"STRATEGIC LEARNING CREATES CLARITY, CONSISTENCY,CONNECTIVITY AND CREATIVITY"

Strategic teaching is a way of making decisions about a course, an individual class, or even an entire curriculum, beginning with an analysis of key variables in the teaching situation.

Finding the most effective interventions for students with Fragile X syndrome (FXS) can be difficult and often results in a “trial and error” approach. Even though a number of strategies have emerged and have been documented in the literature, the evidence-based interventions are limited. Promising outcomes are continuing to develop using the cognitive phenotype to better understand how to best teach students with FXS.

Too often, effective interventions cited in the literature (what works) are not integrated into Individualized Education Programs (IEP), creating a research-to-practice gap. This gap negatively impacts student learning and limits school success. All members of the multidisciplinary team must turn to the literature to guide planning and implementation of educational intervention. Only then will students realize their potential and experience positive learning opportunities.

There are certain curricula that are produced commercially for related populations that have been used with students with FXS. These interventions can be cross-referenced with educational goals and aligned to learning standards.

In order to better understand and apply meaningful intervention, it is necessary to consider the cognitive and behavioral profile of those affected with FXS.

People with FXS can have challenges that include slower processing speed, poor short-term memory and short attention spans. They can have ADD, ADHD, autism and autistic behaviors, social anxiety, hand-biting and/or flapping, poor eye contact, sensory disorders and an increased risk for aggression. The majority of males with Fragile X syndrome demonstrate a range from moderate learning disabilities to more severe intellectual disabilities.

People with FXS can have strengths that include excellent imitation skills and a strong visual memory/long term memory. They like to help others, are very social and have a wonderful sense of humor.

The reason this information is important is that it forms the basis for intervention and individual educational programming. Individuals with FXS require targeted educational treatment in order to access their abilities. Specific strategies that use strengths to learn is a win for both the individual with FXS and the teaching staff.

Creating an Effective IEP

An Individual Education Program (IEP) is developed for children meeting the criteria for an educational disability. The child is evaluated to determine if he/she is eligible for special education, and then if the team determines eligibility, a plan is written to determine how the child’s educational needs will be met. The team must determine that the impact of the disability is significant enough that the child cannot access the general education curriculum without significant support.

The impact statement, which is part of the IEP, forms the basis for goals and accommodations. With a child with FXS, the impact statement should include the cognitive and behavioral phenotype. This means that specific supports and objectives can be written into the IEP in order to meet the needs stated in the impact statement. Many parents are unaware of the significance of the impact statement so they should ensure the unique features of FXS are included in the impact statement.

Many parents advocate for a FXS-specific IEP but may not understand exactly how to address the impact FXS has on their child’s learning. Including those features in the impact statement not only allows for the issues of FXS to be addressed, but also those unique to a specific child with FXS.

Because hyperarousal can greatly influence an individual’s performance, ability to learn and ability to function independently, relevant information about the causes and effects of hyperarousal should be included in the impact statement.

The IEP is a legal contract between the school district and parents or guardians. The related services necessary to meet the needs and goals will also be determined at the IEP meeting. It is important for parents to consult the Consensus Documents, written by a number of experts in the field, in order to advocate for their children. Starting with a good learning environment, specific educational strategies that use strengths to address weaknesses and incorporate behavioral remedies will ensure the child’s access to meaningful educational intervention.

Using Interests to Motivate Learners

It has long been noted that individuals with FXS remember details over time and are often prompted by an object, location or person to recall details about a past event. In addition, they are able to identify a number of interests that they spend time talking about and use to connect with others.

There are a number of ways to structure learning lessons that incorporate high interest materials. For example, reading can be taught using super heroes, movie and television characters. Matching names to pictures and then expanding to matching phrases to pictures promotes engagement. Their visual memory strengths can be enhanced when high interest materials are utilized. Using high interest materials will bring immediate success when so many prior academic endeavors have failed. This level of engagement builds confidence in the learner.

Teaching math to individuals with FXS is difficult due to a number of issues. Math is sequential and builds on sequential memory. As is documented in the literature, the learner with FXS does not process sequentially and lacks sequential memory. Many aspects of math require memory of unrelated facts and often do not include a context as is the case for reading. It is often best practice to teach math in a simultaneous fashion using math to solve real life problems. The focus on functional math skills can provide the context to make a purchase, set a timer or measure a quantity in order to follow a recipe. Using activities of interest like cooking can provide motivation to learn math skills that would normally be lost.

Individuals with FXS often struggle with motor planning and visual motor deficits. Those deficit areas make handwriting very difficult and frustrating. Using programs that utilize a context such as the writing strand of the Logo Reading program along with commercially made curriculum Handwriting Without Tears (HWOT), can help to build writing skills. Telling a story (Logo Reading) or providing verbal prompts (HWOT) provides a context from which to learn how to form letters and draw.

Providing a Positive Learning Environment

The environment is the easiest thing to change and can have a huge impact on behavior, as the neurobiology collides with the environment. Changing the environment can support learning by providing predictability and reasonable outcomes. It is important to assure the learner that taking risks will be supported and academic struggles will be scaffolded with visual supports.

