Instructional Strategies

The Instructional Strategies INTASC standards calls for the teacher to understand and use 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. In my experience, creative instructional strategies and fun learning makes for learning passion. Encouraging life-long learners is my core goal as an educator, and to do that I must show my students how fun and valuable learning can be. To exhibit a few of my instructional strategies, I have provided three instructional strategies I have used in previous units that were all uniquely designed to encourage learners.

Artifact 1 is an activity designed for and taught to an 8^th Grade World History Class to cover the three main ancient Chinese philosophies. This lesson focused on the strategy of real-world connection, individual research, scaffolded conclusion questions completed individually, surprise connection, and class discussion for misconception correction. Instead of just lecturing the students on the three philosophies, they are able to connect the philosophies to a real-world context, practice research and analysis skills, build confidence in their individual ability to learn, and come to the correct conclusions themselves in conjunction with group support. Artifact 2 is an activity designed for and taught to a 10^th grade American History Class to cover 1950s suburban culture. This activity follows a “jigsaw” strategy where bye students teach each other based on academic articles and student-led class discussion uncovers the correct conclusions about the content. By the end of class, students have mastered their particular area of research and have gathered all of the content information on a summarizing worksheet. This helps students learn while also developing analytical, conclusive, and presentation skills. Artifact 3 is an activity that was designed for and taught to a mostly 12^th grade Intro to Economics classroom to cover labor union history and labor contracts. This activity uses the strategy of DBQ-style readings, student supported arguments, and creation to encourage student long-term learning and deeper comprehension. While learning, students also develop skills of comprehension, analysis, argument support, conclusion support, and individual creation.