Six Research-based Instructional Strategies

1) Cooperativ
e Learning
Groups

2) Identifying
Similarities
&
Differences

3) Nonlinguistics
Representa
tion/
Graphic
Organizers

Allowing students to do assignments/ reading/ projects/ etc. in

productive groups
Helps students learn multiple skills simultaneously (current
content material, communication, conflict resolution, role
responsibility, leadership, time management) no other
instructional strategy simultaneously achieves all of these
outcomes
Groups should be heterogeneous (should include all ability levels
of children in each group- they can learn from each other)
Good to allow to work in groups at least once a week (also do not
overuse because also need to learn to work independently)
Connect prior previously learned knowledge to new content
(compare and contrast to make connections )
Make sure, as a teacher, that you are aware of cultural differences
among students (and yourself) in your classroom.
Cultural differences can affect many aspects of learning:
o New knowledge is built from what we already know
(common experiences), but students who do not come
from the mainstream culture may not share common
previous experiences, so they will need additional
explanation and examples to help connect new material
and existing knowledge
o Diff. cultures also have diff. ways of showing interest,
respect, appreciation, etc so do not misinterpret
actions/word and teach classmates to do the same
o Make sure to use a variety of teaching styles (visuals,
organizers for those slow in lang. dev.) and reinforce
language and culture
A visual representation for students of the new material
Students use 4 modalities for learning and retaining knowledge
(visual, auditory, linguistic, kinesthetic) and you can turn a
graphic organizer into an activity that allows students to use all of
the modalities
Can help students to see relationships/patterns between items,
order of events, metacognition
Students can recall and apply ideas more easily when they find
patterns when they store that information
Visualization leads to an increase in understanding
Examples: KWL chart, venn diagram, time sequence pattern
organizer, descriptive pattern organizer

Six Research-based Instructional Strategies

4) Homework
& Practice

5) Advanced
Organizers

6) Cues &
Questions

2 purposes for assigning hmwk:

o to practice a new skill (that just learned)
o to introduce/ prepare for a skill that students will be
learning the next day minimal hmwk on this or simple
since they are not familiar with concept yet
the amount of hmwk that should be given: 10 times the grade
level of the student (ex: 3rd grade x 10 = 30 mins of hmwk)
teacher should give detailed/ prompt feedback
Advanced organizers are graphic organizers (which show how
new ideas/concepts relate) using higher order thinking questions
from Blooms Taxonomy
Examples: venn diagram to compare and contrast, story map,
semantic mapping

Teachers ask questions and give cues to prompt responses and the
correct responses from students
Questions are what cue students to learn, cues involve hints about
what students are about to experience
Higher order and lower order questions should always be asked,
but mostly higher order (on Blooms Taxonomy)
Higher order questions ask students to analyze, create, apply,
organize, compare, evaluate, explain, etc
Lower order questions ask students to simply copy and memorize
word for word material from books/lectures