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Listed below are instructional strategies I plan on utilizing in the classroom:
Strategy 1: Modeling
When teachers model for students, they are showing students exactly how to complete a task or display a skill. For example, the teacher may model using pictures from a text to make predictions using think aloud or show the class how to quietly move from their desks to line up at the door. The goal of modeling is to provide students with a clear picture in their heads of what is expected of them before they practice the task or skill with partners/groups and independently. Students will be more sure of themselves when they are confident they know what is expected of them.
Modeling ties into teacher accountability because how well students are able to grasp a new concept or skill may depend on how well the teacher taught or demonstrated it. The clearer the picture the teacher gives students, the more likely they are to stay on task and not disrupt the learning process due to confusion.
Strategy 2: Student Choice
Allowing for moments of student choice in the classroom motivates students and provides them a sense of ownership over their own learning. It supports unique learning styles as well as interests. There are many ways teachers can incorporate choice throughout the school day, including letting students work independently or with a partner, choose their own topic for a project, or choose a morning activity like writing in a journal or silently reading.
Student choice ties into a democratic classroom because it allows every student in the classroom to makes decisions for themselves individually and as a group rather than the teacher making all of the decisions.
Strategy 3: Group Rewards
Group rewards are rewards the whole class receives as a result of combined success academically or behaviorally. For example, the teacher may give the whole class extra free time at the end of the day if everyone completed and turned in their field trip permission slip on time or the teacher may let the class have a pizza party at the end of the week if every student participated in math.
Group rewards ties into positive reinforcement, because the purpose is to motivate or reward students by exhibiting desired behaviors or results. This also ties into the democratic classroom and collective decision-making because students may get to collectively choose a group reward and also be motivated to perform for the benefit of the group.
The following second grade lesson plan uses teacher modeling to provide students with a clear mental picture of how good readers use sequencing to comprehend nonfiction texts:
In this lesson, the teacher models sequencing the events of a nonfiction text (In this case, a text detailing the stages of a butterfly's life cycle) using a think aloud. The teacher is responsible for providing students with a clear mental picture of the skill they are expected to learn and how a good reader utilizes that skill. During the modeling portion of the lesson, the teacher stops reading aloud on various pages of the text in which the butterfly is undergoing a major change, they then verbally make a of of that change, and last write it down on a flow chart for the whole class to see.
Several components of this lesson could be adapted for a school lacking some or many of the materials originally intended for use in the lesson. If the classroom does not have a large teacher easel used during the anticipatory set and modeling portion of the lesson, the teacher can write on the whiteboard or chalkboard. If the teacher could not prepare sequence cards used during the guided and independent portion of the lesson, the lesson could be revised so the teacher creates a worksheet where students match the steps of the butterfly's life cycle to the correct order in which they occur and students may still be able to collaborate with their peers.
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