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Plasmalink - Glossary of Instructional Strategies Category: Management > Instructional Strategies Date & country: 14/10/2008, USA Words: 676

Defining
Any activity that requires students or teachers to state the meaning of a word or phrase.

Deliberations
Ask students to support one point of view on topic, then take and support opposing point of view. Then write position paper.

Demonstrations
An activity to show students how things work or how they happen. Demonstrations are often used in science classes.

Descriptions
Telling about something. When done by teachers, descriptions are usually used to introduce new information. When done by students, descriptions are used to demonstrate knowledge of a concept.

Design Contests
In addition to design contests within the classroom, many corporations sponsor design contests to encourage creativity and innovation at many levels of education.

Designing
A form of planning.

Devil's Advocate
A dialectical approach in which the teacher proposes or defends an extreme or unpopular viewpoint. Used to initiate or stimulate a discussion or debate, For example, in a class on environmental issues the teacher might suggest that the nearby wetlands be drained because of the many mosquitos that breed there.

Dialectical Approaches
A discussion or argument in which a thesis and its antithesis are broken down into related core ideas in order to help participants evaluate or challenge existing assumptions.

Dialectical Journal
A two column note-taking or journal method that features quotes or ideas from the text in one column, and ideas from the reader in the other column.

Didactic Instruction
Teacher-centered instruction in which the teacher tells the student what to think about a topic. Used for the delivery of factual (not debated) information.

Didactic Questions
Questions which tend to have a single answer and allow students to demonstrate lower order thinking like recall.

DIDLS
A technique for analyzing the style of a piece of literature. Diction (choice of words), Imagery, Details, Language, and Syntax (structure and patterns of sentences).

Dioramas
A three-dimensional scene, usually created by the students, and acting as a miniature model.

Direct Instruction
Teacher-centered instruction which includes lecture, presentation, and recitation.

Direct-Interactive Teaching Model
A direct teaching approach that typically follows a cycle that includes: checking previous work, presenting new material, student practice with new material, feedback from the teacher, independent practice, regular reviews.

Directed Paraphrasing
Students are asked to summarize or explain a concept or theory to a specific (imaginary) audience. For example, a medical student might be asked to explain what neurotransmitters are, and phrase the explanation so it would make sense to a hospitalized patient.

Directions
Instructions given by the teacher to the students describing what the students should be doing.

Directive Model
A teacher centered model that focuses on student activities being guided by teacher directions and direct transmission of information.

Discovery Teaching
A constructivist approach. Students begin learning with an activity designed to lead them to particular concepts or conclusions. Students acquire basic and advanced knowledge in random order.

Discussion
Classroom discussions typically begin with the teacher describing the goal or purpose of the discussion. Sometimes discussions may be initiated by the posing of an open-ended question. Teachers can employ a number of techniques to encourage students to participate in discussions, including calling on specific people, or assigning students to be an ...

Discussion Board
A web-based bulletin board or discussion board is a messaging system through which instructors and students can share information asychronously.

Discussion Groups
In the classroom, a discussion group is formed when a discussion is carried out by only a part of the class. Outside the classroom, discussion groups are composed of individuals with similar interests. These groups meet regularly to discuss a variety of literary or social issues.

Discussion Web
A form of discussion that starts out with individual students formulating a response, then each student pairs with one other, then the pairs pair to form groups of four. Finally, when the groups have refined their answers, they share their thoughts with the whole class.

Dissections
To cut apart and analyze an animal. plant, device, or idea.

DO IT
Define problem, Open self to new ideas, Identify best solution, Transform idea to action.

Dog Paddles
A whole class, kinesthetic approach in which students raise one of two dog-shaped 'paddles' in response to verbal prompts. For example, in a science class, paddles could be labeled 'carnivore' and 'herbivore.' 'Prime' and 'composite' could be used in a math class. 'Socialism' and 'capitalism' could be the paddle labels in a social studies class, an...

Domain of Learning
Teaching for the Whole Student (PDF)

Double Cell Diagram
A form of graphic organizer linking two items.

Drafts
Students complete writing or creative work in stages to facilitate progress from capturing ideas quickly to the use of more detailed revision and editing skills. (See Quintilion Progression)

Dramatizing
Students act out roles from stories or historical events.

Drawing
Students can illustrate text they have read, draw diagrams of problems they have heard, or simply draw to stimulate creativity.

Dream Diary
Useful creativity technique in art and writing classes. Students keep a diary of their dreams, then can use the images and ideas in their compositions.

Drill
Practice by repetition. Often used to reinforce grammar and basic math skills.

Driting
Drawing and writing.

Drive Reduction
A theory of learning developed by Clark Hull which describes the drives (needs) individuals have and that learning occurs because individuals strive to reduce their drives (satisfy their needs).

Electronic Bulletin Boards
A web-based bulletin board or discussion board is a messaging system through which instructors and students can share information asychronously.

Elaboration
A thinking skill that involves adding to, improving, or completing an idea or process.

ELVES
Technique to increase creativity: be at Ease, make Lists, Vary the lists, Eureka, Select.

