problem solving method of teaching examples in the classroom

Center for Teaching

Teaching problem solving.

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Tips and Techniques

Expert vs. novice problem solvers, communicate.

• Have students  identify specific problems, difficulties, or confusions . Don’t waste time working through problems that students already understand.
• If students are unable to articulate their concerns, determine where they are having trouble by  asking them to identify the specific concepts or principles associated with the problem.
• In a one-on-one tutoring session, ask the student to  work his/her problem out loud . This slows down the thinking process, making it more accurate and allowing you to access understanding.
• When working with larger groups you can ask students to provide a written “two-column solution.” Have students write up their solution to a problem by putting all their calculations in one column and all of their reasoning (in complete sentences) in the other column. This helps them to think critically about their own problem solving and helps you to more easily identify where they may be having problems. Two-Column Solution (Math) Two-Column Solution (Physics)

Encourage Independence

• Model the problem solving process rather than just giving students the answer. As you work through the problem, consider how a novice might struggle with the concepts and make your thinking clear
• Have students work through problems on their own. Ask directing questions or give helpful suggestions, but  provide only minimal assistance and only when needed to overcome obstacles.
• Don’t fear  group work ! Students can frequently help each other, and talking about a problem helps them think more critically about the steps needed to solve the problem. Additionally, group work helps students realize that problems often have multiple solution strategies, some that might be more effective than others

Be sensitive

• Frequently, when working problems, students are unsure of themselves. This lack of confidence may hamper their learning. It is important to recognize this when students come to us for help, and to give each student some feeling of mastery. Do this by providing  positive reinforcement to let students know when they have mastered a new concept or skill.

Encourage Thoroughness and Patience

• Try to communicate that  the process is more important than the answer so that the student learns that it is OK to not have an instant solution. This is learned through your acceptance of his/her pace of doing things, through your refusal to let anxiety pressure you into giving the right answer, and through your example of problem solving through a step-by step process.

Experts (teachers) in a particular field are often so fluent in solving problems from that field that they can find it difficult to articulate the problem solving principles and strategies they use to novices (students) in their field because these principles and strategies are second nature to the expert. To teach students problem solving skills,  a teacher should be aware of principles and strategies of good problem solving in his or her discipline .

The mathematician George Polya captured the problem solving principles and strategies he used in his discipline in the book  How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (Princeton University Press, 1957). The book includes  a summary of Polya’s problem solving heuristic as well as advice on the teaching of problem solving.

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• Establishing Community Agreements and Classroom Norms
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• Problem-Based Learning Clearinghouse of Activities, University of Delaware

Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning  (PBL) is a student-centered approach in which students learn about a subject by working in groups to solve an open-ended problem. This problem is what drives the motivation and the learning. 

Why Use Problem-Based Learning?

Nilson (2010) lists the following learning outcomes that are associated with PBL. A well-designed PBL project provides students with the opportunity to develop skills related to:

• Working in teams.
• Managing projects and holding leadership roles.
• Oral and written communication.
• Self-awareness and evaluation of group processes.
• Working independently.
• Critical thinking and analysis.
• Explaining concepts.
• Self-directed learning.
• Applying course content to real-world examples.
• Researching and information literacy.
• Problem solving across disciplines.

Considerations for Using Problem-Based Learning

Rather than teaching relevant material and subsequently having students apply the knowledge to solve problems, the problem is presented first. PBL assignments can be short, or they can be more involved and take a whole semester. PBL is often group-oriented, so it is beneficial to set aside classroom time to prepare students to   work in groups  and to allow them to engage in their PBL project.

Students generally must:

• Examine and define the problem.
• Explore what they already know about underlying issues related to it.
• Determine what they need to learn and where they can acquire the information and tools necessary to solve the problem.
• Evaluate possible ways to solve the problem.
• Solve the problem.
• Report on their findings.

Getting Started with Problem-Based Learning

• Articulate the learning outcomes of the project. What do you want students to know or be able to do as a result of participating in the assignment?
• Create the problem. Ideally, this will be a real-world situation that resembles something students may encounter in their future careers or lives. Cases are often the basis of PBL activities. Previously developed PBL activities can be found online through the University of Delaware’s PBL Clearinghouse of Activities .
• Establish ground rules at the beginning to prepare students to work effectively in groups.
• Introduce students to group processes and do some warm up exercises to allow them to practice assessing both their own work and that of their peers.
• Consider having students take on different roles or divide up the work up amongst themselves. Alternatively, the project might require students to assume various perspectives, such as those of government officials, local business owners, etc.
• Establish how you will evaluate and assess the assignment. Consider making the self and peer assessments a part of the assignment grade.

Nilson, L. B. (2010).  Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors  (2nd ed.).  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 

Teaching Problem-Solving Skills

Many instructors design opportunities for students to solve “problems”. But are their students solving true problems or merely participating in practice exercises? The former stresses critical thinking and decision­ making skills whereas the latter requires only the application of previously learned procedures.

Problem solving is often broadly defined as "the ability to understand the environment, identify complex problems, review related information to develop, evaluate strategies and implement solutions to build the desired outcome" (Fissore, C. et al, 2021). True problem solving is the process of applying a method – not known in advance – to a problem that is subject to a specific set of conditions and that the problem solver has not seen before, in order to obtain a satisfactory solution.

Below you will find some basic principles for teaching problem solving and one model to implement in your classroom teaching.

Principles for teaching problem solving

• Model a useful problem-solving method . Problem solving can be difficult and sometimes tedious. Show students how to be patient and persistent, and how to follow a structured method, such as Woods’ model described below. Articulate your method as you use it so students see the connections.
• Teach within a specific context . Teach problem-solving skills in the context in which they will be used by students (e.g., mole fraction calculations in a chemistry course). Use real-life problems in explanations, examples, and exams. Do not teach problem solving as an independent, abstract skill.
• Help students understand the problem . In order to solve problems, students need to define the end goal. This step is crucial to successful learning of problem-solving skills. If you succeed at helping students answer the questions “what?” and “why?”, finding the answer to “how?” will be easier.
• Take enough time . When planning a lecture/tutorial, budget enough time for: understanding the problem and defining the goal (both individually and as a class); dealing with questions from you and your students; making, finding, and fixing mistakes; and solving entire problems in a single session.
• Ask questions and make suggestions . Ask students to predict “what would happen if …” or explain why something happened. This will help them to develop analytical and deductive thinking skills. Also, ask questions and make suggestions about strategies to encourage students to reflect on the problem-solving strategies that they use.
• Link errors to misconceptions . Use errors as evidence of misconceptions, not carelessness or random guessing. Make an effort to isolate the misconception and correct it, then teach students to do this by themselves. We can all learn from mistakes.

Woods’ problem-solving model

Define the problem.

• The system . Have students identify the system under study (e.g., a metal bridge subject to certain forces) by interpreting the information provided in the problem statement. Drawing a diagram is a great way to do this.
• Known(s) and concepts . List what is known about the problem, and identify the knowledge needed to understand (and eventually) solve it.
• Unknown(s) . Once you have a list of knowns, identifying the unknown(s) becomes simpler. One unknown is generally the answer to the problem, but there may be other unknowns. Be sure that students understand what they are expected to find.
• Units and symbols . One key aspect in problem solving is teaching students how to select, interpret, and use units and symbols. Emphasize the use of units whenever applicable. Develop a habit of using appropriate units and symbols yourself at all times.
• Constraints . All problems have some stated or implied constraints. Teach students to look for the words "only", "must", "neglect", or "assume" to help identify the constraints.
• Criteria for success . Help students consider, from the beginning, what a logical type of answer would be. What characteristics will it possess? For example, a quantitative problem will require an answer in some form of numerical units (e.g., $/kg product, square cm, etc.) while an optimization problem requires an answer in the form of either a numerical maximum or minimum.

Think about it

• “Let it simmer”.  Use this stage to ponder the problem. Ideally, students will develop a mental image of the problem at hand during this stage.
• Identify specific pieces of knowledge . Students need to determine by themselves the required background knowledge from illustrations, examples and problems covered in the course.
• Collect information . Encourage students to collect pertinent information such as conversion factors, constants, and tables needed to solve the problem.

Plan a solution

• Consider possible strategies . Often, the type of solution will be determined by the type of problem. Some common problem-solving strategies are: compute; simplify; use an equation; make a model, diagram, table, or chart; or work backwards.
• Choose the best strategy . Help students to choose the best strategy by reminding them again what they are required to find or calculate.

Carry out the plan

• Be patient . Most problems are not solved quickly or on the first attempt. In other cases, executing the solution may be the easiest step.
• Be persistent . If a plan does not work immediately, do not let students get discouraged. Encourage them to try a different strategy and keep trying.

Encourage students to reflect. Once a solution has been reached, students should ask themselves the following questions:

• Does the answer make sense?
• Does it fit with the criteria established in step 1?
• Did I answer the question(s)?
• What did I learn by doing this?
• Could I have done the problem another way?

If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help.  View the  CTE Support  page to find the most relevant staff member to contact. 

• Fissore, C., Marchisio, M., Roman, F., & Sacchet, M. (2021). Development of problem solving skills with Maple in higher education. In: Corless, R.M., Gerhard, J., Kotsireas, I.S. (eds) Maple in Mathematics Education and Research. MC 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1414. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81698-8_15
• Foshay, R., & Kirkley, J. (1998). Principles for Teaching Problem Solving. TRO Learning Inc., Edina MN.  (PDF) Principles for Teaching Problem Solving (researchgate.net)
• Hayes, J.R. (1989). The Complete Problem Solver. 2nd Edition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Woods, D.R., Wright, J.D., Hoffman, T.W., Swartman, R.K., Doig, I.D. (1975). Teaching Problem solving Skills.
• Engineering Education. Vol 1, No. 1. p. 238. Washington, DC: The American Society for Engineering Education.

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Problem based learning: a teacher's guide

December 10, 2021

Find out how teachers use problem-based learning models to improve engagement and drive attainment.

Main, P (2021, December 10). Problem based learning: a teacher's guide. Retrieved from https://www.structural-learning.com/post/problem-based-learning-a-teachers-guide

What is problem-based learning?

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a style of teaching that encourages students to become the drivers of their learning process . Problem-based learning involves complex learning issues from real-world problems and makes them the classroom's topic of discussion ; encouraging students to understand concepts through problem-solving skills rather than simply learning facts. When schools find time in the curriculum for this style of teaching it offers students an authentic vehicle for the integration of knowledge .

Embracing this pedagogical approach enables schools to balance subject knowledge acquisition with a skills agenda . Often used in medical education, this approach has equal significance in mainstream education where pupils can apply their knowledge to real-life problems. 

