Teacher's Question of the Week
Q. Is there an easier way to get the rock up the hill? How do I design strategies for my own course? What guidelines exist for teaching a strategy?
A. Teaching a strategy involves a certain fascination with how people learn. While becoming an automaton is not recommended, looking for patterns and implementing common sense and reasoning based on experience and research is at the heart of "strategic learning".
If your purpose is something like to help students gain the most from reading their textbooks, using a study skill such as SQ5R and demonstrating it using your course text, as suggested below, may be all you need. On the other hand, if you have a penchant for originality, you may wish to figure out a strategy for some lessons in your own curriculum. Take a section that students have more difficulty mastering than other parts. Try using that while following the guidelines below.
Designing
and Teaching a Strategy
1.
Do a “Task Analysis” of an important task students need to master,
or one that they have a difficult time mastering using standard ways of teaching.
2.
Identify prerequisite knowledge or skills (overt and covert).
3.
Design steps of strategy to complete the academic or clinical task.
4.
Pretest (formally or informally), if needed.
5.
Make thinking visible by talking aloud; model how to think through task.
6.
Use multi-sensory methods to ensure access to all learning styles.
7.
Ask students to practice with easier material or with support; give feedback.
8.
Ask students to practice at appropriate level to meet expectations.
9.
Give corrective feedback if error patterns are noted. Give positive feedback
too.
10.
Evaluate performance informally or formally.
11. Set students up to use skills in new setting (transfer; generalization).
An introduction to the description above is available by clicking here.
An even more verbose description is available here, along with three levels of choices, ranging from simple to complex.
Please email me with any questions.