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Lively Learning

Lively Learning

It's happened to all of us. You attend a professional development, and about a half hour into it both your brain and your bottom are asleep. Now imagine how an elementary student must be feeling in a similar situation. I think we can all agree that the traditional "sit and get" method of delivery is not very engaging for students of any age! 


So, what can we do about it? Well, one idea is to use instructional strategies that encourage engagement with others. "Instructional strategies contribute to effective teaching and learning" (Thompson, 2017, p. 1199).

What are instructional strategies?

Instructional strategies are effective teaching practices that have a positive impact on learner achievement, and can be used with a variety of subjects (Brown & Green, 2020).  Nine "instructional strategies are proven through research to have a strong effect on student achievement" (Brown & Green, 2020, p. 148).

  • identify similarities and differences
  • summarizing and note-taking
  • reinforcing effort and providing recognition
  • homework and practice
  • non-linguistic representations
  • cooperative learning
  • setting objectives and providing feedback
  • generating and testing hypotheses
  • questions, cues, and advance organizers
As a teacher or instructor, you probably have a few favorite strategies that you often use during instruction. It is beneficial to learn about a variety of strategies that can be used in different situations and settings. It is also important to consider how an instructional strategy could be modified to be used in a virtual setting. We saw how important this was when working remotely with our students this year.

A Few of My Favorites

One of my favorite go-to strategies that I use daily in my classroom instruction is Think-Pair-Share. This strategy provides students with independent "think time", and opportunity to share their thoughts with a partner (which is less intimidating for shy students), and then share their ideas with the class as a whole if they wish. This strategy promotes engagement as well as language development. I have found that after students have used the Think-Pair-Share strategy, they are more confident and willing to share their ideas with the class. This strategy works well in my elementary classroom, but I have also seen its benefits for adults participating in professional development sessions. This strategy allows students time to clarify meaning and address misconceptions in a less intimidating environment.

Another one of my favorite instructional strategies is the Jigsaw Method. To be honest, it's one that I haven't used in a while, but I'm excited about using again. With this strategy, the class is divided into groups to learn about new material. All groups are learning about the same material. Each member of the group only focuses on one chunk or "piece" of the material. In order to become an expert on their "piece", students work with other students who are focusing on the same material. Then students return to their original groups to share what they have learned. Essentially, each member is bring a "piece" to the "puzzle". 

Jennifer Gonzalez has a great video to explain how the Jigsaw Method works.


I really like when presenters use this strategy during professional development sessions. It can be overwhelming to consider tackling an entire book, but if you only have to become the expert on one chapter, or one section of an article, it is a lot less daunting. 

My professor used a form of the Jigsaw Method during class this week. We were covering material from four different chapters, but I worked with a group to focus on just one chapter's material. Each group created a presentation of the chapter material, so we still learned about all four chapter topics. By summarizing and synthesizing the material for us in the presentations, I felt like I had a better understanding of the material than when I simply read the chapter independently. I felt like this was both an effective and efficient way to cover the material.

What's the point?

The purpose of instruction is to provide the learner with the opportunity to learn new information. In order to be effective, learners must have the opportunity for interaction with the material. Sometimes this is an independent activity, but better yet, it can be collaborative. "Instructional strategies contribute to effective teaching and learning" (Thompson, 2017, p. 1200). Instructional designers must be intentional when selecting appropriate instructional strategies to enhance the overall effectiveness of the instruction. 


References

Brown, A. H., & Green, T. D. (2020). The essentials of instructional design: Connecting fundamental principles with process and practice (4th ed.). Routledge.


Cowling, T. K. (n.d.). How to use the think-pair-share activity in your classroom. Hey Teach! https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/how-think-pair-share-activity-can-improve-your-classroom-discussions1704.html


Giphy. Bored to Death Reaction Gif. https://media.giphy.com/media/LTYT5GTIiAMBa/giphy.gif


Gonzalez, J. (2015, April 15). 4 things you don’t know about the jigsaw method. Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/jigsaw-teaching-strategy/


Gonzalez, J. [Cult of Pedagogy]. (2015, April 15). The jigsaw method [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euhtXUgBEts


Thompson, M. (2017). Unpacking instructional strategies of early childhood teachers: Insights from teachers’ perspectives. Educational Research and Reviews, 12(24), 1199–1207. https://doi.org 10.5897/ERR2017.3370

Comments

  1. Fearless in First July 29, 2021 at 7:35 PM

    Valerie,

    I really enjoyed your blog. I resonate with the two strategies you chose because I chose the same ones. I love how you relate the Think-Pair-Share to addressing misconceptions. I think a lot of times students are afraid to share their answers for fear of getting it wrong. This strategy allows students to have a sounding board with students just like them. Making sure this strategy or any strategy used is "well-structured with clearly defined goals and expectations" is critical so that students don't abuse turning and talking with their classmate. (Brown & Green, 2020, p. 153).

    The Jigsaw method is something that I am eager to use again in my classroom. I love collaboration and giving students chunks of an assignment to focus on instead of the whole picture. It really gives you more "meat" from the student. When used effectively, "the Jigsaw learning model positively improves students' social attitudes, such as collaboration, self-confidence, discipline, and tolerance" (Septiani et al, 2020). Developing social skills and self-confidence is something that should not be overlooked. It think both of these strategies you mentioned help with that and is something students can use throughout their academic career.

    Thanks for sharing,
    Erica

    References:
    Brown, A. H., & Green, T. D. (2020). The essentials of instructional design: Connecting fundamental principles with process and practice (4th ed.). Routledge.

    Septiani, V., Paidi, P., Syamsurizal, S., & Darussyamsu, R. (2020). Jigsaw as a community learning strategy: Improving students’ social attitudes. Journal of Biological Education Indonesia (Jurnal Pendidikan Biologi Indonesia), 6(3), 397–404.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dale MasseyJuly 30, 2021 at 4:45 AM

    Valerie,
    I enjoyed reading your blog post. Think pair share and jigsaw are two strategies that I really like as well. I am hopeful that we can get back to using strategies like these in the traditional way this this year. Last year was tough on everyone, because it was hard to plan heading into the school year because many teachers did not yet know what their limitations were going to be. According to Brown and Green (2020), “The best cooperative learning activities are well-structured with clearly defined goals and expectations” (p. 153). It has been my experience, especially with the jigsaw activity, that it can be extremely helpful to students but only if it is really planned out well. You have to make sure that each student has a defined responsibility and that they have access to the resources they need to research their part of the assignment. This is the best way to utilize these strategies for increasing student engagement. According to Ludwig (2021), “Student engagement occurs when students are inspired to become deeply curious about the subject being taught and are driven to understand the material and incorporate and internalize it in their lives” (para. 2). I hope to get back to using both of these strategies this school year.
    References
    Brown, A., & Green, T. D. (2020). The essentials of instructional design: Connecting fundamental principles with process and practice (Fourth). Routledge.
    Ludwig, J. (2020, November 30). An experiment in active learning: The effects of teams. International Journal of Educational Methodology. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=team%2Bbuilding%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bclassroom&pr=on&ft=on&id=EJ1297805.

    ReplyDelete

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