PBL is not only helpful in learning course content , but it can also promote the development of problem-solving abilities , critical thinking skills , and communication skills while providing opportunities to work in groups , find and analyse research materials , and take part in life-long learning .

PBL is a student-centred teaching method in which students understand a topic by working in groups. They work out an open-ended problem , which drives the motivation to learn. These sorts of theories of teaching do require schools to invest time and resources into supporting self-directed learning. Not all curriculum knowledge is best acquired through this process, rote learning still has its place in certain situations. In this article, we will look at how we can equip our students to take more ownership of the learning process and utilise more sophisticated ways for the integration of knowledge .

Philosophical Underpinnings of PBL

Problem-Based Learning (PBL), with its roots in the philosophies of John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and Jerome Bruner, aligns closely with the social constructionist view of learning. This approach positions learners as active participants in the construction of knowledge, contrasting with traditional models of instruction where learners are seen as passive recipients of information.

Dewey, a seminal figure in progressive education, advocated for active learning and real-world problem-solving, asserting that learning is grounded in experience and interaction. In PBL, learners tackle complex, real-world problems, which mirrors Dewey's belief in the interconnectedness of education and practical life.

Montessori also endorsed learner-centric, self-directed learning, emphasizing the child's potential to construct their own learning experiences. This parallels with PBL’s emphasis on self-directed learning, where students take ownership of their learning process.

Jerome Bruner’s theories underscored the idea of learning as an active, social process. His concept of a 'spiral curriculum' – where learning is revisited in increasing complexity – can be seen reflected in the iterative problem-solving process in PBL.

Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) framework aligns with PBL as it encourages higher-order cognitive skills. The complex tasks in PBL often demand analytical and evaluative skills (Webb's DOK levels 3 and 4) as students engage with the problem, devise a solution, and reflect on their work.

The effectiveness of PBL is supported by psychological theories like the information processing theory, which highlights the role of active engagement in enhancing memory and recall. A study by Strobel and Van Barneveld (2009) found that PBL students show improved retention of knowledge, possibly due to the deep cognitive processing involved.

As cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham aptly puts it, "Memory is the residue of thought." PBL encourages learners to think critically and deeply, enhancing both learning and retention.

Here's a quick overview:

• John Dewey : Emphasized learning through experience and the importance of problem-solving.
• Maria Montessori : Advocated for child-centered, self-directed learning.
• Jerome Bruner : Underlined learning as a social process and proposed the spiral curriculum.
• Webb’s DOK : Supports PBL's encouragement of higher-order thinking skills.
• Information Processing Theory : Reinforces the notion that active engagement in PBL enhances memory and recall.

This deep-rooted philosophical and psychological framework strengthens the validity of the problem-based learning approach, confirming its beneficial role in promoting valuable cognitive skills and fostering positive student learning outcomes.

What are the characteristics of problem-based learning?

Adding a little creativity can change a topic into a problem-based learning activity. The following are some of the characteristics of a good PBL model:

• The problem encourages students to search for a deeper understanding of content knowledge;
• Students are responsible for their learning. PBL has a student-centred learning approach . Students' motivation increases when responsibility for the process and solution to the problem rests with the learner;
• The problem motivates pupils to gain desirable learning skills and to defend well-informed decisions ;
• The problem connects the content learning goals with the previous knowledge. PBL allows students to access, integrate and study information from multiple disciplines that might relate to understanding and resolving a specific problem—just as persons in the real world recollect and use the application of knowledge that they have gained from diverse sources in their life.
• In a multistage project, the first stage of the problem must be engaging and open-ended to make students interested in the problem. In the real world, problems are poorly-structured. Research suggests that well-structured problems make students less invested and less motivated in the development of the solution. The problem simulations used in problem-based contextual learning are less structured to enable students to make a free inquiry.

• In a group project, the problem must have some level of complexity that motivates students towards knowledge acquisition and to work together for finding the solution. PBL involves collaboration between learners. In professional life, most people will find themselves in employment where they would work productively and share information with others. PBL leads to the development of such essential skills . In a PBL session, the teacher would ask questions to make sure that knowledge has been shared between pupils;
• At the end of each problem or PBL, self and peer assessments are performed. The main purpose of assessments is to sharpen a variety of metacognitive processing skills and to reinforce self-reflective learning.
• Student assessments would evaluate student progress towards the objectives of problem-based learning. The learning goals of PBL are both process-based and knowledge-based. Students must be assessed on both these dimensions to ensure that they are prospering as intended from the PBL approach. Students must be able to identify and articulate what they understood and what they learned.

Why is Problem-based learning a significant skill?

Using Problem-Based Learning across a school promotes critical competence, inquiry , and knowledge application in social, behavioural and biological sciences. Practice-based learning holds a strong track record of successful learning outcomes in higher education settings such as graduates of Medical Schools.

Educational models using PBL can improve learning outcomes by teaching students how to implement theory into practice and build problem-solving skills. For example, within the field of health sciences education, PBL makes the learning process for nurses and medical students self-centred and promotes their teamwork and leadership skills. Within primary and secondary education settings, this model of teaching, with the right sort of collaborative tools , can advance the wider skills development valued in society.

At Structural Learning, we have been developing a self-assessment tool designed to monitor the progress of children. Utilising these types of teaching theories curriculum wide can help a school develop the learning behaviours our students will need in the workplace.

Curriculum wide collaborative tools include Writers Block and the Universal Thinking Framework . Along with graphic organisers, these tools enable children to collaborate and entertain different perspectives that they might not otherwise see. Putting learning in action by using the block building methodology enables children to reach their learning goals by experimenting and iterating. 

How is problem-based learning different from inquiry-based learning?

The major difference between inquiry-based learning and PBL relates to the role of the teacher . In the case of inquiry-based learning, the teacher is both a provider of classroom knowledge and a facilitator of student learning (expecting/encouraging higher-order thinking). On the other hand, PBL is a deep learning approach, in which the teacher is the supporter of the learning process and expects students to have clear thinking, but the teacher is not the provider of classroom knowledge about the problem—the responsibility of providing information belongs to the learners themselves.

As well as being used systematically in medical education, this approach has significant implications for integrating learning skills into mainstream classrooms .

Using a critical thinking disposition inventory, schools can monitor the wider progress of their students as they apply their learning skills across the traditional curriculum. Authentic problems call students to apply their critical thinking abilities in new and purposeful ways. As students explain their ideas to one another, they develop communication skills that might not otherwise be nurtured.

Depending on the curriculum being delivered by a school, there may well be an emphasis on building critical thinking abilities in the classroom. Within the International Baccalaureate programs, these life-long skills are often cited in the IB learner profile . Critical thinking dispositions are highly valued in the workplace and this pedagogical approach can be used to harness these essential 21st-century skills.

What are the Benefits of Problem-Based Learning?

Student-led Problem-Based Learning is one of the most useful ways to make students drivers of their learning experience. It makes students creative, innovative, logical and open-minded. The educational practice of Problem-Based Learning also provides opportunities for self-directed and collaborative learning with others in an active learning and hands-on process. Below are the most significant benefits of problem-based learning processes:

• Self-learning: As a self-directed learning method, problem-based learning encourages children to take responsibility and initiative for their learning processes . As children use creativity and research, they develop skills that will help them in their adulthood.
• Engaging : Students don't just listen to the teacher, sit back and take notes. Problem-based learning processes encourages students to take part in learning activities, use learning resources , stay active , think outside the box and apply critical thinking skills to solve problems.
• Teamwork : Most of the problem-based learning issues involve students collaborative learning to find a solution. The educational practice of PBL builds interpersonal skills, listening and communication skills and improves the skills of collaboration and compromise.
• Intrinsic Rewards: In most problem-based learning projects, the reward is much bigger than good grades. Students gain the pride and satisfaction of finding an innovative solution, solving a riddle, or creating a tangible product.
• Transferable Skills: The acquisition of knowledge through problem-based learning strategies don't just help learners in one class or a single subject area. Students can apply these skills to a plethora of subject matter as well as in real life.
• Multiple Learning Opportunities : A PBL model offers an open-ended problem-based acquisition of knowledge, which presents a real-world problem and asks learners to come up with well-constructed responses. Students can use multiple sources such as they can access online resources, using their prior knowledge, and asking momentous questions to brainstorm and come up with solid learning outcomes. Unlike traditional approaches , there might be more than a single right way to do something, but this process motivates learners to explore potential solutions whilst staying active.

Embracing problem-based learning

Problem-based learning can be seen as a deep learning approach and when implemented effectively as part of a broad and balanced curriculum , a successful teaching strategy in education. PBL has a solid epistemological and philosophical foundation and a strong track record of success in multiple areas of study. Learners must experience problem-based learning methods and engage in positive solution-finding activities. PBL models allow learners to gain knowledge through real-world problems, which offers more strength to their understanding and helps them find the connection between classroom learning and the real world at large.

As they solve problems, students can evolve as individuals and team-mates. One word of caution, not all classroom tasks will lend themselves to this learning theory. Take spellings , for example, this is usually delivered with low-stakes quizzing through a practice-based learning model. PBL allows students to apply their knowledge creatively but they need to have a certain level of background knowledge to do this, rote learning might still have its place after all.

Key Concepts and considerations for school leaders

1. Problem Based Learning (PBL)

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an educational method that involves active student participation in solving authentic problems. Students are given a task or question that they must answer using their prior knowledge and resources. They then collaborate with each other to come up with solutions to the problem. This collaborative effort leads to deeper learning than traditional lectures or classroom instruction .

Key question: Inside a traditional curriculum , what opportunities across subject areas do you immediately see?

2. Deep Learning

Deep learning is a term used to describe the ability to learn concepts deeply. For example, if you were asked to memorize a list of numbers, you would probably remember the first five numbers easily, but the last number would be difficult to recall. However, if you were taught to understand the concept behind the numbers, you would be able to remember the last number too.

Key question: How will you make sure that students use a full range of learning styles and learning skills ?

3. Epistemology

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge . It examines the conditions under which something counts as knowledge.

Key question:  As well as focusing on critical thinking dispositions, what subject knowledge should the students understand?

4. Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general truths about human life. Philosophers examine questions such as “What makes us happy?”, “How should we live our lives?”, and “Why does anything exist?”

Key question: Are there any opportunities for embracing philosophical enquiry into the project to develop critical thinking abilities ?

5. Curriculum

A curriculum is a set of courses designed to teach specific subjects. These courses may include mathematics , science, social studies, language arts, etc.

Key question: How will subject leaders ensure that the integrity of the curriculum is maintained?

