Alternative Teaching Strategies

Alternative Teaching Strategies

By using the information learned about interactive styles, faculty become aware of alternative instructional styles which can encourage the same level of participation and inclusion by all students. These observed differences in interactive styles suggest multiple instructional strategies

may be helpful in creating successful learning opportunities for all students. The purpose of using alternative teaching strategies is to help students think about material presented during class. Faculty need to know what students don’t understand before the students leave class. The use of simple teaching strategies can help faculty find student misunderstandings and allow faculty to give students needed information during class. All teaching strategies implemented as part of GRASP support student learning. These teaching strategies are especially important for those students who learn differently then the faculty

Teaching strategies faculty implement as part of GRASP include:

Classroom Teaching Strategies:

·         Learn and use student’s names, inside and outside of class

·         Ask students to re-state to material presented in their own words

·         Provide opportunities for students to interact with other students during class

·         Have students put problems on the board or have students explain problems while faculty write the solution on the board

·         Provide lecture notes before class

·         Muddiest point exercise - What part of the lecture is “as clear as mud”? If the test were today, what points would students like clarified?

Specific Achievement Strategies:

·         Teach students to how to create test questions

·         Personally invite students to visit during office hours

·         Tell students what they need to do to be prepared for class, tests, and quizzes

·         Talk to students with “border-line” grades with the intention of moving students’ up one grade level

Positive interactions to promote learning:

·         Use of complex questioning process during class - eliminate the use of simple questions with yes/no answers

·         Analytical feedback - tell students why the answer is correct or incorrect

·         Wait time/think time - wait three seconds after asking a question for students to respond - this allows students to think and tells them participation is expected

·         Probing questions - ask multiple questions to the same student on a single topic. Faculty guide the student through a thought process which leads to an appropriate response