A quick guide to a variety of instructional strategies that one can use in the classroom

1. Instructional Strategies
Strategy Definition Application Tips and Recommendations
New
American
Lecture
Is a dynamic way to lecture
that uses principles of
memory, organization, dual
coding, and exercise and
elaboration. It is a type of
Mastery Strategy.
The use of hooks to create interest
in the material, as well as graphic
organizers to help students make
connections are part of key
elements. The teacher pauses and
checks for understanding often.
The teacher must develop the “hook” that brings students in
and, can function as a bridge between prior knowledge and the
new material being presented.
The graphic organizer must help deepen understanding by
connecting prior and new knowledge together.
The teacher must develop review questions to help students
revisit the information and it helps for students to interact with
the material.
Whatcan thislooklike? :
In a Spanish Language classroom, a teacher can be presenting a new verb tense. The hook could be a serious of questions such as “What does it mean
to conjugate?” “What are some tenses that we have learned in the past?”. The hook is connecting prior knowledge and will be the bridge with the new
verb tense that is going to be taught in class. The graphic organizer can be something like a verb chart so that the students can see the relation between
different tenses or perhaps the endings for first, second and third person in singular and plural. Throughout the teaching of the tense the teacher can
ask students to compare a conjugated verb with a tense they do not know and a tense that they do not so as to help them better understanding the
purpose of conjugations.
Reading for
Meaning
Draws on strategic reading,
consisting of pre-reading,
active reading and post-
reading. It is a type of
Understanding Strategy.
After selecting a text, the teacher
must select the essentials that a
student must learn after reading.
Then the teacher creates four to
eight phrases for which a student
must find support in favor or
against. The topics can be for
vocabulary comprehension,
forming main ideas, building
inference, making a case, creating
mental images, making
connections in the text or across
content areas, exploring metaphors
or symbols, appreciating style and
The teacher must create an organizer to help students with
reading for understanding. Teacher can host post reading
activities such as talking amongst themselves, a discussion with
the rest of the class, or even a summary of what they have read.
The teacher can also have students start to develop their own
statements for analysis as students eventually start to
differentiate between essential and nonessential information.

2. technique, empathizing, and
developing a personal perspective
Whatcan thislooklike?:
In a Spanish Language Arts classroom, the teacher has chosen Cien años de soledad known as One Hundred Years of Solitude in English. The
teacher wants to try this on a chapter 2 since much of the basics of the story is developed in that chapter. The teacher knows that the students have
difficulty with reading. The teacher could have prepared students with some time to skim the text to identify words that they do not know and have
the in a personal dictionary. The teacher after doing some pre reading activities such as the one just explained selects the essential points of chapter 2
of Cien años de soledad into 8 main chunks. An example of a statement that would help a student develop their ability to explore the presence of the
theme of “solitude” would be “Macondo was isolated from the world in the beginning”. Thus, students could start to better understand the meaning
of the title and the theme of solitude all throughout the book. Students could then eventually start talking about various examples of solitude all
throughout the book.
Inductive
Learning
Employs the presentation
of key concepts and
information for learners to
classify according to
criterion created by the
learners. The technique is
built on inductive
reasoning and is a Self-
Expressive Strategy.
The teacher uses a collection of
related words. Students can choose
the different categories. The
teacher acts as a facilitator
purveying the important terms for
students to organize. As students
organize the information it is
important for students to explicitly
explain the reasoning behind their
classification. At the end the
teacher designs a synthesis activity
which seeks to summarize the key
points of the concept being taught
and its relations to the words
chosen for the activity.
It is important for all to be flexible to change. It could be that
the students decide to change the categories or change the
location of a certain words. It is ok for words to be present in
other categories.
The teacher could prepare a graphic organizer to help guide
students towards a particular set of ways to organize the
information.
The teacher can choose between 12 to 40 terms to organize. The
words should not be new. Students should be familiar with
them. As students work with the chosen words the teacher asks
stretching questions which aim for students to think beyond the
task, as well as help them verbalize and understand their
classifications.
Whatcan thislooklike? :
In a World History classroom, the teacher has prepared a word wall with important people, places, things and topics covered in the section. The
teacher has given each group of four a copy of the words. The teacher has suggested some words can even act as categories and it was ok that there be
overlap. The teacher has given the groups a large piece of butcher paper and some markers to help them label the different groupings of the words
from the word wall. As the students group the words the teacher goes around asking students the reasoning behind their grouping. At the end of the
activity the students have to explain the reasoning behind each group, the connections of the groups to each other, and the connection with the words
and groups with the content for that chapter.
Compare and
Contrast
Seeks to help students
understand and clarify
relations and differences
between two or more (but
not too many) concepts.
The technique is part of the
The teacher first invites the
students to describe, in depth,
important details and information
about each concept. With the help
of a graphic organizer the learners
then find similarities and
commonalities. Then, students
When using the graphic organizer make sure that it is one that
allows for comparing and finding similarities.
Make sure that you do not use too many concepts or it may be
confusing.