Emergent Literacy
The concept that learning to read or write does not happen quickly but is built upon many small steps that occur over the course of the child's early childhood. The process begins with activities that happen naturally in the home such as talking with and reading with the child, then continues in the classroom with more formalized strategies to enco...

Empiricism
John Locke's philosophical assertion that all knowledge is based on experience.

Envelope, Please
An activating strategy used prior to beginning a new topic.

Error Analysis
Error analysis takes two basic forms in the classroom. In the most common form, teachers analyze the errors students make (in mathematical computation, grammar, language, literature interpretation, and so on) and use that analysis to guide further instruction. In science classroom, some teachers teach students to analyze experimental errors to impr...

Essays
A short, written work, centered on a single subject.

Estimating
Proposing an approximate answer to a problem or question.

Estimation Lineup
An activity designed to activate students' prior knowledge before new material is presented.

Evaluating
A critical thinking skill involving judging to place a value on ideas or work.

Exaggeration
Used to help identify key attributes when employed by the teacher in a discussion. Can also be used in writing or drawing projects to produce unique and memorable projects.

Examples
Ideas or objects drawn from a group of ideas or objects to represent core features of the group from which they are drawn.

Expectation Outline
A pre-reading activity in which students skim the assigned reading, then write down some questions they expect to be able to answer, or key concepts they expect to learn about, as the result of completing the reading.

Experiential Learning
Carl Roger's theory that there are two types of learning: cognitive (memorizing or studying simply because work is assigned) and experiential (learning to satisfy the needs and wants of the learner). Studying a book with commonly used phrases in Norwegian is experiential if you are planning a trip to Norway, but the same activity is cognitive if yo...

Experimental Inquiry
As a Meaningful Use Task it includes observation, analysis, prediction, testing, and re-evaluation. As a variation of inquiry, experimental inquiry involves generating and testing hypotheses to explain phenomena.

Experiments
Tests to demonstrate or discover something.

Explanation
An explanation answers a question. Good explanations take into account the prior knowledge of the questioner and the 'intent' of the question. Explanations are given by both teachers and students in the classroom. Students are often asked to explain a concepts as part of assessing their knowledge. Teachers are asked for explanations during all phas...

Extended STaR
Expanded version of Story Telling and Retelling - A Success For All approach.

Extension Teaching
Extension teaching takes two forms. The most common form is outreach programs where educators travel to the student's location to provide instruction on topics of professional or personal interest. Agricultural extension experts who travel from their home college to provide onsite support to farmers are the classic example of this approach. Another...

Extrapolation of Data
Given a set of data, students are asked to predict what would occur outside the range of that data.

Facilitative Questioning
To 'facilitate' means to help another person accomplish something. Facilitative questioning is an approach whereby a teacher or counselor poses open-ended questions to the student to allow them to explore ideas that may be complex or emotionally difficult. In writing classes, the purpose of facilitative questions is to allow the teacher to give ass...

Fairs
A theme-based event that includes exhibitions of products or skills, along with some 'fun' aspects. The tone can range from purely academic (as is typical of science fairs) to carnival-like (as is typical of culture fairs). Fairs provide an opportunity for students to perform and to learn about long-range planning of events, in addition to the unde...

Feedback
Any means by which a teacher informs a student about the quality or correctness of the student's products or actions. Different forms of feedback include formal assessments (Example: a written grade on a student project), oral and written guidance (Example: 'Good, but needs more work on the Conclusion'), and casual comments or nonverbal signals (Ex...

FFOE
A creativity technique using the acronym FFOE: Fluency (many ideas), Flexibility (variety of ideas), Originality (unique ideas), and Elaboration (fully developed ideas).

Field Guides
A useful student project is to guide students in the creation of a field guide. Field guides typically provide information that would be needed outside the classroom in the study of such diverse fields as plants, animals, architecture, cultures, or business practices. Normal components of a field guide include: common names, formal names, definitio...

Field Observations
Students leave the classroom to observe events, organisms, and objects in their natural surroundings. Field observation usually includes the collection and recording of data in a field journal.

Field Trips
A field trips is any activity that occurs outside the classroom for the purpose of providing hands-on experience with objects or people that only occur in certain places. Target locations for field trips can include museums, zoos, places of business, farms, nearby colleges, theaters, historical monuments or buildings, forests, wetlands, nature park...

Films
Motion pictures can be used to enhance learning of literature, language, or historical events.

Filmstrips
A form of presentation, in which a series of still images are projected onto a screen. To accompany the images, usually an audio tape is played that includes cues to advance the film to synchronize the image and audio portions. This format is still used in a few places, but has largely been superseded by videotapes and interactive web pages.

Find Someone Who
A variation of the Human Scavenger Hunt. Usually this activity is used to encourage students to seek out the students in class whop know the answers to specific content questions. This works most effectively if each student is an 'expert' on a different topic or sub-topic than the others in the class.

Find the Fib
Team activity where groups of students write two true statements and one false statement, then challenge other teams (or the teacher) to 'Find the Fib.'