6. Broad and Balanced Curriculum

Broad and balanced curricula are those that cover a wide range of topics. Some examples of these types of curriculums include AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP English Language, AP Physics 1, AP Psychology , AP Spanish Literature, AP Statistics, AP US History, AP World History, IB Diploma Programme, IB Primary Years Program, IB Middle Years Program, IB Diploma Programme .

Key question: Are the teachers who have identified opportunities for a problem-based curriculum?

7. Successful Teaching Strategy

Successful teaching strategies involve effective communication techniques, clear objectives, and appropriate assessments. Teachers must ensure that their lessons are well-planned and organized. They must also provide opportunities for students to interact with one another and share information.

Key question: What pedagogical approaches and teaching strategies will you use?

8. Positive Solution Finding

Positive solution finding is a type of problem-solving where students actively seek out answers rather than passively accept what others tell them.

Key question: How will you ensure your problem-based curriculum is met with a positive mindset from students and teachers?

9. Real World Application

Real-world application refers to applying what students have learned in class to situations that occur in everyday life.

Key question: Within your local school community , are there any opportunities to apply knowledge and skills to real-life problems?

10. Creativity

Creativity is the ability to think of ideas that no one else has thought of yet. Creative thinking requires divergent thinking, which means thinking in different directions.

Key question: What teaching techniques will you use to enable children to generate their own ideas ?

11. Teamwork

Teamwork is the act of working together towards a common goal. Teams often consist of two or more people who work together to achieve a shared objective.

Key question: What opportunities are there to engage students in dialogic teaching methods where they talk their way through the problem?

12. Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge transfer occurs when teachers use their expertise to help students develop skills and abilities .

Key question: Can teachers be able to track the success of the project using improvement scores?

13. Active Learning

Active learning is any form of instruction that engages students in the learning process. Examples of active learning include group discussions, role-playing, debates, presentations, and simulations .

Key question: Will there be an emphasis on learning to learn and developing independent learning skills ?

14. Student Engagement

Student engagement is the degree to which students feel motivated to participate in academic activities.

Key question: Are there any tools available to monitor student engagement during the problem-based curriculum ?

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Classroom Practice

Teaching problem solving: Let students get ‘stuck’ and ‘unstuck’

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, kate mills and km kate mills literacy interventionist - red bank primary school helyn kim helyn kim former brookings expert @helyn_kim.

October 31, 2017

This is the second in a six-part  blog series  on  teaching 21st century skills , including  problem solving ,  metacognition , critical thinking , and collaboration , in classrooms.

In the real world, students encounter problems that are complex, not well defined, and lack a clear solution and approach. They need to be able to identify and apply different strategies to solve these problems. However, problem solving skills do not necessarily develop naturally; they need to be explicitly taught in a way that can be transferred across multiple settings and contexts.

Here’s what Kate Mills, who taught 4 th grade for 10 years at Knollwood School in New Jersey and is now a Literacy Interventionist at Red Bank Primary School, has to say about creating a classroom culture of problem solvers:

Helping my students grow to be people who will be successful outside of the classroom is equally as important as teaching the curriculum. From the first day of school, I intentionally choose language and activities that help to create a classroom culture of problem solvers. I want to produce students who are able to think about achieving a particular goal and manage their mental processes . This is known as metacognition , and research shows that metacognitive skills help students become better problem solvers.

I begin by “normalizing trouble” in the classroom. Peter H. Johnston teaches the importance of normalizing struggle , of naming it, acknowledging it, and calling it what it is: a sign that we’re growing. The goal is for the students to accept challenge and failure as a chance to grow and do better.

I look for every chance to share problems and highlight how the students— not the teachers— worked through those problems. There is, of course, coaching along the way. For example, a science class that is arguing over whose turn it is to build a vehicle will most likely need a teacher to help them find a way to the balance the work in an equitable way. Afterwards, I make it a point to turn it back to the class and say, “Do you see how you …” By naming what it is they did to solve the problem , students can be more independent and productive as they apply and adapt their thinking when engaging in future complex tasks.

After a few weeks, most of the class understands that the teachers aren’t there to solve problems for the students, but to support them in solving the problems themselves. With that important part of our classroom culture established, we can move to focusing on the strategies that students might need.

Here’s one way I do this in the classroom:

I show the broken escalator video to the class. Since my students are fourth graders, they think it’s hilarious and immediately start exclaiming, “Just get off! Walk!”

When the video is over, I say, “Many of us, probably all of us, are like the man in the video yelling for help when we get stuck. When we get stuck, we stop and immediately say ‘Help!’ instead of embracing the challenge and trying new ways to work through it.” I often introduce this lesson during math class, but it can apply to any area of our lives, and I can refer to the experience and conversation we had during any part of our day.

Research shows that just because students know the strategies does not mean they will engage in the appropriate strategies. Therefore, I try to provide opportunities where students can explicitly practice learning how, when, and why to use which strategies effectively  so that they can become self-directed learners.

For example, I give students a math problem that will make many of them feel “stuck”. I will say, “Your job is to get yourselves stuck—or to allow yourselves to get stuck on this problem—and then work through it, being mindful of how you’re getting yourselves unstuck.” As students work, I check-in to help them name their process: “How did you get yourself unstuck?” or “What was your first step? What are you doing now? What might you try next?” As students talk about their process, I’ll add to a list of strategies that students are using and, if they are struggling, help students name a specific process. For instance, if a student says he wrote the information from the math problem down and points to a chart, I will say: “Oh that’s interesting. You pulled the important information from the problem out and organized it into a chart.” In this way, I am giving him the language to match what he did, so that he now has a strategy he could use in other times of struggle.

The charts grow with us over time and are something that we refer to when students are stuck or struggling. They become a resource for students and a way for them to talk about their process when they are reflecting on and monitoring what did or did not work.

For me, as a teacher, it is important that I create a classroom environment in which students are problem solvers. This helps tie struggles to strategies so that the students will not only see value in working harder but in working smarter by trying new and different strategies and revising their process. In doing so, they will more successful the next time around.

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What is PBL? & 5 Problem-Based Learning Examples

Julia Francis : Aug 12, 2022 2:00:00 PM

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” ~Albert Einstein

Problem solving is a life skill that goes far beyond the classroom. The best education is an education that teaches critical and strategic thinking and allows students to meet life’s problems and challenges with an open mind and the confidence to find a solution.

At Alludo, we’re big believers in problem-based learning, an active-learning strategy that prepares students for the realities of life by encouraging them to use strategic thinking to arrive at solutions that work. We’ve included problem-based learning activities in our professional development catalog because we believe that using PBL in the classroom can help teachers help students. Here’s what you need to know about PBL plus five problem-based learning examples to inspire you.

Table of Contents

What is problem-based learning.

• Choose a Central Concept or Principle

Think of a Real-World Context for the Problem

Introduce the problem in stages, write a teacher's guide, provide students with key resources.

• Plan a Road Trip
• Create a Sustainable City
• Choose and Craft a Voyage Around the World
• Plan a Zoo Habitat
• Codebreak Math Equations

What Are Challenges in Problem-Based Learning?

• Alludo's Take

Encourage Teachers in Your District to Innovate with Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning, or PBL, is an inquiry-based learning method that uses complex, real-world problems to help students learn. It stands in contrast to some traditional teaching methods where teachers present facts and concepts directly to students.

The strictest presentation of PBL would involve a teacher using PBL for an entire semester or school year. However, in practice, teachers use it in a variety of ways. It may be most useful when used in lab situations or design projects. It may also be used to initiate discussions.

PBL promotes the development of critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and communication in students and may be used when students work in groups.

Problems may vary widely depending upon the class or context, but effective PBL problems share the following characteristics:

• They must motivate students to understand concepts on a deep level.
• They should incorporate content objectives and connect them to previous knowledge.
• They should require students to make decisions and defend them using logical reasoning and critical thinking skills.
• For group projects, problems need enough complexity to require students to work together and arrive at a solution.
• For multi-stage projects, initial steps must be open-ended and engaging to get students invested in solving the problem.

Teachers should tie the material being used to real-world situations and develop a problem that incorporates previous lessons while still challenging students to apply what they have learned. Ideally, complex problems should be introduced in stages and teachers should identify important resources and provide them as a jumping-off point for students.

Teachers may distribute PBL problems using three techniques:

• Case study. The problem is submitted to PBL students in writing.
• Role playing. Students improvise scenes based on descriptions of key players.
• Simulation. Students use a computer-based program to simulate a problem.

The common characteristic is that any problem presented to students must have its roots in a real-world situation.

What Are the Steps in Problem-Based Learning?

Teachers who wish to incorporate problem-based learning in the classroom should follow these steps to create a problem and introduce it to students.

Choose a Central Concept of Principle

The first step is to select a central concept or principle for students to learn. The concept chosen should be one that’s typically included in a given course. The problem should be similar to a typical problem that would be assigned at the end of a chapter to help students learn the concept.

After choosing a central concept, the teacher should develop a list of student learning objectives for students to meet as they research the problem and determine the best way to solve it.

At this stage, teachers need to develop a real-world context that will allow students to work their way through the problem and use appropriate resources to develop a solution. Some options include the following:

• Introducing a storytelling aspect to create an example of a real-world problem.
• Find an actual, real-world case that can be adapted by adding motivation for students to solve the problem.

Magazines, newspapers, articles, and TV news can all provide ideas for real-world problems, as can talking to professionals in the field to get their ideas.

Introduce the problem in stages to help students identify learning issues and inspire students to research the concepts being targeted. Here are some questions that can help in the development of the stages:

• What should the first stage look like and which open-ended questions can be asked? Remember that all questions should be linked to the concepts students are learning.
• How will the problem itself be structured?
• How long will it take students to solve the problem?
• Will students receive additional information at later stages of the problem?
• What resources will students need to begin?
• What should the end product look like?

Asking these questions can help teachers develop stages that make sense and guide students as they work toward a solution.

The teacher should prepare a guide with detailed plans for instruction related to the problem. The guide should spell out plans to cycle through the problem using different modes of learning. It may also include alternative options.

Any problem being presented in a sizable class may include a combination of whole-class discussions plus small group work and mini-lectures to ensure that all students receive the support they need.

PBL requires teachers to provide students with some (but not all) resources they will need to complete the problem being presented. It is important to leave some of the knowledge resourcing to students, so they learn how to identify good resources and use them independently.

Where students may need help is in understanding offline resources, including the library and how to use it, since many of today’s digital natives may be inclined to rely solely on the internet for research.

What Are Examples of Problem-Based Learning?

