The Art of Skillful Teaching: Beyond Mastering Individual Strategies
Recently, while cooking with my wife, a simple request for a spoon turned into an unexpected lesson in specificity and purpose. As I reached for the first spoon I saw,...
Effective Teaching and Instructional Strategies Blog
Classroom Examples, Techniques, and Best Practices
High-achieving schools and educators have one thing in common: they adopt a mindset of constant improvement.
Improving student achievement comes from more effective teaching. And effective teaching means educators have the right mindset, and training in a variety of classroom instructional strategies, tools and techniques. At Learning-Focused, we work with educators to improve their use of instructional strategies to accommodate for the different learning styles of all students.
Check out our instructional strategies examples from the classroom, or as we like to call them “Classroom Chronicles” as well as our expert Strategy Reviews below, where we show you practical ways to improve the implementation of specific strategies and the overall impact of instruction in the classroom.
In addition to our blog posts below, we have a variety of additional resources and trainings for school leaders and educators:
- Our popular High-Yield Instructional Strategies resource
- On-demand courses on individual instructional strategies (accelerating learning, collaborative pairs, effective questioning, higher order thinking, writing to raise achievement, and many more) or bundles (effective instruction, literacy, rigor, poverty and more)
- In-person and virtual professional development trainings and events open to all educators
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Debunking Formative Assessment Misconceptions
Not long ago, I visited a middle school where one of the school improvement goals was to improve formative assessments. During a classroom visit, I asked a teacher how she...
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Mastering Multiplication: The Science and Practice of Retrieval-Based Learning
A few weeks ago, I walked into a math classroom and immediately ran into a pair of students sitting on the floor by the door. I quickly realized that the...
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Structured Review: Enhancing Student Retention Through Intentional Practice
If you’ve ever wondered how to help students retain more of what they learn, structured review is a proven method that helps students go beyond just “getting it” in the...
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Confronting Persistent Teaching Myths in Education: Moving Toward Evidence-Based Practices
Why do myths in education and teaching persist despite decades of research demonstrating what truly benefits learners? A recent visit to a middle school brought me face-to-face with a challenging...
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Teaching Students Error Analysis: A Pathway to Critical Thinking
Last year, I visited classrooms with April Shackleford, the principal of Lucama Elementary, recently recognized as a Blue Ribbon School. We walked into a 4th-grade math classroom, and the first...
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Vocabulary Strategies – Why, How, What
Why is Vocabulary Instruction needed in both physical and online classroom environments? Systematic vocabulary instruction at every grade level, in every subject, in every classroom is one of the most...
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Collaborative Pairs – Why, How, What
Why are Collaborative Pairs activities needed throughout Lesson Instruction? Students are paired during Lesson Instruction to think together about the information they are learning. Various types of Collaborative Pairs activities...
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Impact of Structured Review (Effective Year-Round Review Strategies for Students)
The end of the year always brings up an important topic: What is the best way to organize and provide student review strategies? However, if we only review at the...
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Rethinking EOY Reviews: Effectively Prepare Students by Reversing Gradual Release
As the school year winds down and end-of-course exams and final assessments loom, it’s natural to want to jump into a full-blown end-of-year teaching review of everything students have learned....
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Writing in Middle School Math: Using Instructional Strategies in the Classroom
For the last two years, I have had the privilege to work with the Hiwassee Dam Elementary and Middle School teachers in Cherokee County, NC. In October, during a coaching...
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Impact of Previewing in Science: Example from the Classroom
In a 5th Grade Science classroom at Barnes Elementary School in Wilson County, the students and teachers had a secret folder. The folder was the idea of the 5th Grade...
