Purposeful Instructional Strategies

TQS: 3. Demonstrating a Professional Body of Knowledge. A teacher applies a current and comprehensive repertiore of effective planning, instruction, and assessment practices to meet the learning needs of every student. Achievement of this competency is demonstrated by indicators such as:

- planning and designing learning activities that:
  - address the learning outcomes outlined in programs of study;
  - reflect short, medium and long range planning;
  - incorporate a range of instructional strategies, including the appropriate use(s) of digital technology, according to the context, content, desired outcomes and the learning needs of students;
  - ensure that all students continuously develop skills in literacy and numeracy;
  - communicate high expectations for all students;
  - foster student understanding of the link between the activity and the intended learning outcomes;
  - consider relevant local, provincial, national and international contexts and issues;
  - are varied, engaging and relevant to students;
  - build student capacity for collaboration;
  - incorporate digital technology and resources, as appropriate, to build student capacity for:
    - acquiring, applying and creating new knowledge;
    - communicating and collaborating with others;
    - critical-thinking; and
    - accessing, interpreting and evaluating information from diverse sources.

Essential Questions

What will I do to develop effective lessons organized into a cohesive unit?
What activities will enable students to learn?

- The teacher implements new ideas, theories and techniques that engage learners in inquiry and problem solving (Government of Alberta, 2011a).

- The teacher designs and facilitates a variety of purposeful group and individual structures that facilitate student engagement and make content meaningful (Government of Alberta, 2011a).

- The teacher uses a varied repertoire of strategies (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc.) to meet the diverse learning styles and needs in the classroom.

- The teacher selects instructional strategies purposefully based on the outcome(s) and needs of their students.

- The teacher must understand how, when and why to use a particular instructional strategy (Goodwin, 2011). Strategies are purposefully selected to:

Motivate and focus learning actively and authentically
Introduce new knowledge
Deepen and expand knowledge
Check for understanding and guide learning and reteaching (Goodwin, 2011, p. 32).

- The teacher can clearly articulate the rational for selecting the instructional strategy utilized.

- Planned, purposefully designed questions guide student learning - The teacher plans his / her key questions in advance which reflect a range of question types consisting of both lower-level knowledge (recall and basic comprehension), and higher-level (application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Questions are posed with maximum student participation and engagement.

- The work students engage with requires them to be active, reflective and collaborative with each other and connect their learning to the real world (Westerberg, 2009).

- The teacher purposefully uses technological resources to enhance and support instruction, assessment and learning.

- As new technologies prove useful and become available in schools (including assistive technologies), the teacher develops his / her own and his / her students' proficiencies in using the technologies purposefully.

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