Curriculum and Instruction Teaching Strategies Catalogue

Teaching Strategy
Think-pair-share

Free Writing

What? Where? Why?

Think-pair-share is an activity where
the teacher will ask a question or
introduce a topic to the class.
1) First, the students must think for
themselves and write down ideas
or answers to this question.
2) Second, students group into pairs
and share their ideas or answers
with their partner, and talk about
them together.
3) Third, students share what they
discussed with their partner with
the class as a whole.
This is a great strategy to implement
when beginning a new unit of studies. It
allows the teacher to get insight into
what the students already know about a
topic or what they want to know. It
allows the teacher to see what
knowledge the students have that they
can build upon. It allows students to
express verbally and through writing
about what they know about a
particular topic.
The students are in control of whether
they or not they want to share with
each other and the class their ideas.
However, the teacher must make sure
the activity is properly timed so that it
doesnt take up more class time then
what is necessary.
Free writing is an activity that starts
with an open-ended question or
statement. As the students contemplate
the question/statement, they are given
an allotted amount of time to write
whatever comes to mind on that
particular topic. With free writing,
students are never to pause with their
writing. If they are stuck on what to
write, they can repeat a word or
sentence over until they can think of
what to write.
Like think-pair-share, this would be a
great activity to implement at the

Video Reflections

Students as Teachers

beginning of new unit. It allows the

teacher to see what the students
already know. It also allows the
students to channel into deeper
thinking and see where their mind takes
them on a particular subject. This would
be good to use in an English or Social
Studies class.
The students are in control of writing
down their thoughts and verbalizing
their ideas if they so choose.
However, a teacher is limited to how
much assessment they can perform on
this particular activity, especially if
students start to steer off-topic. Also,
time management is key.
Video Reflections are just simply that:
students reflect via video. After a lesson
or experiment, students are to record
what they discovered or learned in the
process and document their findings. It
also allows them to reflect on what
mistakes they may have made and
what they can do better next time (a
great opportunity for self-reflection).
This is a great tool for formative
assessment. It allows students to reflect
on their work, teachers to see what the
students are learning, and then reflect
on their teaching. This would be great
in a science class, especially with
hands-on experiments.
The students are in control of what they
want to express in their video
reflections and how much they want to
share.
A teacher must take into consideration
the ages of students as well as
technological resources to complete
this. If students are too young to
understand the technology, and if there
arent enough pieces of technology
available, this strategy would not work.
The idea behind Students as Teachers
strategy is that people learn
information best when they have to
teach it to someone else. This strategy

Flipped Classroom

involves dividing students into groups

and giving each group a specific topic.
Students are to make themselves the
experts of that topic, and then teach
that topic to the class with a
presentation. This strategy gets
students involved in their personal
learning process because they have to
make themselves teachers, and as
previously stated, people learn
information best when they have to
teach it themselves. This is a very
versatile strategy that can be taken into
any subject.
The teacher must take into
consideration what topics students can
choose from, and if they are
appropriate for their age level and
meeting curricular objectives.
The Flipped Classroom strategy really
brings technology into the classroom.
1) At home, students watch videos
and look at other materials
created by teachers. This gives
students the opportunity to rewatch videos, etc., allowing them
to learn at their own pace.
2) Once in the classroom, students
then apply what they know and
work in groups, have discussions,
do projects or experiments, and
so on. This gives students
opportunities at school to think
critically about what they learned
at home.
This strategy would work great for a
Biology lab, for example, where
students learn the concepts at home,
and then come to school and apply it in
a lab experiment.
The teacher is in control of what the
students are to be watching at home,
as well as what they will be
participating in inside the classroom.
Due to some drawbacks, however, their
strategy needs to be used purposefully
and critically. These drawbacks include

Brainstorming Activities

Physical Activities & Movement

Word Webs (or Mind Maps)

access to technology, if students have

time, and increasing student stress.
Brainstorming activities involve
individual students or small groups to
generate as many ideas as they can
around a particular topic. Brainstorming
helps stimulate student thinking either
individually or together, and can help
them question or synthesize new ideas,
think critically, and solve problems.
Students can learn new ideas and
perspectives from other students as
well.
Brainstorming is a great activity to have
in any school subject, as it stimulates
deep thinking in students.
Students who have to sit through
classes can become restless and start
to lose focus. By incorporating activities
and movement where students have to
get up and physically do something, it
can re-energize and refresh them.
It will help students who are feeling
tense or stressed because it takes their
mind off of their task momentarily. Plus,
having students participate together in
activities that are non-academic may
help create friendships and create a
positive classroom climate. This is a
great strategy to incorporate in the
middle of long lessons of the same
subject matter, or during transitions
between subjects to refresh students.
This strategy needs to be very well
managed, however, because it could
easily get out of control. The teacher
must also take into consideration the
noise the students may make, and how
it might disrupt other classrooms.
Word Webs can go hand-in-hand with
brainstorming. By placing students
ideas and thoughts in a visual web, it
can help students create connections
between ideas and concepts. It allows
students to organize and develop their
ideas, and can help them think
critically.

Teacher Demonstration

Learning Centres

Word Webs would be great to use when

introducing a new topic/unit, essay
writing, or critical thinking.
Like think-pair-share, students are in
control of how much they want to share
and what ideas they want to express.
One strategy with Word Webs is to
create one at the beginning of a unit,
and then add onto it or create a new
one at the end of a unit. Students can
visually show what they learned, and it
can work as a form of assessment for
the teacher as well.
During a demonstration, a teacher can
show students in a visual way a
particular concept, skill, or technique.
Students are shown how to perform and
model skills.
Showing students via demonstration
can have a much greater impact than
students simply reading instructions. It
also helps them perform techniques
properly.
Demonstration is an important part of
science classes, especially experiments
and labs. A teacher demonstration of
techniques and procedures in science
helps students to do them successfully.
Although it would be easy to
demonstrate large-scale skills, a
teacher must take into consideration
that it may be difficult for all students
to see the demonstration of a smallscale skill (for example, how to hold a
pencil properly). The teacher must also
remember that they have to be
prepared to possible repeat a
demonstration twice.
Learning Centres is a strategy where
several centres or stations are set up
throughout the classroom, each with a
different activity. The centres can be set
up in one of two ways:
1) Each centre teachers the same
concepts/unit but in a different
way. For example, one table has
books, the other has computer

games, and another has a

coloring activity. Students can
choose which centre they feel
most comfortable at. But each
centre is focused on the same
concept. Or
2) Each centre addresses a different
topic of one concept/unit, and
students visit each centre to
receive new information. For
example, if this was a science
class about insects, one station
would be about types of insects,
another would be about
distinguishing insects, and
another would be interacting with
insects. This allows students to
cover a number of topics, but in
a fun way.
This strategy requires the teacher to
have good time management skills so
that every student has an opportunity
to visit every station.
One downfall is that students may get
loud and excited when they move from
one station to another, and it may take
some time to settle them down again.
This must be taken into consideration
when allotting time for each station.