Now, let’s look at some problem-based learning examples that teachers can use as inspiration to develop new problems to inspire and educate their students.

#1: Plan a Road Trip

Planning a road trip is a real-world problem that students may already have experienced on one level if they’ve traveled with their families. 

Using a road trip as a PBL assignment incorporates a variety of disciplines, including geography, social sciences, environmental sciences, and math. Students should plan every aspect of the trip, including the route to be taken, points of interest to be visited along the way, expenses, and fuel consumption.

#2: Create a Sustainable City

It would be hard to imagine a real-world problem more pressing than the issue of figuring out how we can live sustainably and avoid burning through our natural resources.

Students can work together, using their personal observations and research, to think about the problems that cities face regarding sustainability and coming up with ideas to address them.

#3: Choose and Craft a Voyage Around the World

A voyage around the world poses challenges that allow students to tap into a variety of subjects, including geography, world culture, social studies, and even velocity and flotation.

Students should consider modes of transportation, time frames, weather, and more, before they present their results.

#4: Plan a Zoo Habitat

This PBL assignment could begin with a visit to the zoo, where students can observe animals in habitats and speak to zookeepers about what it’s like to care for animals in a zoo.

After that, students should pick an animal, consider where they live naturally and what they eat, and use biology and environmental science to plan a habitat where the animal can live.

#5: Codebreak Math Equations

Instead of solving the usual equations, this PBL example puts students in the roles of professional codebreakers.

They will use logic, critical thinking skills, and mathematics to decrypt a code and craft a response to it, using a code of their own.

Implementing a problem-based learning process in the classroom does have some challenges and teachers must work to overcome these to make sure that students get the most of the problems they work on.

• Students may not have prepared for PBL in their past studies. They may need some hand-holding and guidance if they’ve never worked on a real-world problem before.
• PBL can be time-consuming and requires a significant amount of prep for teachers.
• Since students work in groups, there may be group dynamic issues to address and teachers must keep an eye on students.
• PBL requires buy-in and support from staff and educational leaders. Without full support, it can be difficult to implement PBL in the classroom.

Teachers and administrators should work together before the PBL process is implemented to brainstorm ideas and identify potential issues.

Alludo’s Take

Alludo partners with school districts around the country to provide them with a dynamic professional learning environment that drives engagement and supports teachers. Because we know that teachers are always looking for ways to engage their students, we have included PBL missions in the Alludo content catalog .

By completing our missions, teachers learn the pros and cons of PBL and how to implement it. The result is that teachers are encouraged to innovate in the classroom. In other words, engaged teachers are likely to have engaged students, too!

Bringing PBL into the classroom gives teachers an engaging framework to help students learn. When teachers innovate, students are more likely to be engaged in their schoolwork and the result is improved student achievement and better outcomes.

Experience personalized learning for all levels of educators with a free trial of Alludo’s professional development platform. You’ll enjoy:

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Teaching problem solving

Strategies for teaching problem solving apply across disciplines and instructional contexts. First, introduce the problem and explain how people in your discipline generally make sense of the given information. Then, explain how to apply these approaches to solve the problem.

Introducing the problem

Explaining how people in your discipline understand and interpret these types of problems can help students develop the skills they need to understand the problem (and find a solution). After introducing how you would go about solving a problem, you could then ask students to:

• frame the problem in their own words
• define key terms and concepts
• determine statements that accurately represent the givens of a problem
• identify analogous problems
• determine what information is needed to solve the problem

Working on solutions

In the solution phase, one develops and then implements a coherent plan for solving the problem. As you help students with this phase, you might ask them to:

• identify the general model or procedure they have in mind for solving the problem
• set sub-goals for solving the problem
• identify necessary operations and steps
• draw conclusions
• carry out necessary operations

You can help students tackle a problem effectively by asking them to:

• systematically explain each step and its rationale
• explain how they would approach solving the problem
• help you solve the problem by posing questions at key points in the process
• work together in small groups (3 to 5 students) to solve the problem and then have the solution presented to the rest of the class (either by you or by a student in the group)

In all cases, the more you get the students to articulate their own understandings of the problem and potential solutions, the more you can help them develop their expertise in approaching problems in your discipline.

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Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which complex real-world problems are used as the vehicle to promote student learning of concepts and principles as opposed to direct presentation of facts and concepts. In addition to course content, PBL can promote the development of critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and communication skills. It can also provide opportunities for working in groups, finding and evaluating research materials, and life-long learning (Duch et al, 2001).

PBL can be incorporated into any learning situation. In the strictest definition of PBL, the approach is used over the entire semester as the primary method of teaching. However, broader definitions and uses range from including PBL in lab and design classes, to using it simply to start a single discussion. PBL can also be used to create assessment items. The main thread connecting these various uses is the real-world problem.

Any subject area can be adapted to PBL with a little creativity. While the core problems will vary among disciplines, there are some characteristics of good PBL problems that transcend fields (Duch, Groh, and Allen, 2001):

• The problem must motivate students to seek out a deeper understanding of concepts.
• The problem should require students to make reasoned decisions and to defend them.
• The problem should incorporate the content objectives in such a way as to connect it to previous courses/knowledge.
• If used for a group project, the problem needs a level of complexity to ensure that the students must work together to solve it.
• If used for a multistage project, the initial steps of the problem should be open-ended and engaging to draw students into the problem.

The problems can come from a variety of sources: newspapers, magazines, journals, books, textbooks, and television/ movies. Some are in such form that they can be used with little editing; however, others need to be rewritten to be of use. The following guidelines from The Power of Problem-Based Learning (Duch et al, 2001) are written for creating PBL problems for a class centered around the method; however, the general ideas can be applied in simpler uses of PBL:

• Choose a central idea, concept, or principle that is always taught in a given course, and then think of a typical end-of-chapter problem, assignment, or homework that is usually assigned to students to help them learn that concept. List the learning objectives that students should meet when they work through the problem.
• Think of a real-world context for the concept under consideration. Develop a storytelling aspect to an end-of-chapter problem, or research an actual case that can be adapted, adding some motivation for students to solve the problem. More complex problems will challenge students to go beyond simple plug-and-chug to solve it. Look at magazines, newspapers, and articles for ideas on the story line. Some PBL practitioners talk to professionals in the field, searching for ideas of realistic applications of the concept being taught.
• What will the first page (or stage) look like? What open-ended questions can be asked? What learning issues will be identified?
• How will the problem be structured?
• How long will the problem be? How many class periods will it take to complete?
• Will students be given information in subsequent pages (or stages) as they work through the problem?
• What resources will the students need?
• What end product will the students produce at the completion of the problem?
• Write a teacher's guide detailing the instructional plans on using the problem in the course. If the course is a medium- to large-size class, a combination of mini-lectures, whole-class discussions, and small group work with regular reporting may be necessary. The teacher's guide can indicate plans or options for cycling through the pages of the problem interspersing the various modes of learning.
• The final step is to identify key resources for students. Students need to learn to identify and utilize learning resources on their own, but it can be helpful if the instructor indicates a few good sources to get them started. Many students will want to limit their research to the Internet, so it will be important to guide them toward the library as well.

The method for distributing a PBL problem falls under three closely related teaching techniques: case studies, role-plays, and simulations. Case studies are presented to students in written form. Role-plays have students improvise scenes based on character descriptions given. Today, simulations often involve computer-based programs. Regardless of which technique is used, the heart of the method remains the same: the real-world problem.

Where can I learn more?

• PBL through the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education at the University of Delaware
• Duch, B. J., Groh, S. E, & Allen, D. E. (Eds.). (2001). The power of problem-based learning . Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Grasha, A. F. (1996). Teaching with style: A practical guide to enhancing learning by understanding teaching and learning styles. Pittsburgh: Alliance Publishers.

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Problem-Solving

Jabberwocky

Problem-solving is the ability to identify and solve problems by applying appropriate skills systematically.

Problem-solving is a process—an ongoing activity in which we take what we know to discover what we don't know. It involves overcoming obstacles by generating hypo-theses, testing those predictions, and arriving at satisfactory solutions.

Problem-solving involves three basic functions:

Seeking information

Generating new knowledge

Making decisions

Problem-solving is, and should be, a very real part of the curriculum. It presupposes that students can take on some of the responsibility for their own learning and can take personal action to solve problems, resolve conflicts, discuss alternatives, and focus on thinking as a vital element of the curriculum. It provides students with opportunities to use their newly acquired knowledge in meaningful, real-life activities and assists them in working at higher levels of thinking (see Levels of Questions ).

Here is a five-stage model that most students can easily memorize and put into action and which has direct applications to many areas of the curriculum as well as everyday life:

Expert Opinion

Here are some techniques that will help students understand the nature of a problem and the conditions that surround it:

• List all related relevant facts.
• Make a list of all the given information.
• Restate the problem in their own words.
• List the conditions that surround a problem.
• Describe related known problems.

It's Elementary

For younger students, illustrations are helpful in organizing data, manipulating information, and outlining the limits of a problem and its possible solution(s). Students can use drawings to help them look at a problem from many different perspectives.

Understand the problem. It's important that students understand the nature of a problem and its related goals. Encourage students to frame a problem in their own words.

Describe any barriers. Students need to be aware of any barriers or constraints that may be preventing them from achieving their goal. In short, what is creating the problem? Encouraging students to verbalize these impediments is always an important step.

Identify various solutions. After the nature and parameters of a problem are understood, students will need to select one or more appropriate strategies to help resolve the problem. Students need to understand that they have many strategies available to them and that no single strategy will work for all problems. Here are some problem-solving possibilities:

Create visual images. Many problem-solvers find it useful to create “mind pictures” of a problem and its potential solutions prior to working on the problem. Mental imaging allows the problem-solvers to map out many dimensions of a problem and “see” it clearly.

Guesstimate. Give students opportunities to engage in some trial-and-error approaches to problem-solving. It should be understood, however, that this is not a singular approach to problem-solving but rather an attempt to gather some preliminary data.

Create a table. A table is an orderly arrangement of data. When students have opportunities to design and create tables of information, they begin to understand that they can group and organize most data relative to a problem.

Use manipulatives. By moving objects around on a table or desk, students can develop patterns and organize elements of a problem into recognizable and visually satisfying components.

Work backward. It's frequently helpful for students to take the data presented at the end of a problem and use a series of computations to arrive at the data presented at the beginning of the problem.

Look for a pattern. Looking for patterns is an important problem-solving strategy because many problems are similar and fall into predictable patterns. A pattern, by definition, is a regular, systematic repetition and may be numerical, visual, or behavioral.

