Professional Development
Effective Questioning and Classroom Talk
To develop learning & higher order thinking, promoting imagination, speculation, creative thinking & to pitch a suitable challenge level
Formative Assessment: 10 Key Questions
A deep dive into FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT Practices
273 (YES, 273!!) Interactive Instructional Techniques
These techniques have multiple benefits: the instructor can easily and quickly assess if students have really mastered the material (and plan to dedicate more time to it, if necessary), and the process of measuring student understanding in many cases is also practice for the material—often students do not actually learn the material until asked to make use of it in assessments such as these. Finally, the very nature of these assessments drives interactivity and brings several benefits. Students are revived from their passivity of merely listening to a lecture and instead become attentive and engaged, two prerequisites for effective learning. These techniques are often perceived as “fun”, yet they are frequently more effective than lectures at enabling student learning. Not all techniques listed here will have universal appeal, with factors such as your teaching style and personality influencing which choices may be right for you.
Tips for a Successful Parent-Teacher Conference
15 Formats for Structuring Class Discussions
The author separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it’s certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don’t really stand alone. For each strategy, you’ll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.
Enjoy!
Accountable Talk
Institute for Learning's complete Accountable Talk Resource including pdf sourcebook, self-study tool, and podcasts
Accountable Talk Conversation Starters
13 Strategies to Improve Student Classroom Discussions
We Are Teachers article - Student Engagement
5 Ways to Make Class Discussions More Exciting
Edutopia article - Student Engagement
50+ Quick Summarizing Strategies for the Classroom
This link has a plethora of methods for assessing mastery before, during and after a lesson.
53 Ways to Check for Understanding
This 2-page pdf. is a handy tool to keep at arm's length to help you remember to use variety in your checks for understanding.
Strategies for Student Engagement
75 Instructional Strategies grouped into the following categories: Speaking, Writing, Signaling, Thinking, and Combination
TEAM Rubric Model Lesson Plan Template - from UTM
Lesson Planning Template designed around the TEAM Model for Planning and Instruction
Differentiation Strategies and Examples: Grades 6-12
Effective questioning in practice --- video
The following clip is taken from a 12th-grade English lesson, focusing on the development of higher-level understanding through effective questioning. The students here are 17 to 18 years old but many of the techniques could be developed with younger learners. Check it out to see effective questioning in practice.
Strategies to Help Students 'Go Deep' When Reading Digitally