The teaching staff can also encourage learning by aligning with the student with FXS to know when they need help and how to improve the outcome. Research indicates that engagement of elementary school children with FXS is strongly related to the classroom environment and instructional quality of the teachers. The ways the teachers structure and arrange the classroom environment is much more important to student engagement than specific aspects of the child’s FX status, medication use or dual diagnosis (Symons, Clark & Roberts 2001).

There are a number of sensory needs that may also need attention in the classroom. Providing sensory supports can have a positive effect on the educational process. It is always critical to utilize a multidisciplinary approach and to consider the cognitive profile whenever implementing any strategy.

Advocating for an appropriate educational program, whether it be in the school system or through the transition to the world or work, requires an understanding of best practice and allows for more success in the process. There is now good research that supports anecdotal observations from therapists and teachers to request specific intervention and academic strategies to better meet the needs of those with FXS. With these supports and curricular adaptations, people with FXS will be more able to reach their full potential.

Simply put, a learning strategy is an individual's approach to complete a task. ... Therefore, teachers who teach learning strategies teach students how to learn, rather than teaching them specific curriculum content or specific skills.

What are learning strategies?

As students shift from the skills emphasis of elementary grades to the content emphasis of secondary grades, they face greater demands to read information from textbooks, take notes from lectures, work independently, and express understanding in written compositions and on paper and pencil tests (Schumaker & Deshler, 1984). For students who haven't acquired such important academic skills, the task of mastering content often comes with failure, particularly in inclusive general education classes. In response to this challenge, many students with learning problems, including those with learning disabilities (LD), have acquired and use specific learning strategies to become successful despite their knowledge and skill deficits.

Simply put, a learning strategy is an individual's approach to complete a task. More specifically, a learning strategy is an individual's way of organizing and using a particular set of skills in order to learn content or accomplish other tasks more effectively and efficiently in school as well as in nonacademic settings (Schumaker & Deshler, 1992). Therefore, teachers who teach learning strategies teach students how to learn, rather than teaching them specific curriculum content or specific skills.

What does the research say about learning strategies?

Much of the research and development of learning strategies for students with learning disabilities has come from researchers and educators affiliated with The University of Kansas, Center for Research on Learning. In general, their research suggests that use of learning strategies can improve student performance in inclusive settings or on grade appropriate tasks. In reading, for example, results from a study of the use of the Word Identification Strategy indicated that the number of oral reading errors decreased while reading comprehension scores increased for all students on ability level and grade level materials (Lenz & Hughes, 1990). Another study revealed that students using the Test Taking Strategy improved average test scores in inclusive classes from 57% to 71% (Hughes & Schumaker, 1991).

Other researchers in the area of learning strategies have also found positive results. For example, Graham, Harris, and colleagues (e.g., Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1991) have validated strategies for improving the quality of student compositions, planning processes, and revisions. In another line of research, Palincsar and Brown (e.g., Palincsar & Brown, 1986) successfully tested and replicated reciprocal teaching, a strategy to improve student reading performance. Scruggs and Mastropieri (e.g., Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1992) have validated several approaches to teach students how to construct and use mnemonics. Strategies tested by Miller and Mercer (e.g., Miller & Mercer, 1993) have resulted in improved student performance in math calculations as well as in solving word problems.

How do teachers teach learning strategies?

Educators normally adopt an instructional sequence in which students learn each strategy following these teacher-directed steps: (a) pretest, (b) describe, (c) model, (d) verbal practice, (e) controlled practice, (f) grade-appropriate practice, (g) posttest, (h) generalization (Schumaker & Deshler, 1992). After a teacher assesses the current level of student performance on a strategy pretest, students commit to learning a new strategy. The teacher then describes the characteristics of the strategy and when, where, why, and how the strategy is used. Next, the teacher models how to use the strategy by "thinking aloud" as the strategy is applied to content material. During the verbal practice step, students memorize the strategy steps and other critical use requirements. Afterwards, controlled practice activities enable students to become proficient strategy users with ability level materials. Teachers provide specific feedback on performance, and then students use the strategy with grade-appropriate or increasingly more difficult materials. Finally, after a posttest, teachers facilitate student generalization of strategy use in other academic and nonacademic settings.

Each strategy has multiple parts that students remember with the aid of a mnemonic. For example, in the Paraphrasing Strategy (Schumaker, Denton, & Deshler, 1984) students learn a reading comprehension strategy that is remembered by the acronym RAP:

Read a paragraph

Ask yourself, "What were the main idea and details in this paragraph?"

Put the main idea and details into your own words.

If students need to learn prerequisite skills, such as finding main ideas and details, teachers teach those before teaching the strategy, and reinforce student mastery of those skills during strategy instruction. Students typically learn to use a learning strategy in small groups, sometimes in a resource room, through short, intensive lessons over several weeks.

What resources are available for teachers?

The learning strategies curriculum developed is organized into three strands:

(a) information acquisition,

(b) information storage, and

(c) expression and demonstration of understanding.

The information acquisition strand features the Word Identification Strategy, the Paraphrasing Strategy, and others. The Word Identification Strategy (Lenz & Hughes, 1990) enables students to decode multisyllabic words. Students use the Paraphrasing Strategy (Schumaker, Denton, & Deshler, 1984) to improve reading comprehension of main ideas and details through paraphrasing.

