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Approaches and Considerations to Instruction

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Approaches and Considerations to Instruction

Before discussing approaches and considerations to instruction, complete the assessment below to check what you already know, what you need to unlearn, and what you might be interested in exploring further.

As mentioned earlier, having a sound theory to use as a guide when teachers plan instruction and learning activities is beneficial. Take a look at this Visual Literacy Activity to move from abstract to directly applying a teaching method to a classroom learning environment. This will assist in developing your own philosophy of education.

Reflection IconReflect

The Nexus of Lived Experiences and Teaching Philosophy

Reflect on how teachers apply learning theories in their daily instruction by first making a connection to your own lived experience. How might your lived experiences inform your teaching philosophy?

To consider this, reflect on the following prompt.

Think of a teacher, elder, relative, community leader, etc., who positively impacted your life.

  • How did they approach teaching and learning?  Describe an example from your life of when you were taught something and then connect this experience to a key learning theory method or model described in this module: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, etc.
  • In your current field experience, identify an example of a key learning theory method or model described, such as behaviorism, cognitivism, or constructivism.

Instructional Methods

Bloom’s Taxonomy[1]

Diagram of Blooms-Taxonomy

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom, with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl, published a framework for categorizing educational goals:Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

This taxonomy comprised six major categories: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The categories after knowledge were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice. While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development[2]

Lev Vygotsky is a well-known cognitive theorist. One of the major tenets in Vygotsky’s theory of learning (Vygotsky, 1986) is the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what they can do with help.

Concentric circles of Zone of proximal development

Vygotsky’s often-quoted definition of zone of proximal development says ZPD is “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). The concept of scaffolding is closely related to the ZPD. Scaffolding is a process through which a teacher or more competent peer gives aid to the student in her/his ZPD as necessary and tapers off this aid as it becomes unnecessary, much as a scaffold is removed from a building during construction. While we often think of a teacher as the more “expert other” in ZPD, this individual does not have to be a teacher. Sometimes, our own students are the “expert other” in certain areas. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes that we can learn more with and through each other.

Direct Instruction[3]

In general usage, the term direct instruction refers to (1) instructional approaches that are structured, sequenced, and led by teachers and/or (2) the presentation of academic content to students by teachers, such as in a lecture or demonstration. In other words, teachers are “directing” the instructional process, or instruction is being “directed” at students.

The basic techniques of direct instruction extend beyond lecturing, presenting, or demonstrating; many are considered foundational to effective teaching. For example:

  • Establish learning objectives for lessons, activities, and projects, then ensure students understand the goals.
  • Purposefully organize and sequence a series of lessons, projects, and assignments that move students toward understanding and achieving specific academic goals.
  • Review instructions for an activity or modeling a process—such as a scientific experiment—so that students know what they are expected to do.
  • Provide students with clear explanations, descriptions, and illustrations of the knowledge and skills taught.
  • Ask questions to ensure that the students understand after a lesson.

Teachers rarely use direct instruction or some other teaching approach—in practice, diverse strategies are frequently blended together. For these reasons, negative perceptions of direct instruction likely result more from a widespread overreliance on the approach and from the tendency to view it as an either/or option rather than from its inherent value to the instructional process (Carnine, Silbert, Kameenui, & Tarver, 1997).

Question and Answer

The question-and-answer technique allows students to apply knowledge and offers a more reflective response.  By asking questions, teachers invite brief responses from students, incorporating their prior knowledge and some interpretation of that knowledge. This indicates whether students were listening and understanding the material being presented. Questions motivate students to listen and assess how much and how well they know the material. Incorporating this instructional approach allows both the teacher to ask students questions and students to ask the teacher questions, fostering a better understanding of the lesson (Paul & Elder, 2007).

Discussion

In this instructional strategy, the role of the teacher shifts to leading an exchange of ideas about a specific topic. The teacher is no longer the sole provider of the content as students gain a voice for their ideas and the research they have conducted. At times, the teacher may assign students individual concepts they must discuss during the discussion. Some control of what course the discussion takes devolves to students. All of the content planned for the lesson might not be discussed. In fact, after reflecting on the day’s discussion, a teacher might have to begin the next day’s discussion on important content that had been overlooked or squeezed out of the lesson.

Teachers need to develop strategies so that the voices of all students are heard. In addition, for effective class discussions, students need to listen to what their classmates are saying so that the points made during the dialogue allow students to make sense of the new ideas. As the discussion takes place, time should be taken for the teacher or, better yet, a student to summarize the important points (Brookfield & Preskill, 2012).

Mental Modeling

A mental model is created when a person perceives how something works in the real world and then formalizes that thought process. Mental modeling is a student-centered pedagogical strategy that helps students to solve problems or make decisions. For example, a mathematics teacher verbally models her thought process while solving a problem in front of the class using mental modeling. When teachers model the process of thinking or doing, the strategy of mental modeling becomes clearer to students. Students may then explain their mental models to learn the strategy and improve their use.

Mental modeling often starts with a question; for example: why does lake-effect snow occur? “What if” questions are also good starting points, for example: What if gravity ceased entirely? Strategies used by teachers and students engaged in mental modeling include observation, asking questions, and location and analysis of information. The level of cognitive load in mental modeling is high, making it a strategy that should be employed often.