Create a systematic list. Recording information in list form is a process used quite frequently to map out a plan of attack for defining and solving problems. Encourage students to record their ideas in lists to determine regularities, patterns, or similarities between problem elements.

Try out a solution. When working through a strategy or combination of strategies, it will be important for students to …

Keep accurate and up-to-date records of their thoughts, proceedings, and procedures. Recording the data collected, the predictions made, and the strategies used is an important part of the problem solving process.

Try to work through a selected strategy or combination of strategies until it becomes evident that it's not working, it needs to be modified, or it is yielding inappropriate data. As students become more proficient problem-solvers, they should feel comfortable rejecting potential strategies at any time during their quest for solutions.

Monitor with great care the steps undertaken as part of a solution. Although it might be a natural tendency for students to “rush” through a strategy to arrive at a quick answer, encourage them to carefully assess and monitor their progress.

Feel comfortable putting a problem aside for a period of time and tackling it at a later time. For example, scientists rarely come up with a solution the first time they approach a problem. Students should also feel comfortable letting a problem rest for a while and returning to it later.

Evaluate the results. It's vitally important that students have multiple opportunities to assess their own problem-solving skills and the solutions they generate from using those skills. Frequently, students are overly dependent upon teachers to evaluate their performance in the classroom. The process of self-assessment is not easy, however. It involves risk-taking, self-assurance, and a certain level of independence. But it can be effectively promoted by asking students questions such as “How do you feel about your progress so far?” “Are you satisfied with the results you obtained?” and “Why do you believe this is an appropriate response to the problem?”

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Classroom problem-solving activities teach children how to engage problems rather than to become frustrated with them. Teachers have the opportunity to teach children the proper methods for dealing with stressful situations, complex problems, and fast decision-making. While a teacher is unlikely to actually put the child into a difficult or otherwise harmful situation, he or she can use activities to teach the child how to handle such situations later on in life.

Teach the problems

To solve any problem, students must go through a process to do so. The teacher can explore this process with students as a group. The first step is to fully understand the problem. To teach this, ask students to describe the problem in their own words. This ensures the student is able to comprehend and express the concern at hand. Then, they must describe and understand the barriers presented. At this point, it’s a good idea to provide ways for the student to find a solution. That’s where activities come into play.

The following are five activities elementary teachers can use to teach problem-solving to students. Teaching students to identify the possible solutions requires approaching the problem in various ways.

No. 1 – Create a visual image

One option is to teach children to create a visual image of the situation. Many times, this is an effective problem-solving skill. They are able to close their eyes and create a mind picture of the problem. For younger students, it may be helpful to draw out the problem they see on a piece of paper.

Ask the child to then discuss possible solutions to the problem. This could be done by visualizing what would happen if one action is taken or if another action is taken. By creating these mental images, the student is fully engaged and can map out any potential complications to their proposed solution.

No. 2 – Use manipulatives

Another activity that is ideal for children is to use manipulatives. In a situation where the problem is space-related, for example the children can move their desks around in various ways to create a pattern or to better visualize the problem. It’s also possible to use simple objects on a table, such as blocks, to create patterns or to set up a problem. This is an ideal way to teach problem-solving skills for math.

By doing this, it takes a problem, often a word problem that’s hard for some students to visualize, and places it in front of the student in a new way. The child is then able to organize the situation into something he or she understands.

No. 3 – Make a guess

Guessing is a very effective problem-solving skill. For those children who are unlikely to actually take action but are likely to sit and ponder until the right answer hits them, guessing is a critical step in problem-solving. This approach involves trial and error.

Rather than approaching guessing as a solution to problems (you do not want children to think they can always guess), teach that it is a way to gather more data. If, for example, they do not know enough about the situation to make a full decision, by guessing, they can gather more facts from the outcome and use that to find the right answer.

No. 4 – Patterns

No matter if the problem relates to social situations or if it is something that has to do with science, patterns are present. By teaching children to look for patterns, they can see what is happening more fully.

For example, define what a pattern is. Then, have the child look for any type of pattern in the context. If the children are solving a mystery, for example, they can look for patterns in time, place or people to better gather facts.

No. 5 – Making a list

Another effective tool is list making. Teach children how to make a list of all of the ideas they come up with right away. Brainstorming is a fun activity in any subject. Then, the child is able to work through the list to determine which options are problems or not.

Classroom problem-solving activities like these engage a group or a single student. They teach not what the answer is, but how the student can find that answer.

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44 Powerful Instructional Strategies Examples for Every Classroom

So many ways to help students learn!

Looking for some new ways to teach and learn in your classroom? This roundup of instructional strategies examples includes methods that will appeal to all learners and work for any teacher.

What are instructional strategies?

In the simplest of terms, instructional strategies are the methods teachers use to achieve learning objectives. In other words, pretty much every learning activity you can think of is an example of an instructional strategy. They’re also known as teaching strategies and learning strategies.

The more instructional strategies a teacher has in their tool kit, the more they’re able to reach all of their students. Different types of learners respond better to various strategies, and some topics are best taught with one strategy over another. Usually, teachers use a wide array of strategies across a single lesson. This gives all students a chance to play to their strengths and ensures they have a deeper connection to the material.

There are a lot of different ways of looking at instructional strategies. One of the most common breaks them into five basic types. It’s important to remember that many learning activities fall into more than one of these categories, and teachers rarely use one type of strategy alone. The key is to know when a strategy can be most effective, for the learners or for the learning objective. Here’s a closer look at the five basic types, with instructional strategies examples for each.

Direct Instruction Instructional Strategies Examples

Direct instruction can also be called “teacher-led instruction,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. The teacher provides the information, while the students watch, listen, and learn. Students may participate by answering questions asked by the teacher or practicing a skill under their supervision. This is a very traditional form of teaching, and one that can be highly effective when you need to provide information or teach specific skills.

This method gets a lot of flack these days for being “boring” or “old-fashioned.” It’s true that you don’t want it to be your only instructional strategy, but short lectures are still very effective learning tools. This type of direct instruction is perfect for imparting specific detailed information or teaching a step-by-step process. And lectures don’t have to be boring—just look at the success of TED Talks .

Didactic Questioning

These are often paired with other direct instruction methods like lecturing. The teacher asks questions to determine student understanding of the material. They’re often questions that start with “who,” “what,” “where,” and “when.”

Demonstration

In this direct instruction method, students watch as a teacher demonstrates an action or skill. This might be seeing a teacher solving a math problem step-by-step, or watching them demonstrate proper handwriting on the whiteboard. Usually, this is followed by having students do hands-on practice or activities in a similar manner.

Drill & Practice

If you’ve ever used flash cards to help kids practice math facts or had your whole class chant the spelling of a word out loud, you’ve used drill & practice. It’s another one of those traditional instructional strategies examples. When kids need to memorize specific information or master a step-by-step skill, drill & practice really works.

Indirect Instruction Instructional Strategies Examples

This form of instruction is learner-led and helps develop higher-order thinking skills. Teachers guide and support, but students drive the learning through reading, research, asking questions, formulating ideas and opinions, and more. This method isn’t ideal when you need to teach detailed information or a step-by-step process. Instead, use it to develop critical thinking skills , especially when more than one solution or opinion is valid.

Problem-Solving

In this indirect learning method, students work their way through a problem to find a solution. Along the way, they must develop the knowledge to understand the problem and use creative thinking to solve it. STEM challenges are terrific examples of problem-solving instructional strategies.

Project-Based Learning

When kids participate in true project-based learning, they’re learning through indirect and experiential strategies. As they work to find solutions to a real-world problem, they develop critical thinking skills and learn by research, trial and error, collaboration, and other experiences.

Learn more: What Is Project-Based Learning?

Concept Mapping

Students use concept maps to break down a subject into its main points and draw connections between these points. They brainstorm the big-picture ideas, then draw lines to connect terms, details, and more to help them visualize the topic.

Case Studies

When you think of case studies, law school is probably the first thing that jumps to mind. But this method works at any age, for a variety of topics. This indirect learning method teaches students to use material to draw conclusions, make connections, and advance their existing knowledge.

Reading for Meaning

This is different than learning to read. Instead, it’s when students use texts (print or digital) to learn about a topic. This traditional strategy works best when students already have strong reading comprehension skills. Try our free reading comprehension bundle to give students the ability to get the most out of reading for meaning.

Flipped Classroom

In a flipped classroom, students read texts or watch prerecorded lectures at home. Classroom time is used for deeper learning activities, like discussions, labs, and one-on-one time for teachers and students.

Learn more: What Is a Flipped Classroom?

Experiential Learning Instructional Strategies Examples

In experiential learning, students learn by doing. Rather than following a set of instructions or listening to a lecture, they dive right into an activity or experience. Once again, the teacher is a guide, there to answer questions and gently keep learning on track if necessary. At the end, and often throughout, the learners reflect on their experience, drawing conclusions about the skills and knowledge they’ve gained. Experiential learning values the process over the product.

Science Experiments

This is experiential learning at its best. Hands-on experiments let kids learn to establish expectations, create sound methodology, draw conclusions, and more.

Learn more: Hundreds of science experiment ideas for kids and teens

Field Trips

Heading out into the real world gives kids a chance to learn indirectly, through experiences. They may see concepts they already know put into practice or learn new information or skills from the world around them.

Learn more: The Big List of PreK-12 Field Trip Ideas

Games and Gamification

Teachers have long known that playing games is a fun (and sometimes sneaky) way to get kids to learn. You can use specially designed educational games for any subject. Plus, regular board games often involve a lot of indirect learning about math, reading, critical thinking, and more.

Learn more: Classic Classroom Games and Best Online Educational Games

Service Learning

This is another instructional strategies example that takes students out into the real world. It often involves problem-solving skills and gives kids the opportunity for meaningful social-emotional learning.

Learn more: What Is Service Learning?

Interactive Instruction Instructional Strategies Examples

As you might guess, this strategy is all about interaction between the learners and often the teacher. The focus is on discussion and sharing. Students hear other viewpoints, talk things out, and help each other learn and understand the material. Teachers can be a part of these discussions, or they can oversee smaller groups or pairings and help guide the interactions as needed. Interactive instruction helps students develop interpersonal skills like listening and observation.

Peer Instruction

It’s often said the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. Studies into the so-called “ protégé effect ” seem to prove it too. In order to teach, you first must understand the information yourself. Then, you have to find ways to share it with others—sometimes more than one way. This deepens your connection to the material, and it sticks with you much longer. Try having peers instruct one another in your classroom, and see the magic in action.

Reciprocal Teaching

This method is specifically used in reading instruction, as a cooperative learning strategy. Groups of students take turns acting as the teacher, helping students predict, clarify, question, and summarize. Teachers model the process initially, then observe and guide only as needed.