The information storage strand includes the FIRST-letter Mnemonic Strategy, the Paired Associates Strategy, as well as others. Students who master the FIRST-letter Mnemonic Strategy are able to scan textbooks to create lists of critical information and devise first letter mnemonics to remember the material (Nagel, Schumaker, & Deshler, 1986). To better study and recall content, the Paired Associates Strategy enables students to pair pieces of new information with existing knowledge by using a visual device (Bulgren, Hock, Schumaker, & Deshler, 1995).

The expression and demonstration of understanding strand includes the Sentence Writing Strategy, the Test Taking Strategy, and others. The Sentence Writing Strategy is designed to teach students how to write simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences (Schumaker & Sheldon, 1985). The Test Taking Strategy is an integrated strategy used by students to focus attention on critical aspects of test items, systematically answer questions, and improve test performance (Hughes & Schumaker, 1991).

Effective Teaching Strategies to Use Every Day

There are some teaching strategies that educators just can’t live without. These can be simple things like making sure every student understands the concept they are being taught, to making sure that you are incorporating movement into every lesson. Some of these teaching strategies you probably use every day and do not even realize it. Here are five specific teaching strategies that many effective educators incorporate into their daily lesson plans.

Teaching Strategies that Make Sure Students are Comprehending the Information

It is extremely important to make sure that all students have a firm grasp of the information that is being taught before you move on in the lesson. The last thing that you want to do is to move forward with the lesson with some of your students still in question. An easy way to make sure that all students get it is to give them a red and green card to place on their desk. If they understand and are ready to move on, then they place the green card facing up. If they still do not understand, then they place the red card face up. The students who have their green card facing up can move on to independent practice, and the students who have the red card facing up meet you at the back table for further explanation.

Implementing Movement into All Lessons

Long gone are the days that students would sit still for lessons. After many studies were conducted on students being sedentary for long periods of time, we now know that we need to incorporate movement to keep children engaged longer. Effective teachers get their students up and moving and learning by making sure that every lesson has some sort of way students can move their bodies. From rotating learning stations to brain breaks that require students to do yoga poses, educators know that the more their students move, the longer they will stay engaged in their lesson.

Constantly Scanning the Classroom

As a teacher, one of your many jobs is to make sure that all of your students are staying on task. This requires you to constantly keep your eye on every child. When you do catch a student who is off task, a simple tap on the shoulder or a glare from across the room should suffice. Public humiliation and calling that student’s name aloud is unnecessary. It’s important to let your students know that when you do these two things, this means they are off task and now it’s their job to correct their behavior. If you have to continue to glare or tap their shoulder, then they will be further repercussions.

Students Working with their Peers

An effective way to get children talking is to have them work with their peers. Peer partnering has many benefits, from teaching children socialization skills to participating in activities where students can learn from one another. Working collaboratively with others helps students learn to give and receive feedback, as well as learn how to evaluate their own learning. A great way to make sure peer partnering works effectively is to teach students how to interact while in the group. Here are a few helpful prompts to keep posted for all students to reference.

• I agree with you because …
• I disagree with you because …
• I like what you said about …
• I would like to add …
• I heard you say …

Scaffolding Questions

Many of you may not realize it, but when you ask your students different-leveled questions, you are in fact scaffolding. A great way to make sure that all students are using their higher-order thinking skills is to scaffold the guided practice so that the difficulty will increase with each question. All students start with the same question, but the difficulty gets harder as the questions increase. This is a great strategy to use with all of your students to see where each student may struggle with the concept.

These are just five of many daily teaching strategies effective teachers use to make sure their classroom is a productive one. What are your favorite go-to teaching strategies to use in the classroom? Please share your favorite daily strategies in the comment section below, we would love to hear all about them.

No two teachers are alike, and any teacher with classroom teaching experience will agree that their style of teaching is uniquely their own. An effective teaching style engages students in the learning process and helps them develop critical thinking skills. Traditional teaching styles have evolved with the advent of differentiated instruction, prompting teachers to adjust their styles toward students’ learning needs.

In short, these instructional strategies have been demonstrated to, in at least one study, be “effective.” As implied above, it’s not that simple–and it doesn’t mean it will work well in your next lesson. But as a place to begin taking a closer look at what seems to work–and more importantly how and why it works–feel free to being your exploring with the list below.

