5 High Impact Teaching Strategies | Visible Learning
Teachers use many teaching methods to support learning in a classroom. But which strategies are going to have the most influence in maximising student acheivement?
John Hattie, in his Visible Learning research looks at thousands of meta-analyses involving millions of students to ascertain what is not just supporting learning but accelerating it!
Here, we’ll countdown 5 high impact teaching strategies & methodologies that you can use in your classroom to accelerate student achievement beyond what is expected in a typical classroom.
Teaching Strategy #5: Jigsaw Method
The Jigsaw method is a cooperative learning method, where students are first split into their Home Groups with each student studying a different sub-topic than those in their group. For example, if the lesson was on sustainable energy, then the sub-topics could be: wind power (grey), solar power (yellow), biomass (green), hydro-energy (blue) , geothermal energy (brown).
Students then break into Expert Groups, joining up with other students who have received the same sub-topic. In the Expert Groups, students discuss the main points of their sub-topic and rehearse a presentation that they will present back in their home group. This provides opportunities for students to fill in gaps in their knowledge and eliminate misconceptions.
Later, students return to their Home Groups to present to their peers. Groups are encouraged to ask questions to clarify information and finally at the end of the session, there may be a quiz to check for understanding.
Teaching Strategy #4: Piagetian Programs
Piagetian programs refers to choosing resources relevant to 4 stages of cognitive development defined by Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist. Understanding that thinking may be constrained by developmental age can help you develop tasks that have sufficient support and challenge to develop further thinking skills.
In high school, we’re at the formal operational stage, students are developing their abstract thinking skills. As teachers we can provide concrete and visual scaffolds to support this. For example in Science, students may explore a concept by first doing an experiment such as boiling water before learning about the abstract concept, which in this case would be particle theory. Understanding that the goal is to support the development of abstract thinking can help you tailor tasks and activities accordingly.
Teaching Strategy #3: Response to Intervention
We know that feedback about student learning is important. We can embed multiple checkpoints to gauge student understanding. It is equally if not more important to provide those early opportunities to give systematic assistance to students who are struggling with their learning.
This might look like customised individual or small group interventions which may be conducted by the teacher or by teaching support officers.
Teaching Strategy #2: Cognitive Task Analysis
Cognitive task analysis which is about teaching students not just content but how to think and problem solve. Most likely you’re already doing this. The aim is to ensure students are aware of the task analysis skills they need for successful learning.
In maths, this could look like encouraging discussion with using higher order questions that challenge students’ thinking.
Teaching Strategy #1: Self-Reported Grades
It turns out that students have a fairly reasonable understanding of their levels of achievement. What we can do as educators is support students by identifying student’s expectations of themselves and then pushing them to set challenging goals for their learning. We do this by involve them in monitoring and reflecting on their own progress.
This could involve sharing or co-creating rubrics with students to allow them to self-assess. The key is to engage students in taking ownership of their own learning. In doing this, we can raise the expectations students have on themselves which has the potential to accelerate their learning.
Many things are going to support learning.
Instead, let’s accelerate learning.
Thanks for reading!