Teachers are encouraged to help students select the right mental model and help students select relevant information to develop their model. Teachers should create or find problems, case studies, lab activities, and projects at the appropriate grade level for their students. For students to succeed, they need the appropriate background knowledge and support to develop an accurate mental model. Often, students succeed more when they focus on the process instead of the outcome (Hestenes, D, 2010).

Inquiry-Based Learning

When students investigate to answer a question about a particular topic, they are using inquiry or inquiry-based learning. When teachers use inquiry-based learning, students or teachers may identify questions; however, in any case, questions should be open-ended. Inquiry learning may be experienced individually, but it is beneficial when students work with other students. Differing perspectives and varied resources are important to inquiry-based projects.

Responding to questions such as “Why is the sky blue?” demands high-order thinking skills from both the student and the teacher. Allowing students to explore a broad topic and choose questions they are invested in creates the best environment for successful inquiry-based projects. Students benefit from learning and negotiating through group investigation to answer a question.

Teachers who wish to engage in inquiry-based learning set the stage for this process in three ways:

  1. Assess students to determine their knowledge of the topic and lay the groundwork when that knowledge does not exist.
  2. Match the scope of the inquiry question to the learning level of students.
  3. Provide resources and/or internet search strategies for locating credible resources to inform the inquiry.

The teacher’s role in inquiry-based learning is one of mentor and advisor. Students may struggle through problems; however, if the struggle occurs at a level that students may be successful, this struggle is worthwhile. In this case, the teacher’s most challenging role is to resist answering questions that would inform the inquiry and, therefore, negate the process for the student!

Inquiry-based learning requires time and patience; however, this teaching strategy lays the groundwork for real-world learning in which students will engage throughout their lives (Sharples, Collins, Feißt, Gaved, Mulholland, Paxton, & Wright, 2011).

Discovery Learning

“Discovery learning is a type of learning where learners construct their own knowledge by experimenting with a domain and inferring rules from the results of these experiments” (Van Joolingen, 2000, p.385).

In today’s educational realm, discovery learning is also called problem-based or experiential learning. Students participate through a hands-on approach, and learning is interactive. Through discovery learning, students are encouraged to explore with little guidance from the instructor. Discovery learning is based on the beliefs of Piaget (Ültanır, 2012), in which students are provided with a topic, and from that point, students choose how they are going to learn, discover new information, synthesize the information and do so without correction from the teacher. The teacher gives feedback to the student, as do the other class members, once the project is complete.

It is important that teachers create specific goals and guide students through discovery learning using pre-determined structures, such as group work, fieldwork, or interaction with others. Unless this is the case, students may have too much freedom, resulting in a lack of rigor within the method. However, Mayer (2004) states, “In many ways, guided discovery offers the best method for promoting constructivist learning. The challenge of teaching by guided discovery is knowing how much and what kind of guidance to provide and how to specify the desired outcome of learning.” (p.14)

Cooperative Learning

In group work, students are assigned one or more partners to collaborate on ideas in a strategy like think-pair-share or problem-solving. Before students begin working, the teacher explains the objectives, expectations, and details of the activity or project. This explanation is meant to ensure all group members understand the group’s goal. As the group works together, all members are expected to teach and learn from each other. At the end of the group activity, the teacher may debrief with groups or may provide a grade on a group artifact.

Students often need to be oriented on how to work effectively with their peers. Listening to group members’ ideas and not attaching self-worth to proposed ideas go a long way toward reaching the activity’s goals. Compromise is a skill that requires practice to be effective.  Aligning group activities with the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Benchmarks (New York State, 2018) provides a well-defined way to identify and advance students’ skills to be effective group members.

When engaging students in group work, teachers should circulate to monitor the groups’ progress toward accomplishing the lesson’s objectives. Asking groups what they are discussing and why that is important to the topic reinforces the idea that the group activity is educational. As teachers see group behavior that is not on-task, the teacher should not hesitate to address this with the group. This reinforces to all groups that students are individually accountable for their behavior in the group. They are not “lost in a crowd” (Blatchford, Kutnick, Baines, & Galton, 2003).

Deeper Dive IconDeeper Dive

Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning (PBL) is another instructional method that can be used to engage students. PBL allows students to approach learning through exploration and collaboration. The articles linked below provide more context about what this type of instruction might look like in context.

Conclusion

This chapter explored various instructional approaches that you, as a teacher, can use in your classroom. The type of approach that you choose to use in the context of your classroom will depend on the lesson, the students, and the content being taught. Awareness of these instructional approaches will allow you to teach your students more effectively because you will have many different ways to engage students.

Knowledge Check IconKnowledge Check

A Day In the Life of a Teacher

References

  1. The following section is from Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved October 29, 2024 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/. ↵
  2. The following section is revised from Foundations of American Education: A Critical Lens by Melissa Wells and Courtney Clayton, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License ↵
  3. The remaining part of the chapter is revised from SUNY Oneonta Education Department (n.d.) Foundations of Education. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. ↵

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