Teaching Approaches and Methodologies
Teaching Approaches and Methodologies
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The pedagogical approaches used across the post-primary curriculum reflect the Junior and Senior Cycle philosophy of quality, inclusion and improved learning experiences for all students. Methodologies should be considered which support the development of key skills in our students, as well as new approaches to assessment and reporting. Examples of relevant learning activities are included in the Specifications for each subject. See https://www.curriculumonline.ie/Junior-cycle/ and https://www.curriculumonline.ie/Senior-cycle/ for more information.
Click on the image above to access Curriculum Online.
Detailed below are some key methodologies which pertain to all subjects and some accompanying supports.
Active Learning
Active Learning
“Active Learning works not only because it helps motivation and feedback but also because active learners are more likely to be attentive and to be thinking about the topic, relating new knowledge to previous learning and elaborating on the implications of what they have learned.”
McKeachie (1994)
Active learning is an umbrella term for the use of methodologies and strategies that actively involve students in the learning process. Active learning places the responsibility for learning on the learner. As active learners, students must read, write, discuss and/or be engaged in solving problems during classes.
Active learning is based on constructivism. According to Chuang and Rosenbusch (2005), constructivism can be considered to include three main pillars:
social and collaborative learning activities;
learning activities set in a meaningful context;
learners are given the freedom to understand and construct meaning at their own pace.
Detailed below are several resources which contain key methodologies that pertain to subjects across the post-primary curriculum.
Active Learning Methodologies in the Post Primary Classroom
Active Learning Methodologies in the Post Primary Classroom
This booklet produced by PDST includes over thirty active learning approaches, including ice-breakers, individual and group methodologies and strategies to consolidate learning. All approaches are mapped to the development of key skills at Junior and Senior Cycle.
An Integrated Approach to Learning, Teaching & Assessment
An Integrated Approach to Learning, Teaching & Assessment
This booklet contains practical examples of how teachers can use differentiated active learning methodologies, inquiry-based approaches to learning and ongoing assessment to enhance the key skills of literacy, numeracy and working with others.
Graphic Organisers
Graphic Organisers
Graphic organisers are a visual method of developing, organising and summarising students’ learning, which help to structure information. They facilitate the learning process by providing a scaffold for the development of ideas and the construction of knowledge and can be used at various stages of the learning progress, including pre-teaching, introducing a topic, independent learning, study, revision and preparation for examinations. This booklet produced by PDST contains guidelines on how to use each graphic organiser, subject-specific exemplars of graphic organisers (including: ranking ladder; stair steps; sequence charts; funnel; fishbone; cross-classification charts; double- and triple-Venn diagrams; four corner organiser; tri-pie; starburst; research grid; think-pair-share; placemats) and blank templates for each type of organiser for students to complete. Several cross-curricular literacy and numeracy strategies are explored.
Additional background reading on the use of Graphic Organisers:
Graphic organisers booklet as Gaeilge.
Suitable for the Gaeilge classroom as well as subjects taught through Irish.
Graphic organisers booklet for the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) classroom, with resources available in French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Suitable for the MFL classroom as well as subjects taught through the target language.
JCT Whole School Classroom Strategies
JCT Whole School Classroom Strategies
Over twenty active methodologies are explored with PDF explainers and videos showing how the strategies are currently used in Irish classrooms.
Using Digital Technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment
Using Digital Technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment
PDST Technology in Education has developed a suite of good practice videos showcasing how Irish post-primary teachers use digital technologies to support and enhance teaching, learning and assessment. In these short videos clips you will see a range of technologies, methodologies and approaches by teachers at all levels and across a range of subjects. Included also are several interviews with school leaders about whole school approaches to digital learning.
Blended Learning
Blended Learning
Schools are increasingly adopting a blended learning approach to teaching. This resource, developed by PDST outlines two models appropriate to the Irish context and provides teachers with an overview of the planning required to incorporate blended learning, as well as the practicalities involved in teaching online.
Dialogic Classroom
Dialogic Classroom
Dialogic teaching harnesses the power of talk to stimulate and extend students’ thinking and advance their learning and understanding. Dialogic teaching pays as much attention to the teacher’s talk as to the students'. It is grounded in research on the relationship between language, learning, thinking and understanding, and in observational evidence on what makes for good learning and teaching.
What does it look like in practice?
What does it look like in practice?
In dialogic classrooms, students don't just provide brief factual answers to 'test' or 'recall' quetsions, or merely provide the answer which they think the teacher wants to hear. Instead, they learn and are encouraged to:
narrate
explain
analyse
speculate
imagine
explore
evaluate
discuss
argue
justify
ask questions of their own.
To facilitate the different kinds of learning talk, children in dialogic classrooms also:
Listen
Think about what they hear
Give others time to think
Respect alternative viewpoints
Teachers are encouraged to negotiate ground-rules for talk along the lines above, and these are frequently reviewed with the students. In dialogic classrooms teachers consciously use discussion and scaffolded dialogue, as well as the other kinds of teacher talk. Scaffolded dialogue involves:
Interactions which encourage children to think, and to think in different ways
Questions which require much more than simple recall
Answers which are followed up and built on rather than merely received
Feedback which informs and leads thinking forward as well as encourages
Contributions which are extended rather than fragmented
Exchanges which chain together into coherent and deepening lines of enquiry
Classroom organisation, climate and relationships which make all this possible.
Class Organisation
Class Organisation
In dialogic classrooms teachers exploit the potential of five main ways of organising interaction in order to maximise the prospects for dialogue:
Whole class teaching
Group work (teacher-led)
Group work (student-led)
One-to-one (teacher and student)
One-to-one (student pairs)
Principles of Dialogic Teaching
Principles of Dialogic Teaching
Whatever kinds of teaching and learning talk are on offer, and however the interaction is organised, teaching is more likely to be dialogic if it is:
Collective - Participants address learning tasks together.
Reciprocal - Participants listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints.
Supportive - Students express their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers, and they help each other to reach common understandings.
Cumulative - Participants build on answers and other oral contributions and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and understanding.
Purposeful - Classroom talk, though open and dialogic, is also planned and structured with specific learning goals in view.
Co-operative Learning
Co-operative Learning
Co-operative learning uses small groups for teaching and learning, so that children work together to maximise their learning. Co-operative learning is highly structured and is always used with mixed ability groupings, therefore, inclusive in nature. Roles within the group may vary according to the activity with an emphasis on utilising children's own unique strengths and abilities.
The most common model of cooperative learning is that of Johnson, Johnson and Smith (1991). This model incorporates five specific tenets, which are:
individual accountability;
positive interdependence;
face-to-face promotive interaction;
appropriate practice of interpersonal skills;
regular self-assessment of team functioning.
While different cooperative learning models exist, the core element held in common is a focus on cooperative incentives rather than competition to promote learning. Click the button below for further information for teachers in relation to co-operative teaching.
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