32 Research-Based Instructional Strategies

1. Setting Objectives

2. Reinforcing Effort/Providing Recognition

3. Cooperative Learning

4. Cues, Questions & Advance Organizers

5. Nonlinguistic Representations 

6. Summarizing & Note Taking

7. Identifying Similarities and Differences

8. Generating & Testing Hypotheses

9. Instructional Planning Using the Nine Categories of Strategies

10. Rewards based on a specific performance standard (Wiersma 1992)

11. Homework for later grades (Ross 1998) with minimal parental involvement (Balli 1998) with a clear purpose (Foyle 1985)

12. Direct Instruction

13. Scaffolding Instruction

14. Provide opportunities for student practice

15. Individualized Instruction

16. Inquiry-Based Teaching

17. Concept Mapping

18. Reciprocal Teaching

19. Promoting student metacognition

20. Developing high expectations for each student

21. Providing clear and effective learning feedback

22. Teacher clarity (learning goals, expectations, content delivery, assessment results, etc.)

23. Setting goals or objectives (Lipset & Wilson 1993)

24. Consistent, ‘low-threat’ assessment (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik 1991; Fuchs & Fuchs 1986)

25. Higher-level questioning (Redfield & Rousseau 1981)

26. Learning feedback that is detailed and specific (Hattie & Temperly 2007)

27. The Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (Stauffer 1969)

28. Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) (Raphael 1982)

29. KWL Chart (Ogle 1986)

30. Comparison Matrix (Marzano 2001)

31. Anticipation Guides (Buehl 2001)

32. Response Notebooks (Readence, Moore, Rickelman, 2002)

Good teachers know that the best teaching strategies are based on research. Here are some MORE teaching strategies that work for all children, including those with learning and attention issues.

Begin a lesson by reviewing the last lesson.

The best teachers make sure students really understand the skills they need for the day’s lesson. That’s because the new lesson builds on the lesson of the day before. A study found that when teachers spent eight minutes every day going over homework and common mistakes, and practicing skills their students needed to memorize, students got higher test scores.

Present new information in small steps.

The place in our brains where we process information is small—so when we’re asked to learn too much at one time, we can get overwhelmed. A strategy called “chunking” can help with this. Chunking means teaching in small steps while checking for understanding along the way.

Ask many questions and talk about the answers.

Effective teachers ask lots of questions. They ask their students to explain how they got their answers. In a recent study, one group of teachers was asked to teach new material by asking questions and discussing. Their students ended up with higher scores than students whose teachers did not teach this way.

Provide models.

Good teachers show examples of problems that have already been solved. This can be very helpful, especially in math.

Ask students to explain what they learned.

Asking a student to think out loud while solving a problem or when planning to write an essay helps the teacher identify areas where a student needs more help. Research shows that this kind of out-loud thinking works much better than when a teacher simply asks students “Are there any questions?”

Provide scaffolds when teaching something difficult.

“Scaffolds” are teaching aids. Research tells us that aids like cue cards and charts can help children think more clearly as they learn new information. When teaching difficult material, teachers expect that students will make mistakes. So they show them ahead of times examples of the kinds of mistakes that are likely.

Review.

We know that students need a lot of practice and review to build and keep track of new ideas in their long-term memory. It’s easier for students to solve new problems when they have a wealth of background knowledge. Children will often forget material if they don’t keep practicing it.

These teaching strategies are good for all students—including students with learning and attention issues.

Key Takeaways

• Effective teachers present material in small steps.
• Effective teachers ask questions and discuss as they teach.
• Effective teachers give their students “scaffolds” for learning difficult tasks.

What are the different styles of teaching?

The following list of teaching styles highlights the five main strategies teachers use in the classroom, as well as the benefits and potential pitfalls of each respective teaching method.

Authority, or lecture style

The authority model is teacher-centered and frequently entails lengthy lecture sessions or one-way presentations. Students are expected to take notes or absorb information.

• Pros: This style is acceptable for certain higher-education disciplines and auditorium settings with large groups of students. The pure lecture style is most suitable for subjects like history that necessitate memorization of key facts, dates, names, etc.
• Cons: It is a questionable model for teaching children because there is little or no interaction with the teacher.

Demonstrator, or coach style

The demonstrator retains the formal authority role while allowing teachers to demonstrate their expertise by showing students what they need to know.

• Pros: This style gives teachers opportunities to incorporate a variety of formats including lectures, multimedia presentations and demonstrations.
• Cons: Although it’s well-suited for teaching mathematics, music, physical education, arts and crafts, it is difficult to accommodate students’ individual needs in larger classrooms.

Facilitator, or activity style

Facilitators promote self-learning and help students develop critical thinking skills and retain knowledge that leads to self-actualization.

• Pros: This style trains students to ask questions and helps develop skills to find answers and solutions through exploration; it is ideal for teaching science and similar subjects.
• Cons: Challenges teacher to interact with students and prompt them toward discovery rather than lecturing facts and testing knowledge through memorization.

Delegator, or group style

The delegator style is best-suited for curriculum that requires lab activities, such as chemistry and biology, or subjects that warrant peer feedback, like debate and creative writing.

• Pros: Guided discovery and inquiry-based learning places the teacher in an observer role that inspires students by working in tandem toward common goals.
• Cons: Considered a modern style of teaching, it is sometimes criticized as newfangled and geared toward teacher as consultant rather than the traditional authority figure.

Hybrid, or blended style

Hybrid, or blended style, follows an integrated approach to teaching that blends the teachers’ personality and interests with students’ needs and curriculum-appropriate methods.

• Pros: Achieves the inclusive approach of combining teaching style clusters and enables teachers to tailor their styles to student needs and appropriate subject matter.
• Cons: Hybrid style runs the risk of trying to be too many things to all students, prompting teachers to spread themselves too thin and dilute learning.

Because teachers have styles that reflect their distinct personalities and curriculum — from math and science to English and history — it’s crucial that they remain focused on their teaching objectives and avoid trying to be all things to all students.