Find the Rule
Students are given sets of examples that demonstrate a single rule (like 'i before e except after c.') and are asked to find and state the rule.

Find Your Partner
A method for assigning students to groups and at the same time reviewing previous concepts. Equations, sentences, or questions and answers are written on a single piece of paper, then the parts of the sets are cut apart. The parts are distributed to students who compare papers with other students until they find their match.

Finding and Investigating Problems
One key element of scientific research is finding and investigating problems. Exposing children to real life data and asking them to 'create' problems from this data can result in more meaningful problem-solving and a deeper understanding of 'what science is.'

Finding Clues in a Picture
An activity where the teacher guides students to find clues about reading by asking a series of leading questions.

Fishbone
An organizing tool to help students visualize how many events can be tied to or contribute to a result.

Fishbowl
Discussion format where students are selected from the class. They sit in front of the class as a panel to discuss topic while class observes. Then discussion is opened to whole class.

Five Whys
Asking a chain of 'why questions,' with each question deeper into the root cause of a problem.

Five Words - Three Words
Students list five topic-related words independently. Students are grouped and share words. Groups pick best three words and explain to class.

Flash Cards
Traditional flash cards are note cards with a question, problem, or fact on one side, and the answer or a related fact on the other side. Flash cards can be used by individual students for independent practice, or can be used by pairs of students to practice as a team. More recently, online flash cards have appeared on the Internet. Online flash ca...

Flow Charts
Flow charts are graphical depictions of processes or relationships. Typically flow charts include icons showing particular processes or steps, and arrows indicating paths.

Flowers
A vase with fresh flowers on the teacher's desk or near a window can positively alter the mood of many students. They can also be used as 'spur of the moment' manipulatives for many activities. Flowers can be dissected in a science class, used as models in a drawing class, or used as a writing prompt for a writing activity.

Focused Imagining
A form of guided imagery where students are led to form mental images under the guidance of the teacher. Can be done either through written directions or step-by-step oral directions from the teacher.

Focused Listing
Students make lists with the purpose of sharing them during a subsequent discussion or collaborative activity.

Force Field Analysis
A decision-making tool in which all forces for and against a plan are considered and evaluated.

Forced Analogy
Make analogies by comparing problem term to a randomly selected term (for example, compare algebra to a cracker). Then use the new combinations to solve a problem or create something.

Forced Choice (Activity)
A classroom activity in which a small number of choices are placed around the classroom and students are asked to examine all the choices, then stand next to their choice. Students selecting the same choice then discuss reasons or advantages and disadvantages of their choice.

Forced Relationships
A variant of the Forced Analogy approach to generating possible solutions to problems. In Forced Relationships, objects are paired to a seemingly unrelated task and students are forced to use the unrelated objects to accomplish the task. For example, the students might be told they need to water the flowers in the windowsill box using the water fro...

Forecasting
Forecasting is a kind of extrapolation in which current trends (in weather, or in the economy) are analyzed and predictions are made about future events based on those trends.

Formations
Certain types of information can be illustrated by having groups of students stand in certain positions to make shapes representing answers. If the answer is a '2,' for example, students can form the number two by where they stand in the room. In Formations, the teacher asks a series of questions, all of which have 'formable' answers, then the stud...

Formative Assessment
Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom

Formulas
Formulas are mathematical expressions using symbols to represents real-world quantities. Students can generate, use, or solve problems with formulas.

Forum
A panel in which members talk freely with the audience.

Four Corners
Label the four corners of the room with 'Disagree, Strongly Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree.' Read a controversial statement and have students write on a piece of paper whether they agree, disagree, strongly agree, or strongly disagree with the statement. When all are finished writing, have students go to the corner representing their point of view...

Frayer Model
Vocabulary development tool in which students use a graphic organizer to categorize their knowledge about a word.

Free Association
Creativity technique similar to brainstorming.

Free Write and Share
Students write in response to some stimulus (music, topic oriented, question oriented), then share their writing with the class.

Freewriting
Freewriting is a timed activity to stimulate the flow of ideas and words. Students are given a topic and must write everything they can think of about the topic. The rules are that students must not stop writing, even if they 'run out of things to say,' and they may not do any editing or criticism during the writing. After the time is up, you can e...

Fussing with Definitions
A formal, cooperative method for rewriting definitions.

Fuzzy Logic
Many statements are not true or false but lie somewhere in between. To assign value to statement, false = 0, true = 1, statement can fall anywhere on the continuum between 0 and 1. Also known as Fuzzy Thinking.

Fuzzy Thinking
Many statements are not true or false but lie somewhere in between. To assign value to statement, false = 0, true = 1, statement can fall anywhere on the continuum between 0 and 1. Also known as Fuzzy Logic.

Gallery
Similar to Carousel Brainstorming.

Games
Games can take many forms, but in the classroom, any activity that involves a competition, social interaction, and some form of prize or award would be considered a game. Classroom game activities are typically not graded, and student participation is based on the desire to contribute to a team or to individually achieve some prize or recognition. ...

Gaps
Students are given sentences or sequences with gaps (missing words, numbers, or symbols) and are asked to fill in the gaps.