Effective Teaching Strategies To Use In The School: Evidence Based And

Proven To Work Part I

Speaker: Anantha Anilkumar

The speaker starts the webinar by mentioning that this webinar introduces the 13
most important teaching strategies teachers should be using – the ones that have
been proven to work in schools like the and the ones that we use every week with
the thousands of pupils we teach in our one-to-one interventions.
The speaker also mentions the 6 learning strategies that the pupils should also
know about to enable them to move their own learning forwards for the part II of
this webinar.
More teachers than ever are aware of John Hattie’s ‘Index of Teaching and Learning
Strategies’, and wary of implementing new instructional strategies unthinkingly; no-
one wants to be stung by another ‘learning styles’ waste of effort.
But even when teachers know there may be better and more efficient ways to
develop the students’ understanding, choosing which of these teaching strategies to
start with can be a challenge. This article aims to guide teachers through this.
Teaching strategies are methods and techniques that a teacher will use to support
their pupils or students through the learning process; a teacher will chose the
teaching strategy most suitable to the topic being studied, the level of expertise of
the learner, and the stage in their learning journey.

The speaker then presents the most effective teaching and learning strategies for
primary school:

1. Know The Pupils and Develop Their Respect

This may sound basic, but the basis of all good teaching is an understanding of the
pupils and their learning needs. Allied to this is the respect teachers are held in by
the pupils. The relationship between teacher and student is a vital element of the
learning experience. Take time to get to know a new class from the first day,
understand what motivates them their barriers to learning. This is an often
overlooked teaching strategy.
In this way, whenever possible a tutor can personalize a lesson or a teaching
technique as appropriate to the child with a real world example.

2. Appropriate use of Summative and Formative Assessments

The first stage here is making sure teachers know the difference between formative
and summative assessment. It may sound obvious but teachers will be surprised
how many teachers don’t use each appropriately.
Summative assessment refers to an assessment that takes place after a block of
work has been completed, whether this is a term or a year. They are best thought of
as assessments of learning.
Formative assessments are those that take place day-to-day and are used to gauge
pupils’ understanding of a topic – they are assessments for learning. Formative
assessment is often used in a diagnostic capacity, to help us identify whether pupils
are struggling with a topic in the moment. This then guides and adapts our
instruction during the lesson, to better meet children’s needs.

3. Teach the Vocabulary

With the new focus in the curriculum on knowledge organizers, there’s no excuse
for children being without the relevant topic vocabulary. They need the words to be
able to create the thoughts and the sentences to confidently speak about a given
topic.

4. Explicit Instruction
Also known as direct instruction, this teaching strategy is highly teacher-led, and
focuses on frequent questioning and guided practice to help pupils learn a topic.
The backbone of explicit instruction is the use of the worked example in an
Example-Problem Pair. This involves demonstrating a worked example in its entirety
in silence alongside a problem that pupils will then attempt.

5. Effective Questioning Techniques

While we are all aware of the importance of questioning as a tool to gauge pupils’
understanding of a topic, there are definite techniques to improve the efficacy of
the questioning in the classroom.
Questions such as “Are teachers sure?” and “How do teachers know?” encourage
pupils to engage in some basic critical thinking to establish how confident they are
in an answer and why, while others such as “Is there another way?” help to
highlight where multiple methods to derive a solution may exist.
Our tutors encourage pupils to verbalize their reasoning and ask questions to
ensure pupils have really got to grips with the topic at-hand: “How do teachers
know that answer is right?”, “Can teachers tell me how else teachers could work it
out?” or “What do teachers need to do first to answer this question?” are all
questions that come up frequently during our lessons!

6. Deliberate Practice
One of the most effective ways of introducing new concepts to a class, Deliberate
Practice involves breaking learning down into a series of sub skills, each of which is
deliberately practiced in turn.

The 5 steps involved in deliberate practice are:

 Isolate the skill
 Develop the skill
 Assess the skill
 Final performance
 Retrieval practice later
But as an example, when teaching long multiplication method at KS2 we might use
deliberate practice thus:
 Identify (isolate) each specific sub skill involved in the long multiplication
method;
 Practice (develop) each of these one by one;
 assess pupils’ use of these skills before moving on;
 have pupils put them all together for a final performance – in this case a full
long multiplication problem;
 return to this topic in later weeks and months to check pupils still retain those
skills.

7. Differentiation
Far more than simply “splitting the whole class into small groups based on
attainment”, positive and effective differentiation at the primary school level can be
difficult to achieve – poor differentiation strategies risk actually widening the
attainment gap we’re attempting to close.

8. Reinforcing Effort/Providing Recognition

Helping pupils make a link between putting effort into a task and receiving
recognition is an important step in developing a classroom environment that fosters
active learning.
Encouraging pupils to put more effort into activities only goes so far without
something to provide them with the motivation to do so. Praise and recognition are
motivators that pupils are already familiar with; shifting them from being correct to
giving full effort can be highly effective.
9. Metacognition
Literally ‘thinking about thinking’, metacognition has been recognized by the EEF as
one of the most effective, lowest cost teaching strategies there is, with pupil making
an average of seven months’ additional progress.
Metacognition in primary schools often incorporates some of the other effective
teaching strategies, such as questioning in the classroom – “How do teachers
know?” not only asks pupils to justify their solutions, but has them thinking about
their own thought processes for deriving that solution.

