There are 9 instructional strategies that can improve student achievement according to researchers at Mid-continent Research for Education

and Learning (McREL). The first strategy is identifying similarities and differences. By telling students the similarities and differences of a concept, students can understand difficult problems by examining them in more than one way. One example of this would be a Venn diagram. The second strategy is summarizing and note taking. In order for a student to summarize or take notes, they have to comprehend what is being taught and then put it into their own words. This helps students have a basic structure of the information presented. On example of this is to create a set of rules for summarizing things. The third strategy is reinforcing effort and providing recognition. A connection between effort and achievement must be made for students. Students must be able to realize the importance of putting forth effort and then they will be able to see achievement come easier and be motivated to keep trying. You can do this in class by sharing stories about people who did not give up and then succeeded. Homework and practice is the forth strategy and it provides students to take their learning beyond the classroom. The fifth strategy of nonlinguistic representations means that you focus on storing knowledge not only in a linguistic way, but a visual way. Teachers should work on incorporating words and images to represent relationships. Cooperative learning is the sixth strategy. This shows that putting students into groups can have a positive effect over their education. The seventh strategy, setting objectives and providing feedback, helps students direct their learning. With a specific goal in mind, it helps students aim towards the final objective. Also, with feedback, they can better understand how to get there. The eighth strategy is generating and testing hypotheses. Teachers should ask students to predict what they think is going to happen and then provide a way to test it out. The ninth and final strategy that McREL suggests is to use cues, questions, and advance organizers. The video also agreed that this strategy would show what students already know about a topic. Teachers could pause before after asking a question so students have time to develop an answer that has depth to it.