When choosing a teaching strategy for your lesson plan, we encourage you to discuss ideas with fellow teachers. You might have a conversation with teachers at your school and/or in your area, but we also encourage you to share your ideas or questions digitally by posting in the discussion forum below.

Definition

Teaching strategy

When developing a lesson plan, a ‘teaching strategy’ refers to the instructional approaches or methods you will use in the classroom to help students learn and achieve the learning outcomes. Teaching strategies contribute to the general plan for working towards successful learning in your specific context.

Examples of teaching strategies

As teachers, you will know that there are numerous teaching strategies. Your choice of teaching strategy will depend on several things, including

• the learning task (content context),
• the needs of your students (learner context),
• and your personal teaching style and experience (teacher context).

This list is not intended to be comprehensive, but is provided to help you think about appropriate teaching strategies for your lesson.

• Independent study: A form of educational activity designed for learners to work on their own, either in the classroom or elsewhere. This can be well-suited to distance or online learning.
• Co-operative learning: An approach designed for learners to work together and learn from each other. Co-operative learning particularly supports the development of communication skills and problem-solving skills.
• Experiential learning: This approach is based on ‘learning-by-doing’; students learn to practise concepts in a safe environment, for example, through games, experiments, and/or simulations.
• Modelling or explicit instruction: A strategy where the teacher explains what must be done and then shows learners how to do it e.g. a Maths teacher might demonstrate on the chalk board how to solve an algebraic equation.
• Activity-based learning is similar to experiential learning where students learn-by-doing, by completing a series of supervised activities.
• Inquiry-based learning: This is a teaching approach in which learners are guided to develop questions and investigate a topic to build their own knowledge.
• Differentiated learning: A strategy where the learning needs of specific groups of learners are identified and learning tasks are allocated accordingly.
• Personalised learning: In this approach, teachers design activities based on personal interests of individual students, for example in choosing topics for projects.
• Station rotation: The class is divided into groups, and the class then rotates to complete different activities in a single session. This approach makes it possible to include a range of activities in a single session.
• Scaffolding: A complex task or process is broken down into smaller achievable goals. Thos goals become milestones towards achieving the overall learning outcome.
• Project-based learning: In this approach, learners work for an extended period of time to gain knowledge and skills by solving an authentic problem or challenge, and producing something to demonstrate their skills.
• Gamification: Here the teacher introduces a game to help students learn in an interesting and fun way, for example, dividing the class into two groups and inviting learners to participate in a quiz using questions you prepared, or inviting learners to prepare their own quiz questions on a particular topic.

Join the conversation on effective teaching strategies and activities

Purpose: To share ideas and advice on teaching with your peers, and contribute to building communities of OER practice in your region

Select one or more teaching strategies for your lesson plan.

Share your thoughts with fellow teachers by posting a forum contribution to the conversation on forums.oeru.org in answer to one or more of the following questions:

• What teaching strategy or strategies did you choose for your lesson plan, and why will this be effective in your context?
• What activities have you found most effective for teaching the topic of your lesson?
• What types of activities work best for this topic in your context?
• Are there any teaching strategies you find useful that are not included in the list above?
• What advice or tips do you have for fellow teachers when selecting teaching strategies?

Feel free to “like” any posts or respond with advice from your own experience.