What you need to know about your teaching style

Although it is not the teacher’s job to entertain students, it is vital to engage them in the learning process. Selecting a style that addresses the needs of diverse students at different learning levels begins with a personal inventory — a self-evaluation — of the teacher’s strengths and weaknesses. As they develop their teaching styles and integrate them with effective classroom management skills, teachers will learn what works best for their personalities and curriculum.

Our guide encapsulates today’s different teaching styles and helps teachers identify the style that’s right for them and their students. Browse through the article or use these links to jump to your desired destination.

Emergence of the teaching style inventory

How have teaching styles evolved? This is a question teachers are asked, and frequently ask themselves, as they embark on their careers, and occasionally pause along the way to reflect on job performance. To understand the differences in teaching styles, it’s helpful to know where the modern concept of classifying teaching methods originated.

The late Anthony F. Grasha, a noted professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, is credited with developing the classic five teaching styles. A follower of psychiatrist Carl Jung, Grasha began studying the dynamics of the relationship between teachers and learning in college classrooms. His groundbreaking book, “Teaching with Style,” was written both as a guide for teachers and as a tool to help colleagues, administrators and students systematically evaluate an instructor’s effectiveness in the classroom.

Grasha understood that schools must use a consistent, formal approach in evaluating a teacher’s classroom performance. He recognized that any system designed to help teachers improve their instructional skills requires a simple classification system. He developed a teaching style inventory that has since been adopted and modified by followers.

• Expert: Similar to a coach, experts share knowledge, demonstrate their expertise, advise students and provide feedback to improve understanding and promote learning.
• Formal authority: Authoritative teachers incorporate the traditional lecture format and share many of the same characteristics as experts, but with less student interaction.
• Personal model: Incorporates blended teaching styles that match the best techniques with the appropriate learning scenarios and students in an adaptive format.
• Facilitator: Designs participatory learning activities and manages classroom projects while providing information and offering feedback to facilitate critical thinking.
• Delegator: Organizes group learning, observes students, provides consultation, and promotes interaction between groups and among individuals to achieve learning objectives.

Although he developed specific teaching styles, Grasha warned against boxing teachers into a single category. Instead, he advocated that teachers play multiple roles in the classroom. He believed most teachers possess some combination of all or most of the classic teaching styles.

How does differentiated instruction impact teaching styles?

In the simplest terms, differentiated instruction means keeping all students in mind when developing lesson plans and workbook exercises, lectures and interactive learning. These student-focused differences necessitate instructional styles that embrace diverse classrooms for students at all learning levels and from various backgrounds without compromising the teacher’s strengths.

What teaching style is best for today’s students?

Whether you’re a first-year teacher eager to put into practice all of the pedagogical techniques you learned in college, or a classroom veteran examining differentiated instruction and new learning methodologies, consider that not all students respond well to one particular style. Although teaching styles have been categorized into five groups, today’s ideal teaching style is not an either/or proposition but more of a hybrid approach that blends the best of everything a teacher has to offer.

Here is a recap from the list of teaching methods described earlier.

• Authority, or lecture style: This traditional, formal approach to teaching is sometimes referred to as “the sage on the stage.”
• Demonstrator, or coach style: This style retains the formal authority role while allowing teachers to demonstrate their expertise by showing students what they need to learn.
• Facilitator, or activity style: This approach encourages teachers to function as advisors who help students learn by doing.
• Developer, or group style: This style allows teachers to guide students in a group setting to accomplish tasks and learn what works or doesn’t.
• Hybrid, or blended style: This approach incorporates different aspects of the various styles and gives teachers flexibility to tailor a personal style that’s right for their coursework and students.

The traditional advice that teachers not overreach with a cluster of all-encompassing teaching styles might seem to conflict with today’s emphasis on student-centered classrooms. Theoretically, the more teachers emphasize student-centric learning the harder it is to develop a well-focused style based on their personal attributes, strengths and goals.

In short, modern methods of teaching require different types of teachers — from the analyst/organizer to the negotiator/consultant. Here are some other factors to consider as teachers determine the best teaching method for their students.

Empty vessel: Critics of the “sage on the stage” lecture style point to the “empty vessel” theory, which assumes a student’s mind is essentially empty and needs to be filled by the “expert” teacher. Critics of this traditional approach to teaching insist this teaching style is outmoded and needs to be updated for the diverse 21st-century classroom.

Active vs. passive: Proponents of the traditional lecture approach believe that an overemphasis on group-oriented participatory teaching styles, like facilitator and delegator, favor gifted and competitive students over passive children with varied learning abilities, thereby exacerbating the challenges of meeting the needs of all learners.

Knowledge vs. information: Knowledge implies a complete understanding, or full comprehension, of a particular subject. A blend of teaching styles that incorporate facilitator, delegator, demonstrator, and lecturer techniques helps the broadest range of students acquire in-depth knowledge and mastery of a given subject. This stands in contrast to passive learning, which typically entails memorizing facts, or information, with the short-term objective of scoring well on tests.

