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Instructional Strategies

InTASC Standard #8 -- The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.

Introduction

IS: Introduction

I like to think of instructional strategies like a toolbox--each tool is specifically crafted to best complete a specific task. Similarly, each instructional strategy in my pedagogical toolkit is specifically crafted to best teach a certain skill or accomplish a specific learning objective. Teaching students who are considered behind the learning curve by most, has tested and strengthened my abilities as a teacher to assess, develop, and implement countless strategies in order to satisfy the learning needs of all my students and ultimately lead to visibly higher levels of engagement and therefore higher academic success in my students. Having a teacher toolkit with a variety of instructional strategies  and resources is necessary to adapt instruction to the needs of individuals and groups of learners. It is amazing to see how some students respond with enthusiastic engagement at certain strategies and groan at others. This is where differentiation of instruction comes in handy. A successful teacher is one who can employ a variety of strategies which meet students where they are with regard to their learning needs and preferences in order to have them willfully engage in meaningful learning experiences and ultimately achieve the high academic expectations set for them. 

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This section of my teaching portfolio will present and describe evidence of some of the various instructional strategies which I use in my classroom in order to elicit high rates of engagement and foster deep understanding of content in my students so that they may make meaningful connections as they continue their educational journey. Please click on an instructional strategy below to learn more about how I implement that strategy in my classroom to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content and build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.

Conclusion

IS: Conclusion

Instructional strategies act as the bridges between content and student minds. They allow for significant connections to be made and long term-knowledge to be retained in the minds of my students. They provide opportunities for me to reach so many of my students who are not typical learners by incorporating the type of learning that they prefer and best respond to and if planned and executed correctly, instructional strategies allow me to become nearly invisible in my classroom as my students engage in meaningful learning experiences that they will retain for years to come. Selecting appropriate strategies and resources to adapt instruction to the needs of my students with proper implementation allows for me to continuously monitor student learning and engage learners in assessing their progress. By diversifying my instructional strategies I am able to keep my students interested in the content and have them entering the door to my classroom asking, "what are we doing today?" with enthusiasm and curiosity. This diversification also allows me to engage my learners in using a range of learning skills and technology tools to access, interpret, evaluate and apply information as we work to develop our communication skills and metacognitive processes.The prerequisite to providing such engaging experience for my students, however, is getting to know them, what their learning needs and style preferences are, and meeting them at the intersection of knowledge and curiosity to provide the best learning experiences I can as an educator. One of the reasons I love teaching science so much is because I believe that science is not something you can fully comprehend through reading or listening alone, and only through doing, creating, and investigating will my students be able to fully immerse themselves in all that an education in science has to offer them. It is for these reasons that I am committed to deepening my students' awareness of science as an educator through understanding the strengths and needs of all my learners and planning and providing relevant, engaging instruction which values my learners as individuals to provide the best education possible.    

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