3. Understanding family of
strategies.
draw inferences based on those
similarities. To ensure that the
learners have understood the
different concepts and their
relation to each other a synthesis
task is done.
Make sure that learners know well, or provide information, to
help the learners make meaningful comparisons and
conclusions.
Whatcan thislooklike?:
In a World History Classroom this technique can be very useful to help students to think deeper about concepts that they may not know very well, or
perhaps take for granted the relation with one and the other. We can use the concepts of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and The
Napoleonic Code. Granted that these two concepts are related but different enough to merit a deeper analysis. With this technique students can better
understand the French Revolution, both its inspirations and its outcomes.
Metaphorical
Expression
Employs the importance of
individual interpretation by
allowing learners to make
creative comparisons. It is
part of the family of self-
expressive strategies.
Much of the work is based on the
student development of a
metaphor. The teacher acts as a
guide helping introduce the
activity using prior knowledge or a
reading to help students with the
metaphoric thinking process. The
teacher can assess student learning
by asking students to explain their
metaphors.
Creating metaphorical thinking can be difficult, but it does not
have to be. Using a creative hook to help students think
metaphorically will help them open up to a flow of ideas.
Any new information must be presented to the students in order
to complete the activity
Decide how you would like the students to present their
metaphors. It is a helpful wrap up activity to write a quick
reflection after the presentations.
Whatcan thislooklike?:
In a Spanish Language classroom this activity can be allowing students to introduce themselves. As a hook the teacher could ask in Spanish “Who am
I”. The teacher can use this opportunity to create an on-demand vocabulary list with new words for the students to use. The teacher can then ask the
students to draw 4 images of things that define who they are. After the teacher gives the necessary time to complete the task the students can share
with their tablemates or even as a whole class. To close the lesson the teacher can ask the students to finish the statement in Spanish “As a class we
are” and talk about their fellow classmates and their selves.
Jigsaw
Creates teams of 3 to 5
members which each
become an expert in an
area and each member
teacher the other members
in their area of expertise. It
is part of the family of
interpersonal strategies.
The teacher acts a facilitator
collecting the documents that are
going to be sourced and analyzed,
as well as the roles and division of
labor amongst team mates.
After the chunking occurs the
teacher sends the different content
experts to groups of the same
content experts. After the analysis
is complete the different content
masters come back to their original
group and share the information
The teacher as facilitator must make sure that the chunking is
appropriate, scaffolded and accessible so that there is no spread
of misunderstandings of misinformation.
Can be used both as an introduction or as a wrap up
A graphic organizer can really help in making sure that students
are getting the necessary information. It can guide both the
content expert who is analyzing a particular part of information
to the overall team learning from their peer.
To avoid group conflict, assign two grades, one which is based
on fellow team mates, and another grade as an overall grade.