Some teachers shy away from debate in the classroom, afraid it will become too adversarial. But learning to discuss and defend various points of view is an important life skill. Debates teach students to research their topic, make informed choices, and argue effectively using facts instead of emotion.

Learn more: High School Debate Topics To Challenge Every Student

Class or Small-Group Discussion

Class, small-group, and pair discussions are all excellent interactive instructional strategies examples. As students discuss a topic, they clarify their own thinking and learn from the experiences and opinions of others. Of course, in addition to learning about the topic itself, they’re also developing valuable active listening and collaboration skills.

Learn more: Strategies To Improve Classroom Discussions

Socratic Seminar and Fishbowl

Take your classroom discussions one step further with the fishbowl method. A small group of students sits in the middle of the class. They discuss and debate a topic, while their classmates listen silently and make notes. Eventually, the teacher opens the discussion to the whole class, who offer feedback and present their own assertions and challenges.

Learn more: How I Use Fishbowl Discussions To Engage Every Student

Brainstorming

Rather than having a teacher provide examples to explain a topic or solve a problem, students do the work themselves. Remember the one rule of brainstorming: Every idea is welcome. Ensure everyone gets a chance to participate, and form diverse groups to generate lots of unique ideas.

Role-Playing

Role-playing is sort of like a simulation but less intense. It’s perfect for practicing soft skills and focusing on social-emotional learning . Put a twist on this strategy by having students model bad interactions as well as good ones and then discussing the difference.

Think-Pair-Share

This structured discussion technique is simple: First, students think about a question posed by the teacher. Pair students up, and let them talk about their answer. Finally open it up to whole-class discussion. This helps kids participate in discussions in a low-key way and gives them a chance to “practice” before they talk in front of the whole class.

Learn more: Think-Pair-Share and Fun Alternatives

Independent Learning Instructional Strategies Examples

Also called independent study, this form of learning is almost entirely student-led. Teachers take a backseat role, providing materials, answering questions, and guiding or supervising. It’s an excellent way to allow students to dive deep into topics that really interest them, or to encourage learning at a pace that’s comfortable for each student.

Learning Centers

Foster independent learning strategies with centers just for math, writing, reading, and more. Provide a variety of activities, and let kids choose how they spend their time. They often learn better from activities they enjoy.

Learn more: The Big List of K-2 Literacy Centers

Computer-Based Instruction

Once a rarity, now a daily fact of life, computer-based instruction lets students work independently. They can go at their own pace, repeating sections without feeling like they’re holding up the class. Teach students good computer skills at a young age so you’ll feel comfortable knowing they’re focusing on the work and doing it safely.

Writing an essay encourages kids to clarify and organize their thinking. Written communication has become more important in recent years, so being able to write clearly and concisely is a skill every kid needs. This independent instructional strategy has stood the test of time for good reason.

Learn more: The Big List of Essay Topics for High School

Research Projects

Here’s another oldie-but-goodie! When kids work independently to research and present on a topic, their learning is all up to them. They set the pace, choose a focus, and learn how to plan and meet deadlines. This is often a chance for them to show off their creativity and personality too.

Personal journals give kids a chance to reflect and think critically on topics. Whether responding to teacher prompts or simply recording their daily thoughts and experiences, this independent learning method strengthens writing and intrapersonal skills.

Learn more: The Benefits of Journaling in the Classroom

Play-Based Learning

In play-based learning programs, children learn by exploring their own interests. Teachers identify and help students pursue their interests by asking questions, creating play opportunities, and encouraging students to expand their play.

Learn more: What Is Play-Based Learning?

More Instructional Strategies Examples

Don’t be afraid to try new strategies from time to time—you just might find a new favorite! Here are some of the most common instructional strategies examples.

Simulations

This strategy combines experiential, interactive, and indirect learning all in one. The teacher sets up a simulation of a real-world activity or experience. Students take on roles and participate in the exercise, using existing skills and knowledge or developing new ones along the way. At the end, the class reflects separately and together on what happened and what they learned.

Storytelling

Ever since Aesop’s fables, we’ve been using storytelling as a way to teach. Stories grab students’ attention right from the start and keep them engaged throughout the learning process. Real-life stories and fiction both work equally well, depending on the situation.

Learn more: Teaching as Storytelling

Scaffolding

Scaffolding is defined as breaking learning into bite-sized chunks so students can more easily tackle complex material. It builds on old ideas and connects them to new ones. An educator models or demonstrates how to solve a problem, then steps back and encourages the students to solve the problem independently. Scaffolding teaching gives students the support they need by breaking learning into achievable sizes while they progress toward understanding and independence.

Learn more: What Is Scaffolding in Education?

Spaced Repetition

Often paired with direct or independent instruction, spaced repetition is a method where students are asked to recall certain information or skills at increasingly longer intervals. For instance, the day after discussing the causes of the American Civil War in class, the teacher might return to the topic and ask students to list the causes. The following week, the teacher asks them once again, and then a few weeks after that. Spaced repetition helps make knowledge stick, and it is especially useful when it’s not something students practice each day but will need to know in the long term (such as for a final exam).

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are a way of organizing information visually to help students understand and remember it. A good organizer simplifies complex information and lays it out in a way that makes it easier for a learner to digest. Graphic organizers may include text and images, and they help students make connections in a meaningful way.

Learn more: Graphic Organizers 101: Why and How To Use Them

Jigsaw combines group learning with peer teaching. Students are assigned to “home groups.” Within that group, each student is given a specialized topic to learn about. They join up with other students who were given the same topic, then research, discuss, and become experts. Finally, students return to their home group and teach the other members about the topic they specialized in.

Multidisciplinary Instruction

As the name implies, this instructional strategy approaches a topic using techniques and aspects from multiple disciplines, helping students explore it more thoroughly from a variety of viewpoints. For instance, to learn more about a solar eclipse, students might explore scientific explanations, research the history of eclipses, read literature related to the topic, and calculate angles, temperatures, and more.

Interdisciplinary Instruction

This instructional strategy takes multidisciplinary instruction a step further, using it to synthesize information and viewpoints from a variety of disciplines to tackle issues and problems. Imagine a group of students who want to come up with ways to improve multicultural relations at their school. They might approach the topic by researching statistical information about the school population, learning more about the various cultures and their history, and talking with students, teachers, and more. Then, they use the information they’ve uncovered to present possible solutions.

Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction means tailoring your teaching so all students, regardless of their ability, can learn the classroom material. Teachers can customize the content, process, product, and learning environment to help all students succeed. There are lots of differentiated instructional strategies to help educators accommodate various learning styles, backgrounds, and more.

Learn more: What Is Differentiated Instruction?

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching is based on the understanding that we learn best when we can connect with the material. For culturally responsive teachers, that means weaving their students’ various experiences, customs, communication styles, and perspectives throughout the learning process.

Learn more: What Is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

Response to Intervention

Response to Intervention, or RTI, is a way to identify and support students who need extra academic or behavioral help to succeed in school. It’s a tiered approach with various “levels” students move through depending on how much support they need.

Learn more: What Is Response to Intervention?

Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning means tailoring your curriculum to what your students are interested in rather than having a set agenda that you can’t veer from—it means letting children’s curiosity take the lead and then guiding that interest to explore, research, and reflect upon their own learning.

Learn more: What Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is key for learners. They must be open to new ideas and processes and believe they can learn anything with enough effort. It sounds simplistic, but when students really embrace the concept, it can be a real game-changer. Teachers can encourage a growth mindset by using instructional strategies that allow students to learn from their mistakes, rather than punishing them for those mistakes.

Learn more: Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset and 25 Growth Mindset Activities

Blended Learning

This strategy combines face-to-face classroom learning with online learning, in a mix of self-paced independent learning and direct instruction. It’s incredibly common in today’s schools, where most students spend at least part of their day completing self-paced lessons and activities via online technology. Students may also complete their online instructional time at home.

Asynchronous (Self-Paced) Learning

This fancy term really just describes strategies that allow each student to work at their own pace using a flexible schedule. This method became a necessity during the days of COVID lockdowns, as families did their best to let multiple children share one device. All students in an asynchronous class setting learn the same material using the same activities, but do so on their own timetable.

Learn more: Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Learning

Essential Questions

Essential questions are the big-picture questions that inspire inquiry and discussion. Teachers give students a list of several essential questions to consider as they begin a unit or topic. As they dive deeper into the information, teachers ask more specific essential questions to help kids make connections to the “essential” points of a text or subject.

Learn more: Questions That Set a Purpose for Reading

How do I choose the right instructional strategies for my classroom?

When it comes to choosing instructional strategies, there are several things to consider:

• Learning objectives: What will students be able to do as a result of this lesson or activity? If you are teaching specific skills or detailed information, a direct approach may be best. When you want students to develop their own methods of understanding, consider experiential learning. To encourage critical thinking skills, try indirect or interactive instruction.
• Assessments : How will you be measuring whether students have met the learning objectives? The strategies you use should prepare them to succeed. For instance, if you’re teaching spelling, direct instruction is often the best method, since drill-and-practice simulates the experience of taking a spelling test.
• Learning styles : What types of learners do you need to accommodate? Most classrooms (and most students) respond best to a mix of instructional strategies. Those who have difficulty speaking in class might not benefit as much from interactive learning, and students who have trouble staying on task might struggle with independent learning.
• Learning environment: Every classroom looks different, and the environment can vary day by day. Perhaps it’s testing week for other grades in your school, so you need to keep things quieter in your classroom. This probably isn’t the time for experiments or lots of loud discussions. Some activities simply aren’t practical indoors, and the weather might not allow you to take learning outside.

Come discuss instructional strategies and ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook !

Plus, check out the things the best instructional coaches do, according to teachers ..

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Problem Solving in the Classroom

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Success Story

Last week during our class meetings, I noticed a disturbing habit developing among my students. Sometimes they don't want to switch seats and move away from their best friends, and sometimes they want to be the last one standing (when we do an activity that has us sit down after our turn). Then we talked about how this might make everyone else feel and how it might affect our class community. We agreed that this was a problem because it did not make everyone feel welcome. Finally, I asked them for suggestions to solve the problem.

We have been working on problem solving all year. I started by teaching my students that solutions always need to be related, respectful, reasonable, and helpful. This is a challenge for students who often think of punishments before solutions. As we started talking about possible solutions to this problem, the first few solutions were not surprisingly more like punishments, such as, having the culprits sit out of future greetings and activities until they were being kind, or skipping offenders in the circle. However, the more we talked, the more they began to consider ways to prevent the problem from even occurring. Eventually we settled on two possible preventative solutions:

1) they could come to the circle separately and choose a place to sit away from close friends so they wouldn't be tempted to resist moving.