Interactive classrooms: Laptops and tablets, videoconferencing and podcasts in classrooms play a vital role in today’s teaching styles. With technology in mind, it is imperative that teachers assess their students’ knowledge while they are learning. The alternative is to wait for test results, only to discover knowledge gaps that should have been detected during the active learning phase.

Constructivist teaching methods: Contemporary teaching styles tend to be group focused and inquiry driven. Constructivist teaching methods embrace subsets of alternative teaching styles, including modeling, coaching, and test preparation through rubrics scaffolding. All of these are designed to promote student participation and necessitate a hybrid approach to teaching. One criticism of the constructivist approach is it caters to extroverted, group-oriented students, who tend to dominate and benefit from these teaching methods more than introverts; however, this assumes introverts aren’t learning by observing.

Student-centric learning does not have to come at the expense of an instructor’s preferred teaching method. However, differentiated instruction demands that teachers finesse their style to accommodate the diverse needs of 21st-century classrooms.

The ‘sage on the stage’ meets the ‘tiger mom’

The objective of blending teaching styles to leverage the teacher’s strengths while meeting the demands of diverse students has become increasingly difficult, as parents take a decidedly proactive role in child-learning techniques.

The traditional authoritative/expert, or “sage on the stage” lecture style, has come under attack by some parents — and contemporary educational leaders — who emphasize that a more diverse approach to teaching is necessary to engage students. This is compounded by the rise of “tiger moms,” a term made popular by parents devoted to improving the quality of education with laser-precision focus on A-list schools and a highly competitive job market.

Age of the proactive parent

Regardless of what style a teacher adopts, it’s important for teachers to develop positive attitudes, set goals and establish high expectations for students.

“Assume students can excel!” education authors Harry and Rosemary Wong declare. As former teachers with a combined 80-plus years of educational experience, the Wongs emphasize in their best-selling book, “The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher” and their more recent, “The Classroom Management Book” that successful teachers share three common characteristics:

• effective classroom management skills
• lesson mastery
• positive expectations

All instructors, when developing their teaching styles, should keep in mind these three goals, as well as the primary objective of education: student learning.

How does classroom diversity influence teachers?

Diversity in the classroom defined. Having a diverse group of students simply means recognizing that all the people are unique in their own way. Their differences could consist of their reading level, athletic ability, cultural background, personality, religious beliefs, and the list goes on.

It is abundantly clear that today’s teachers are responsible for students with a diverse range of learning abilities. The 21st-century teacher does not have the luxury of “picking the low-hanging fruit” and then leaving the rest of the tree for experts who specialize in children with behavioral issues or learning disorders.achieving this goal in the day-to-day classroom is often hard to do. The goal of this teaching module is to highlight a few of the key challenges and concerns in promoting diversity, and illustrate ways to incorporate an understanding of diversity in the classroom and beyond.Diversity is a term that can have many different meanings depending on context. This module will not offer a comprehensive definition of the term, instead, this module will highlight two key areas related to diversity:

• Identify how diversity affects the classroom
• Provide practical tips for promoting an inclusive classroom

How Diversity A?ects the Classroom

Much discussion about diversity focuses on the following forms of marginalization: race, class, gender, and sexual orientation — and rightfully so, given the importance of these forms of difference. In fact, students come to the university classroom with different backgrounds, sets of experiences, cultural contexts, and world views.

Additionally, issues of diversity play a role in how students and teachers view the importance of the classroom and what should happen there. For example, assumptions about what a typical student should know, the resources they have and their prior knowledge are extremely important.

Students may perceive that they do not “belong” in the classroom setting — a feeling that can lead to decreased participation, feelings of inadequacy, and other distractions. Teachers may make flawed assumptions of students’ capabilities or assume a uniform standard of student performance. Teachers may themselves feel out of place based on their own ascriptive traits (i.e. differences based on class, privilege, etc.).

Identifying and thinking through notions of difference and how they affect the classroom allow both students and teachers to see the classroom as an inclusive place. 

Practical Tips for Promoting an Inclusive Classroom

While many discussions concerning diversity focus on talking about the importance of diversity and recognizing difference, it is equally important to move to the next step: incorporating specific tips for addressing differences and how they play out.

One way to form strategies for promoting an inclusive classroom is to use self-reflection and think of potential classroom scenarios and how one might address them. The solutions to such scenarios are ones that each teacher should consider for him- or herself, since there are no immediate right or wrong answers

Today’s teachers must develop instructional styles that work well in diverse classrooms. Effective teaching methods engage gifted students, as well as slow-learning children and those with attention deficit tendencies. This is where differentiated instruction and a balanced mix of teaching styles can help reach all students in a given classroom — not just the few who respond well to one particular style of teaching.

The wonderment of teaching, what author/educator Dr. Harry Wong refers to as “that ah-ha moment” when a child “gets it,” is one of the most rewarding and seemingly elusive benefits of becoming a teacher. This transference of knowledge from expert to student is an art form and a skill. Fortunately, both can be learned and perfected.