4. After the sharing has occurred
create an assessment to assess
student learning
Whatcan thislooklike?:
In a World History classroom, a teacher can use this to teach an era such as New Imperialism. The teacher would need to make sure to chunk
appropriately. Different “chunks” could be Congress of Berlin 1889/Rush for Africa, Industrial Empires, Mandate System, Colonies, Economic
Justifications for Empire Building. The teacher would then need to make sure find a document or documents for students to get information. Political
cartoons, primary and secondary sources are a good combination. The documents must be accessible and obvious. Once the teacher has decided on
the group size, the teacher has the students go to the different group stations of the topic that they will become content experts in. After the students
complete the analysis of the documents given and work with their same content experts they go back and present the information to their fellow
students. Then, the teacher can either have the class summarize what they have learned, and or offer a quiz at the end to make sure that students did
make progress to the learning objectives. If the assignment or activity is graded then the students should be given the opportunity to grade each other,
in addition to an overall grade.
Mind’s Eye
Students create their own
mental image or produce a
reproduction of words,
concepts or events from a
text to make meaning and
their own understanding.
This is from the self-
expressive family of
strategies.
The goal is to get learners able to
visualize their documents. Thus,
the teacher acts as facilitator
selecting the document that is
going to be used for this strategy.
The teacher guides the students
through words or a series of
words. The teacher can have the
students close their eyes and
visualize the word or words, or can
have the students draw personal
images to make connections. The
teacher invites the learners to
make movies in their minds, make
predictions, or perhaps connect
with prior knowledge.
You can choose to do this technique with vocabulary words,
clips of a novel, or with longer narratives. It should be no more
than 30 words at a time. The words must be essential key
words.
Make sure to allow students to pre-read so that they can identify
important information and eventually without scaffolding use
this technique on their own.
Some students may need more time with this technique than
others. Some extra one on one time may be necessary.
This can be altered by having students illustrate different parts
of the same scene and then putting it all together in a
conclusion.
You could have a graphic organizer with the different words
and a space for an illustration.
Whatcan thislooklike? :
In a Spanish Language Arts classroom this can be used for an important scene in a novel like Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude).
The teacher can choose a key scene from the novel such as the failed assassination of Coronel Aureliano. The teacher can choose keywords such as
liberals, conservatives, firing squad, and even characters like General Montiel. The teacher can give the students the opportunity to imagine what
these words or people look like. The teacher can also ask the teacher to predict what they think will happen in the upcoming scene. What character
will have to deal with which words…etc. The teacher circles around the room sitting in on students or student groups talk about what they see or
imagined. Then, in this case as the strategy was used to help students with something before reading, the students can read the text and then talk about
the scenes in greater depth and talk about how their predictions and mental images were correct or not.

5. Reciprocal
Learning
Functions in a pair setting
in which students trade
positions of being a
mentor/coach and mentee.
This is part of the family of
interpersonal strategies.
The teacher must decide who is
going to be the mentor and the
mentee.
Each person gets a sheet
differentiated to the task assigned
to each person. The differentiated
sheet is to ensure that the roles are
clearly defined and scaffolded.
The teacher acts as guidance,
helping the mentor/coach with the
strategy, avoiding to help the
mentee.
The teacher can decide to have the
students change roles, or continue
the role for the entire lesson.
The teacher must purposefully decide the seating and grouping
of the students.
It doesn’t hurt to use a graphic organizer to help students make
meaning of the different information they are getting.
The strategy is best paired as practice to reinforce prior
information. It can also be used for reading, in which the
students alternate summarizing information from the reading.
The strategy can also be where the mentor/coach creates
questions for the mentee to answer.
Whatcan thislooklike?:
In a Spanish classroom, students are trying out a recently learned conjugation. The teacher seats students accordingly and has created two sets of
sheets: one for the coach/mentor, one for the mentee. For the coach/mentor the worksheet has the rules (and perhaps answers depending on how much
scaffolding needs to happen) for the examples that that the worksheet for the mentee has. The teacher goes around ensuring that the learners are
engaged and to help any coaches/mentees.

6. References
Silver, H., Strong, R., & Perini, M. (2007). Strategic Teacher: Selecting the Right Research-Based Strategy for Every Lesson. Alexandria: Association for Supervision & Curriculum
Development.