10. Personalised Learning

It might sound obvious, but pupils are more likely to engage with learning when is
more targeted to them and appeals to their interests! This may be difficult to
achieve early on – especially with a full class of 30 pupils – but as familiarity and
rapport builds throughout the year it should become easier to make activities and
even questions more personalised to individual children.

11. Collaborative Learning

Also referred to as ‘cooperative learning’, the idea of having pupils work in groups
for certain classroom activities won’t be new to most teachers.
But the EEF notes that the impact of group work can vary widely, and that to make
it most effective teachers should focus on well-structured tasks that promote talk
and interaction between pupils.
The concept of ‘competitive’ collaborative learning (where groups of students
compete against one another) has been shown to have some impact, but caution is
advised in case pupils focus more on the competition rather than the learning.

12. Explicitly Teach Thinking Skills & Problem Solving Techniques

Mathematical problem solving techniques don’t always come naturally to pupils;
while metacognitive strategies such as those mentioned above make it more likely
that pupils will be able to apply critical thinking to a problem, there is no set way to
ensure that this will happen.
Without these, pupils often fall into the trap of attributing importance to the so-
called ‘surface features’ of a problem, which we naturally discount as irrelevant to
the actual maths involved.
That said, explicit teaching of thinking skills is still of considerable importance; once
domain knowledge has been (relatively) secured, teaching pupils how to recognize
and focus on the ‘deep structure’ of problems enables them to apply their
knowledge more effectively.
Try using several ‘Same Surface Different Deep’ SSDD problems in lessons – where
the surface features of the questions are the same, but the deep structure varies
(e.g. division, multiplication, addition etc.).
To help combat this, make sure teachers and they are aware of the different types
of math reasoning questions in year 6 to help them identify not just the math
problem solving techniques they need to know, but the types of questions that are
likely to require certain techniques.

13. Modelling and Scaffolding

Teachers may already be familiar with the “I do, We do, Teachers do” method of
scaffolding, but it’s worth taking some time to dive into why it’s as effective as it is.
Modelling is one of the most important factors in ensuring student learning of a
particular topic, but it is most impactful when it can introduce new concepts without
increasing pupils’ cognitive load – hence the ‘I, We Teachers’ approach.
By building from teacher-led, to joint construction, to independent working, we
create a structure that presents learning as less of a step-change and more of an
actual process. It also allows us greater flexibility; more time can be spent on one
stage e.g. joint construction is it becomes necessary.
 Effective Teaching Strategies To Use In The School: Evidence Based And
Proven To Work Part II

The teaching strategies above form the basis of the one-to-one lessons, but some
other teaching practices teachers will need to consider in the own classroom
include:

Use of education technology

Knowing when and where to bring technology into the classroom is a delicate
balancing act. While children tend to react well to technology-based lessons, there’s
always the risk that they focus on the tech over the learning.

Behavior management
Effective classroom management is its own topic, but there’s no doubt that a well-
behaved class (not necessarily a perfectly-behaved one) is far more likely to engage
with lessons.

Inquiry-based learning
While triggering the curiosity of the pupils for a topic is the necessary first step in
inquiry-based learning, presenting them with the opportunity to research and report
on the topic is where learning really occurs.

How teachers manage class discussions e.g. ‘Think, pair, share’

Somewhat related to behaviour management, class or group discussions are most
beneficial when they have a clear, well-established structure to them. Students
should not only feel they have the opportunity to share their thoughts, but
understand that others’ thoughts also have value.

Feedback process and understanding

The single most impactful teaching strategy when used correctly, feedback
(whether from the teacher or another source e.g. peer marking) needs to be
specific, encouraging and actionable – pupils need to be able to understand where
they could improve, and how.

Growth Mindset
Separate from praise and rewarding effort, developing growth mindset can be a
very valuable tool in developing pupils’ resilience and fostering a more positive
attitude towards both math specifically and learning in general.

After discussing each one he moves to the list of learning strategies:

Last, but not least, central to any good teaching practice is explicitly teaching
learners of all ages about learning strategies. These are the 6 learning strategies we
think every student should be familiar with by the end of Year 6.

1. Spaced Practice
Ensuring that learned material is revisited at regular intervals instead of all at once
much later on, when more of it is likely to be forgotten.

2. Retrieval Practice
Retrieval is the process of recalling information purely from memory, without the
aid of learning materials. Effective retrieval practice helps embed information more
thoroughly in our minds, since we no longer need context to recall it.

3. Elaboration
Tied into questioning in the classroom, elaboration puts the onus on pupils to do
more than ‘just’ recalling information. The use of open ended questions such as
“How did I get that answer” help pupils to make connections between the things
they’ve learnt rather than seeing them as several unrelated facts.

4. Interleaving
A wealth of research is now available that suggests the benefits of interleaving –
mixing practice of different skills with one another – in helping pupils better identify
the necessary strategies to solve different problems. Interleaving with connected
topics (e.g. division and multiplication) amplifies this effect.

5. Concrete Examples
As maths educators the Concrete Pictorial Abstract Approach is embedded into the
way we teach. Within our online tuition, we have many different ways of explaining
a topic and as an extension we may ask pupils to come up with their own concrete
examples for concepts, based on the examples we’ve used in explaining the
concept to them.
6. Dual Coding
Combining words and visuals in teaching materials. This isn’t referring to speech (as
we established earlier), but having pupils create some kind of visual aid (e.g. a
sketch, a diagram) to accompany written text can help them reinforce the concept
in their brain in two different ways, making it easier to recall. Anyone who’s created
slides for their pupils will be familiar with the challenge of imparting information
through words + pictures.