Knowing how to engage students begins with selecting the teaching style that’s right for you. And remember, even though you may prefer one teaching style over another, you must find the style that works best for your students! Try different styles to meet different objectives, and always challenge yourself to find ways to reach each student.There are many school factors that affect the success of culturally diverse students ? the school's atmosphere and overall attitudes toward diversity, involvement of the community, and culturally responsive curriculum, to name a few. Of all of these factors, the personal and academic relationships between teachers and their students may be the most influential. This relationship has been referred to as the "core relationship" of learning ? the roles of teachers and students, the subject matter, and their interaction in the classroom.

Certain behaviors and instructional strategies enable teachers to build a stronger teaching/learning relationship with their culturally diverse students. Many of these behaviors and strategies exemplify standard practices of good teaching, and others are specific to working with students from diverse cultures. A number of these behaviors and strategies are listed below.

Teacher Behaviors

Appreciate and accommodate the similarities and differences among the students' cultures. Effective teachers of culturally diverse students acknowledge both individual and cultural differences enthusiastically and identify these differences in a positive manner. This positive identification creates a basis for the development of effective communication and instructional strategies. Social skills such as respect and cross-cultural understanding can be modeled, taught, prompted, and reinforced by the teacher.

Build relationships with students. Interviews with African-American high school students who presented behavior challenges for staff revealed that they wanted their teachers to discover what their lives were like outside of school and that they wanted an opportunity to partake in the school's reward systems. Developing an understanding of students' lives also enables the teacher to increase the relevance of lessons and make examples more meaningful.

Focus on the ways students learn and observe students to identify their task orientations. Once students' orientations are known, the teacher can structure tasks to take them into account. For example, before some students can begin a task, they need time to prepare or attend to details. In this case, the teacher can allow time for students to prepare, provide them with advance organizers, and announce how much time will be given for preparation and when the task will begin. This is a positive way to honor their need for preparation, rituals, or customs.

Teach students to match their behaviors to the setting. We all behave differently in different settings. For example, we behave more formally at official ceremonies. Teaching students the differences between their home, school, and community settings can help them switch to appropriate behavior for each context. For example, a teacher may talk about the differences between conversations with friends in the community and conversations with adults at school and discuss how each behavior is valued and useful in that setting. While some students adjust their behavior automatically, others must be taught and provided ample opportunities to practice. Involving families and the community can help students learn to adjust their behavior in each of the settings in which they interact.

Instructional Strategies

Use a variety of instructional strategies and learning activities. Offering variety provides the students with opportunities to learn in ways that are responsive to their own communication styles, cognitive styles, and aptitudes. In addition, the variety helps them develop and strengthen other approaches to learning.

Consider students' cultures and language skills when developing learning objectives and instructional activities. Facilitate comparable learning opportunities for students with differing characteristics. For example, consider opportunities for students who differ in appearance, race, sex, disability, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, or ability.

Incorporate objectives for affective and personal development. Provide increased opportunities for high and low achievers to boost their self-esteem, develop positive self-attributes, and enhance their strengths and talents. Such opportunities can enhance students' motivation to learn and achieve.

Communicate expectations. Let the students know the "classroom rules" about talking, verbal participation in lessons, and moving about the room. Tell them how long a task will take to complete or how long it will take to learn a skill or strategy, and when appropriate, give them information on their ability to master a certain skill or complete a task. For example, it may be necessary to encourage students who expect to achieve mastery but are struggling to do so. They may need to know that they have the ability to achieve mastery, but must work through the difficulty.

Provide rationales. Explain the benefits of learning a concept, skill, or task. Ask students to tell you the rationale for learning and explain how the concept or skill applies to their lives at school, home, and work.

Use advance and post organizers. At the beginning of lessons, give the students an overview and tell them the purpose or goal of the activity. If applicable, tell them the order that the lesson will follow and relate it to previous lessons. At the end of the lesson, summarize its main points.

Provide frequent reviews of the content learned. For example, check with the students to see if they remember the difference between simple and compound sentences. Provide a brief review of the previous lesson before continuing on to a new and related lesson.

Facilitate independence in thinking and action. There are many ways to facilitate students' independence. For example, when students begin their work without specific instruction from the teacher, they are displaying independence. When students ask questions, the teacher can encourage independence by responding in a way that lets the student know how to find the answer for him- or herself. When teachers ask students to evaluate their own work or progress, they are facilitating independence, and asking students to perform for the class (e.g., by reciting or role-playing) also promotes independence.

Promote student on-task behavior. Keeping students on task maintains a high level of intensity of instruction. By starting lessons promptly and minimizing transition time between lessons, teachers can help students stay on task. Shifting smoothly (no halts) and efficiently (no wasted effort) from one lesson to another and being business-like about housekeeping tasks such as handing out papers and setting up audiovisual equipment helps to maintain their attention. Keeping students actively involved in the lessons ? for example, by asking questions that require students to recall information ? also helps them to stay focused and increases the intensity of instruction.

Monitor students' academic progress during lessons and independent work. Check with students during seatwork to see if they need assistance before they have to ask for help. Ask if they have any questions about what they are doing and if they understand what they are doing. Also make the students aware of the various situations in which a skill or strategy can be used as well as adaptations that will broaden its applicability to additional situations.