2) we could make assigned seats around the circle so that no one would feel uncomfortable about moving if necessary.

At this point, I told the class I would consider both solutions. It seems that I've taught them well about how to solve problems fairly because immediately one student suggested that I let the class vote. It was hard to argue with her logic and truthfully both solutions were acceptable. So this morning we had a vote. I had the kids close their eyes and raise their hands. They voted (20-3) to have assigned seats. When they opened their eyes and I announced the winning solution they started fist pumping with excitement.

I couldn't help but smile. I could never have imagined such a positive reaction to the idea of assigned seats for class activities. In fact, I suspect that had I forced the idea of assigned seats on them as a "punishment" or consequence, I would have heard lots of complaints and frustration. Yet when they could appreciate the problem and come to the solution on their own, they were more than willing to accept the idea. We immediately created a chart with assigned circle seats and by the afternoon they were already reminding each other where they needed to sit. Love it! Sarah Werstuik, Washington, D.C.

Teach Students the 4 Problem-Solving Steps

Another way to solve problems in the classroom is to teach students the 4 Problem-Solving Steps.

Post a copy of the 4 Problem-Solving Steps where students can refer to it (maybe next to a "peace table").

Problem-Solving Steps

• Do something else. (Find another game or activity.)
• Leave long enough for a cooling-off period, then follow-up with the next steps.
• Tell the other person how you feel. Let him or her know you don’t like what is happening.
• Listen to what the other person says about how he or she feels and what he or she doesn’t like.
• Share what you think you did to contribute to the problem.
• Tell the other person what you are willing to do differently.
• Work out a plan for sharing or taking turns.
• Put it on the class meeting agenda. (This can also be a first choice and is not meant as a last resort.)
• Talk it over with a parent, teacher, or friend.

After discussing these skills, have the children role-play the following hypothetical situations. Have them solve each of the situations four different ways (one for each of the steps).

• Fighting over whose turn it is to use the tetherball.
• Shoving in line.
• Calling people bad names.
• Fighting over whose turn it is to sit by the window in the car or bus.

Teachers can put the Four Problem-Solving Steps on a laminated poster for students to refer to. Some teachers require that children use these steps before they put a problem on the agenda. Other teachers prefer the class meeting process because it teaches other skills. Instead of making one better than the other (class meeting or one-on-one), let children choose which option they would prefer at the moment.

This tool and many others can be found in the Positive Discipline Teacher Tool Cards .

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Positive Discipline offers online learning options for parents, teachers, and parent educators. Learn in the comfort of your own home and at your own pace. You have unlimited access to our online streaming programs, so you can watch and re-watch the videos as often as you like.

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5 Teaching Mathematics Through Problem Solving

Janet Stramel

In his book “How to Solve It,” George Pólya (1945) said, “One of the most important tasks of the teacher is to help his students. This task is not quite easy; it demands time, practice, devotion, and sound principles. The student should acquire as much experience of independent work as possible. But if he is left alone with his problem without any help, he may make no progress at all. If the teacher helps too much, nothing is left to the student. The teacher should help, but not too much and not too little, so that the student shall have a reasonable share of the work.” (page 1)

What is a problem  in mathematics? A problem is “any task or activity for which the students have no prescribed or memorized rules or methods, nor is there a perception by students that there is a specific ‘correct’ solution method” (Hiebert, et. al., 1997). Problem solving in mathematics is one of the most important topics to teach; learning to problem solve helps students develop a sense of solving real-life problems and apply mathematics to real world situations. It is also used for a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts. Learning “math facts” is not enough; students must also learn how to use these facts to develop their thinking skills.

According to NCTM (2010), the term “problem solving” refers to mathematical tasks that have the potential to provide intellectual challenges for enhancing students’ mathematical understanding and development. When you first hear “problem solving,” what do you think about? Story problems or word problems? Story problems may be limited to and not “problematic” enough. For example, you may ask students to find the area of a rectangle, given the length and width. This type of problem is an exercise in computation and can be completed mindlessly without understanding the concept of area. Worthwhile problems  includes problems that are truly problematic and have the potential to provide contexts for students’ mathematical development.

There are three ways to solve problems: teaching for problem solving, teaching about problem solving, and teaching through problem solving.

Teaching for problem solving begins with learning a skill. For example, students are learning how to multiply a two-digit number by a one-digit number, and the story problems you select are multiplication problems. Be sure when you are teaching for problem solving, you select or develop tasks that can promote the development of mathematical understanding.

Teaching about problem solving begins with suggested strategies to solve a problem. For example, “draw a picture,” “make a table,” etc. You may see posters in teachers’ classrooms of the “Problem Solving Method” such as: 1) Read the problem, 2) Devise a plan, 3) Solve the problem, and 4) Check your work. There is little or no evidence that students’ problem-solving abilities are improved when teaching about problem solving. Students will see a word problem as a separate endeavor and focus on the steps to follow rather than the mathematics. In addition, students will tend to use trial and error instead of focusing on sense making.

Teaching through problem solving  focuses students’ attention on ideas and sense making and develops mathematical practices. Teaching through problem solving also develops a student’s confidence and builds on their strengths. It allows for collaboration among students and engages students in their own learning.

Consider the following worthwhile-problem criteria developed by Lappan and Phillips (1998):

• The problem has important, useful mathematics embedded in it.
• The problem requires high-level thinking and problem solving.
• The problem contributes to the conceptual development of students.
• The problem creates an opportunity for the teacher to assess what his or her students are learning and where they are experiencing difficulty.
• The problem can be approached by students in multiple ways using different solution strategies.
• The problem has various solutions or allows different decisions or positions to be taken and defended.
• The problem encourages student engagement and discourse.
• The problem connects to other important mathematical ideas.
• The problem promotes the skillful use of mathematics.
• The problem provides an opportunity to practice important skills.

Of course, not every problem will include all of the above. Sometimes, you will choose a problem because your students need an opportunity to practice a certain skill.

Key features of a good mathematics problem includes:

• It must begin where the students are mathematically.
• The feature of the problem must be the mathematics that students are to learn.
• It must require justifications and explanations for both answers and methods of solving.

Problem solving is not a  neat and orderly process. Think about needlework. On the front side, it is neat and perfect and pretty.

But look at the b ack.

It is messy and full of knots and loops. Problem solving in mathematics is also like this and we need to help our students be “messy” with problem solving; they need to go through those knots and loops and learn how to solve problems with the teacher’s guidance.

When you teach through problem solving , your students are focused on ideas and sense-making and they develop confidence in mathematics!

Mathematics Tasks and Activities that Promote Teaching through Problem Solving

Choosing the Right Task

Selecting activities and/or tasks is the most significant decision teachers make that will affect students’ learning. Consider the following questions:

• Teachers must do the activity first. What is problematic about the activity? What will you need to do BEFORE the activity and AFTER the activity? Additionally, think how your students would do the activity.
• What mathematical ideas will the activity develop? Are there connections to other related mathematics topics, or other content areas?
• Can the activity accomplish your learning objective/goals?

Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks

By definition, a “ low floor/high ceiling task ” is a mathematical activity where everyone in the group can begin and then work on at their own level of engagement. Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks are activities that everyone can begin and work on based on their own level, and have many possibilities for students to do more challenging mathematics. One gauge of knowing whether an activity is a Low Floor High Ceiling Task is when the work on the problems becomes more important than the answer itself, and leads to rich mathematical discourse [Hover: ways of representing, thinking, talking, agreeing, and disagreeing; the way ideas are exchanged and what the ideas entail; and as being shaped by the tasks in which students engage as well as by the nature of the learning environment].

The strengths of using Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks:

• Allows students to show what they can do, not what they can’t.
• Provides differentiation to all students.
• Promotes a positive classroom environment.
• Advances a growth mindset in students
• Aligns with the Standards for Mathematical Practice

Examples of some Low Floor High Ceiling Tasks can be found at the following sites:

• YouCubed – under grades choose Low Floor High Ceiling
• NRICH Creating a Low Threshold High Ceiling Classroom
• Inside Mathematics Problems of the Month

Math in 3-Acts

Math in 3-Acts was developed by Dan Meyer to spark an interest in and engage students in thought-provoking mathematical inquiry. Math in 3-Acts is a whole-group mathematics task consisting of three distinct parts:

Act One is about noticing and wondering. The teacher shares with students an image, video, or other situation that is engaging and perplexing. Students then generate questions about the situation.

In Act Two , the teacher offers some information for the students to use as they find the solutions to the problem.

Act Three is the “reveal.” Students share their thinking as well as their solutions.

“Math in 3 Acts” is a fun way to engage your students, there is a low entry point that gives students confidence, there are multiple paths to a solution, and it encourages students to work in groups to solve the problem. Some examples of Math in 3-Acts can be found at the following websites:

• Dan Meyer’s Three-Act Math Tasks
• Graham Fletcher3-Act Tasks ]
• Math in 3-Acts: Real World Math Problems to Make Math Contextual, Visual and Concrete

Number Talks

Number talks are brief, 5-15 minute discussions that focus on student solutions for a mental math computation problem. Students share their different mental math processes aloud while the teacher records their thinking visually on a chart or board. In addition, students learn from each other’s strategies as they question, critique, or build on the strategies that are shared.. To use a “number talk,” you would include the following steps:

• The teacher presents a problem for students to solve mentally.
• Provide adequate “ wait time .”
• The teacher calls on a students and asks, “What were you thinking?” and “Explain your thinking.”
• For each student who volunteers to share their strategy, write their thinking on the board. Make sure to accurately record their thinking; do not correct their responses.
• Invite students to question each other about their strategies, compare and contrast the strategies, and ask for clarification about strategies that are confusing.

“Number Talks” can be used as an introduction, a warm up to a lesson, or an extension. Some examples of Number Talks can be found at the following websites:

• Inside Mathematics Number Talks
• Number Talks Build Numerical Reasoning

Saying “This is Easy”

“This is easy.” Three little words that can have a big impact on students. What may be “easy” for one person, may be more “difficult” for someone else. And saying “this is easy” defeats the purpose of a growth mindset classroom, where students are comfortable making mistakes.

When the teacher says, “this is easy,” students may think,

• “Everyone else understands and I don’t. I can’t do this!”
• Students may just give up and surrender the mathematics to their classmates.
• Students may shut down.

Instead, you and your students could say the following:

• “I think I can do this.”
• “I have an idea I want to try.”
• “I’ve seen this kind of problem before.”

