructional
strategies that proved to be exceptionally effective in increasing students
performance. They are as follows)

9 CATEGORIES OF EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

  Setting objectives and providing feedback
 Nonlinguistic representations
 Cues, questions, and advance organizers
 Cooperative learning
 Summarizing and note taking
 Homework and practice
 Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
 Generating and testing hypotheses
 Identifying similarities and differences

Setting objectives

o By setting instructional goals, teachers can narrow the focus for

students
o Instructional goals should not be too specific, however, or learning
will be limited
o Students should be encouraged to adapt the teachers’ goals to their
own personal needs and desires

PROVIDNG FEEDBACK

o Feedback should be corrective in nature; that is, should provide students

with information on what they are doing correctly and incorrectly
o The timeliness of feedback is essential to its effectiveness. Generally, the
later feedback is given after an exam for example, - the lower the
improvement in academic achievement
o Feedback should be specific to a criterion, meaning it should tell students
where they stand relative to a specific academic goal rather than relative to
their peers
o Students can effectively provide their own feedback through on-going self-
evaluation of their learning and performance

NONLIGUISTIC REPRESENTATIONS
 o A variety of activities can help students to formulate nonlinguistic
representations. These strategies include the use of graphic
representations, pictures, mental images, physical and technological
models and kinesthetic activities.
o Non-linguistic representations elaborate on knowledge

CUES AND QUESTIONS

o Cues and questions should focus on what is important rather than on what
is unusual
o Higher-level questions produce deeper learning than lower-level questions
o Waiting at least three seconds before accepting responses from students
increases the depth of answers
o Questions are effective even before a lesson begins

ADVANCE ORGANIZERS

o Advance organizers should focus on what is important instead of what is

unusual
o Higher-level organizers produce deeper learning than lower level advance
organizers
o Advance organizers are best used to give structure to information that is
not well organized
o Different types of organizer can be used for different purposes and produce
different results.
There are four main types of advance organizers:
-expository
-narrative
-skimming
-graphic

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

 Cooperative learning groups should rarely be organized by ability

 Cooperative learning groups should be small
  Teachers should take care not to overuse them

SUMMARIZING

 To effectively summarize, students must keep, delete, and substitute

information
 To effectively keep, delete, and substitute information, students must
analyze the information at a fairly deep level
 Being aware of the explicit structure of information is an aid when
summarizing

NOTE TAKING

 Verbatim note taking is the least effective way to take notes

 Notes should always be considered works in progress. As students acquire
and integrate content knowledge, they return to their notes and revise
them to reflect their deeper understanding
 Notes should be used as study guide for tests
 The more notes taken, the better

HOMEWORK

 The amount of homework assigned to students should increase as they

progress from elementary through high school
 Parental involvement in homework should be minimal
 The purpose of homework should be identified and articulated
 Feedback should be provided on homework

REINFORCING EFFORT

 Students are unaware of the direct effect that effort has on success
 Students can learn that the effort they pt into a task has a direct effect on
their success
 Strong belief in effort increases motivation
PROVIDING RECOGNITION

 Rewards do not necessarily have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation

 Rewards are most effective when they are contingent upon the attainment
of some standard performance
 Abstract recognition (e.g. praise) is more effective in improving
performance than are tangible rewards (e.g. candy)

GENERATING AND TESTING HYPOTHESES

 Hypothesis generation and testing can be approached in an inductive or

deductive manner
 Teacher must encourage students to explain their hypothesis and
conclusion. This is a chance for the students to develop oral and academic
language

IDENTIFYING SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

 Teacher-directed activities deepen understanding for students and increase

their ability to use knowledge
 Students should independently identify similarities and differences
 When students represent similarities and differences in graphic or symbolic
form, it enhances their ability to identify and understand similarities and
differences
 There are four different forms of identifying similarities and differences:
o Comparing
o Classifying
o Creating analogies
o Creating metaphors