Teaching Strategies

Strategies

Throughout the quarter in the JDP program, I have been keeping track of teaching strategies that resonated in me and interested me.  I have written them down, described the strategy briefly, and I am sharing them here.  Please, if you have any unique teaching strategies that you would like to share, I would be very interested in hearing about them.  Please feel free to tweet them or post them in the comments section of my blog.   

Chalk talk:  Full class activity.  Post something (could be a word, a sentence, a picture etc.) on the whiteboard through projector and document camera or directly on the whiteboard in marker.  Tell students they are to be absolutely silent.  Students have their own markers and are to write comments, words or phrases in reaction to what the teacher has centered in the whiteboard.  Students are to comment on the central topic written by the teacher and then begin commenting on each other’s notes.  Each comment should be circled and linked to what comment they are responding too.  The facilitator ensures that students are silent and once it seems that students have completely exhausted their thoughts, the facilitator should continue to ensure that students are silent in the “space of thought”.  After several minutes of reflecting on all comments and responses silently, students may begin another round of commenting.  The key is the facilitator not rushing it.

Last word:  Group activity 4-6 members.  Reading strategy.  Students read an article or other reading silently in their group and  highlight any sections that they felt were extremely important to them.  They choose one highlight that they felt was the most important and read out-loud to the group directly from the article.  The student who read first is not allowed to talk once they read their highlighted text.  Other members in the group are to go around their group and comment on the section and why they think it was a good or bad section to highlight.  Group members should do this in approximately 2 minutes each.  When all group members have commented on the section, the student who shared the highlighted section originally, gets the last word and informs the group why he/she picked that particular section as the most important section.  Go around the group, and all group members have a chance to have “the last word”. 

Professional Share:  Students find a newish partner and share an update from their professional / personal life related in some way (no matter how tangentially).  Each partner shares something from either the class or their research (4 minutes).  Partners then share out to the class what each other shared with them.  Ice Breaker activity. 

2 Truths and a Lie.  Students write 2 truths and 1 lie (3-4 minutes).  Students go around the room saying their 2 truths and 1 lie out loud and the class has to guess by raising their hands, which one is the truth and which is the lie.  Students who share pick other students to share until the entire class has shared.   Ice Breaker activity. 

Cubing:   A great activity to have students fully dissect and analyze a topic during a lesson.  There are 6 sides to a cube, 6 aspects of a topic.  Students can actually create cubes with these prompts.  There are web resources on this strategy available if you google “Cubing”. 

1.       Describe it

2.      Compare it

3.      Associate it  (what does it make you think of)

4.      Analyze it (what are its parts)

5.      Apply it (how can it be used )

6.      Argue for/against it (why or why not is it important)

And the list will continue!!!!