Provide frequent feedback. Feedback at multiple levels is preferred. For example, acknowledging a correct response is a form of brief feedback, while prompting a student who has given an incorrect answer by providing clues or repeating or rephrasing the question is another level. The teacher may also give positive feedback by stating the appropriate aspects of a student's performance. Finally, the teacher may give positive corrective feedback by making students aware of specific aspects of their performance that need work, reviewing concepts and asking questions, making suggestions for improvement, and having the students correct their work.

Require mastery. Require students to master one task before going on to the next. When tasks are assigned, tell the students the criteria that define mastery and the different ways mastery can be obtained. When mastery is achieved on one aspect or portion of the task, give students corrective feedback to let them know what aspects they have mastered and what aspects still need more work. When the task is complete, let the students know that mastery was reached.

Surely a diverse classroom is the ideal laboratory in which to learn the multiple perspectives required by a global society and to put to use information concerning diverse cultural patterns. Students who learn to work and play collaboratively with classmates from various cultures are better prepared for the world they face now—and the world they will face in the future. Teaching and learning strategies that draw on the social history and the everyday lives of students and their cultures can only assist this learning process.

Teachers promote critical thinking when they make the rules of the classroom culture explicit and enable students to compare and contrast them with other cultures. Students can develop cross-cultural skills in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. For such learning to take place, however, teachers must have the attitudes, knowledge, and skills to make their classrooms effective learning environments for all students. Given the opportunity, students can participate in learning communities within their schools and neighborhoods and be ready to assume constructive roles as workers, family members, and citizens in a global society.

Zeichner (1992) has summarized the extensive literature that describes successful teaching approaches for diverse populations. From his review, he distilled 12 key elements for effective teaching for ethnic- and language-minority students.

1. Teachers have a clear sense of their own ethnic and cultural identities.
2. Teachers communicate high expectations for the success of all students and a belief that all students can succeed.
3. Teachers are personally committed to achieving equity for all students and believe that they are capable of making a difference in their students' learning.
4. Teachers have developed a bond with their students and cease seeing their students as "the other."
5. Schools provide an academically challenging curriculum that includes attention to the development of higher-level cognitive skills.
6. Instruction focuses on students' creation of meaning about content in an interactive and collaborative learning environment.
7. Teachers help students see learning tasks as meaningful.
8. Curricula include the contributions and perspectives of the different ethnocultural groups that compose the society.
9. Teachers provide a "scaffolding" that links the academically challenging curriculum to the cultural resources that students bring to school.
10. Teachers explicitly teach students the culture of the school and seek to maintain students' sense of ethnocultural pride and identity.
11. Community members and parents or guardians are encouraged to become involved in students' education and are given a significant voice in making important school decisions related to programs (such as resources and staffing).
12. Teachers are involved in political struggles outside the classroom that are aimed at achieving a more just and humane society.

Strategies for Direct Instruction

• Specify clear lesson objectives
• Teach directly to those objectives
• Make learning as concrete and meaningful as possible
• Provide relevant guided practice
• Provide independent practice
• Provide transfer practice activities

Strategies for Students with Disabilities *

• Sequence – Break down the task, step by step prompts.
• Drill-repetition and practice-review – Daily testing of skills, repeated practice, daily feedback.
• Segment – Break down targeted skill into smaller units and then synthesize the parts into a whole.
• Direct question and response – Teacher asks process-related questions and/or content-related questions.
• Control the difficulty or processing demands of a task – Task is sequenced from easy to difficult and only necessary hints or probes are provided.
• Technology – Use a computer, structured text, flow charts to facilitate presentation, emphasis is on pictorial representations.
• Group Instruction – Instruction occurs in a small group, students and/or teacher interact with the group.
• Supplement teacher and peer involvement – Use homework, parents, or others to assist in instruction.
• Strategy clues – Reminders to use strategies or multi-steps, the teacher verbalizes problem solving or procedures to solve, instruction uses think-aloud models

My ideas of Strategies:

Maintain high standards and demonstrate high expectations for all ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students.

Show students you care by getting to know their individual needs and strengths and sharing their concerns, hopes, and dreams.

Understand students' home cultures to better comprehend their behavior in and out of the classroom.

Encourage active participation of parents or guardians.

Tap into students' backgrounds to enhance learning.

Choose culturally relevant curriculum and instructional materials that recognize, incorporate, and reflect students' heritage and the contributions of various ethnic groups.

Identify and dispel stereotypes.

Create culturally compatible learning environments.

Use cooperative learning strategies.

Capitalize on students' cultures, languages, and experiences.

Integrate the arts in the curriculum.

Promote students' health.

Incorporate multiple forms of assessment.

Establish truly bilingual classrooms.

These stategies shall help students become independent, strategic learners. And these would become learning strategies when learners independently select the appropriate ones and use them effectively to accomplish tasks or meet goals.

These Strategies can:

?motivate learners and help them focus attention

?organize information for understanding and remembering

?monitor and assess learning.

To become successful strategic learners students need:

?step-by-step strategy instruction

?a variety of instructional approaches and learning materials

?appropriate support that includes modelling, guided practice and independent practice

?opportunities to transfer skills and ideas from one situation to another

?meaningful connections between skills and ideas, and real-life situations

?opportunities to be independent and show what they know

?encouragement to self-monitor and self-correct

?tools for reflecting on and assessing own learning.

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