Tracy Zager wrote a short article, “This is easy”: The Little Phrase That Causes Big Problems” that can give you more information. Read Tracy Zager’s article here.

Using “Worksheets”

Do you want your students to memorize concepts, or do you want them to understand and apply the mathematics for different situations?

What is a “worksheet” in mathematics? It is a paper and pencil assignment when no other materials are used. A worksheet does not allow your students to use hands-on materials/manipulatives [Hover: physical objects that are used as teaching tools to engage students in the hands-on learning of mathematics]; and worksheets are many times “naked number” with no context. And a worksheet should not be used to enhance a hands-on activity.

Students need time to explore and manipulate materials in order to learn the mathematics concept. Worksheets are just a test of rote memory. Students need to develop those higher-order thinking skills, and worksheets will not allow them to do that.

One productive belief from the NCTM publication, Principles to Action (2014), states, “Students at all grade levels can benefit from the use of physical and virtual manipulative materials to provide visual models of a range of mathematical ideas.”

You may need an “activity sheet,” a “graphic organizer,” etc. as you plan your mathematics activities/lessons, but be sure to include hands-on manipulatives. Using manipulatives can

• Provide your students a bridge between the concrete and abstract
• Serve as models that support students’ thinking
• Provide another representation
• Support student engagement
• Give students ownership of their own learning.

Adapted from “ The Top 5 Reasons for Using Manipulatives in the Classroom ”.

any task or activity for which the students have no prescribed or memorized rules or methods, nor is there a perception by students that there is a specific ‘correct’ solution method

should be intriguing and contain a level of challenge that invites speculation and hard work, and directs students to investigate important mathematical ideas and ways of thinking toward the learning

involves teaching a skill so that a student can later solve a story problem

when we teach students how to problem solve

teaching mathematics content through real contexts, problems, situations, and models

a mathematical activity where everyone in the group can begin and then work on at their own level of engagement

20 seconds to 2 minutes for students to make sense of questions

Mathematics Methods for Early Childhood Copyright © 2021 by Janet Stramel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)

Use this list of 107 classroom teaching strategies for your lesson plan or teaching portfolio. This can help demonstrate pedagogical knowledge and the ability to apply theory to practice.

Or, try some of these strategies out when you’re low on ideas and looking for a fresh way to teach in the classroom. Note that these are just some examples of teaching strategies – I’m sure there are even more out there!

Tip: Bookmark this page so you can come back to it every time you need some new teaching strategies!

Teaching Strategies Examples (List)

1. flipped instruction.

Description

Flipped classrooms involve asking students to complete the reading, preparation and introductory work at home. Then, during class time, the students do practice questions that they would traditionally do for homework.

• Flipped instruction enables the teacher to offload the direct instruction elements of education like Introductions to homework. This enables teachers to spend more time on student-centered differentiated support .
• Students may not complete their assigned pre-class homework, which will undermine the lesson.

Theoretical Link

Social Constructivism / Socio-Cultural Theory : The teacher can spend more time supporting students in a student-centered environment.

• Assign a video introducing a concept for homework.
• Spend the first 10 minutes of the lesson assessing students’ comprehension of the video
• Jump straight into student-centered practice tasks
• Walk around the class helping students who need additional support for the rest of the lesson

See my full article on Flipped Classrooms Pros and Cons.

Related Article: 25 Teaching Styles Examples

2. Play-based learning

Students learn cognitive, social, and physical skills during play tasks. Tasks can be teacher-led with specific goals (e.g. volume transfer in a sandpit) or unstructured student-led play.

• Engagement: students may be more engaged during active play-based learning compared to teacher-centered instruction.
• Cognition : students get the opportunity to learn through discovery and trial-and-error, helping to build neural pathways
• Social: students play together, developing communication, groupwork, and negotiation skills.
• Physical: play engages fine and gross motor functions , helping to improve physical abilities.
• Many traditionalist, including many parents and potentially your head teacher, may consider play to have no educational or academic benefit.
• Parents may frown upon this method for older students, despite its benefits across age groups.
• Many people consider that the risks of injury during play-based learning are too high.

( Read More: Pros and Cons of Play Based Learning )

Social Constructivism. Students learn through social interaction and building knowledge in their minds through trial and error.

Play is also encouraged in all 5 Contemporary Early Childhood Perspectives (Froebel, Reggio Emilia, Forest Schools , Steiner-Waldorf Schools, and Montessori).

• Use modelled instruction to show students how to play with developmentally appropriate resource-rich toys and puzzles. Consider puzzles that require mathematical skills that link to current curriculum outcomes.
• Provide students with the puzzles and allow free unstructured play time
• Mingle with the students, helping them with prompting and guiding questions
• End the lesson with a whole group discussion of what they learned during the lesson.

See my full article on Play Based Learning Pros and Cons .

3. Project-based learning (PBL)

Project-based learning requires students to spend an extended period of time (e.g. a week or more) on a single project to gain in-depth knowledge about the task. The projects should be personally meaningful and give students freedom to go in-depth on areas of interest.

• Students have the opportunity to become ‘experts’ on topics. By going deep on a topic, students may become very knowledgeable and feel empowered.
• A balance is struck between ensuring students focus on curriculum-linked projects and giving students the freedom to explore the details of a topic that are of personal interest.
• Students tend to have increased freedom using this approach. So, students need to learn self-regulation skills before beginning the task.

Constructivism in the Classroom : Students work independently using their own intellect and resources to learn. By doing personal research, students ‘construct’ knowledge in their minds and apply that knowledge to the project to demonstrate their knowledge.

• Teacher assigns students a research question, such as “What are the key characteristics of mammals?”
• Students work in small groups to come up with an idea for a poster, diagram, or presentation project on the topic.
• Teacher approves or asks for amendments of students’ proposed projects.
• Students are provided a series of lessons over a 2-week period in computer labs and in resource-rich classrooms to complete their project.
• Teacher checks-in intermittently to ensure standards are upheld and to stimulate students to improve upon their projects.
• The project concludes with students presenting their project to their parents.

4. Authentic Learning

Authentic learning involves having students learn about concepts in real-life (or near real-life) environments. Similarly, authentic assessment refers to assessments in real-life (or near real-life) environments

• By learning a task within its context, a student will understand its value for them outside of the classroom.
• Engagement: students may be more engaged in a task if they understand its practical application rather than just its theoretical purpose.
• Cognition and Memory: Students may find it easier to recall information if they can reflect on an instance in which they applied the knowledge to a real-life task.
• Authentic learning tasks are difficult to set-up from within a classroom.
• It is debatable whether so-called ‘authentic’ environments are genuinely authentic. A mock supermarket experience for practicing counting money, for example, lacks the potential for environmental distractions of a real-life situation.
• Some information is by its very nature academic and theoretical rather than practical, and this information is still of value to students.

Constructivism: Authentic learning environments are designed for students to be active learners who ‘construct’ knowledge through personal experience.

• An ESL teacher provides students with a set of conversational tasks to complete during a day’s field trip to the city.
• Students complete the tasks in the ‘real world’ by walking around the city asking for directions, buying lunch, etc.
• Class comes together at the end of the day to discuss and reflect on their experiences of applying their knowledge in the ‘real world’.

5. Discovery Learning

Discovery learning involves allowing students maximum freedom within a resource-rich environment to ‘discover’ answers to challenges. It requires students to build upon prior knowledge and use resources available in the environment to increase their own knowledge.

Discovery learning is often held in contrast to teacher-centered approaches, as students are not ‘told’ information; instead, they must discover knowledge for themselves..

• Students generate knowledge for themselves rather than being told what is right and wrong.
• By discovering truths, students will have a firmer understanding for the reasoning behind why something is true.
• Too much student freedom may distract students from the learning outcomes.
• This can be a time-consuming technique as students discover information at their own pace. It can therefore be difficult to implement in education systems that are packed with curriculum outcomes that must be met.

Construcitivism: Students generate their own knowledge through engagement with their environment rather than having truths ‘told’ to them by an authority figure.

• Teacher places the appropriate resources in the classroom to allow students to discover truths themselves. These resources may include science experiment stations, newspaper articles, etc.
• Teacher transparently presents the lesson objectives to the students, i.e. “What is heavier – sand or water?”
• Students are given minimal guidance, but sent to the learning stations to try to answer the prompt themselves.
• Teacher provides minimal guidance, recognizing that making mistakes and trying the ‘wrong thing’ is also a part of the discovery experience.
• Students get together at the end of the class to discuss what they ‘discovered’.

6. High Expectations

Setting high expectation involves requiring students to put in maximum effort during their lessons. HIgh expectations does not mean expecting all students to meet a certain standard. Rather, it means expecting each student to try to beat their own personal best.

• High expectations are necessary to ensure students continue to strive for improvement. Without high expectations in the classroom, students can become lazy and lose respect for education.
• Teachers need to be aware that sometimes students have ‘off days’ where they cannot succeed at their normal level. This may be due to health, hunger, or environmental factors .
• Teachers need to balance high expectations with compassion for their students. Try not to let burnout occur due to strenuous demands.
• Measure students’ prior knowledge to ascertain their current developmental level.
• Have students aim to achieve at or above their current ability in a given task.
• If students underperform, provide formative feedback and insist they readdress their work to make edits and improvements.
• Allow students to progress to subsequent tasks only when their work has met or exceeded the minimum standard you set for that individual.

See my full article on High Expectations in the Classroom .

7. Parent and Community Engagement

Parent and community engagement involves bringing students together with their community. It can involve bringing parents and community members into the classroom, or bringing students out into the community on field trips.

• By engaging with the community, students come to see themselves as a member of their community.
• It can help students to get to know important members of their community to give them a sense of belonging, and help them see (and, in the future, seek) support networks.
• By bringing role models into the classroom (especially minority and female role models), students can come to see that they could potentially become female firefighters, politicians of color, etc.
• Students can learn from more than just one teacher to get a variety of perspectives.
• Safety concerns often require teachers and community members to fill-in forms and complete background checks before community engagement can occur.
• Finding members of the community willing to work with teachers can be difficult.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: Students learn within family and community contexts (children’s ‘first teachers’) in order to respect and carry-on culturally engaged learning.

• Teacher does networking to find community members willing to come into the classroom.
• Teacher finds relevant curriculum links that community members can help them teach about.
• Teacher and community members meet to discuss a lesson idea.
• Community members and teachers team-teach in the classroom.
• Students are given the opportunity for one-on-one time with community members.
• Students present the results of their lesson to community members before community members leave.

8. Unconditional Positive Regard

Unconditional positive regard involves teachers consistently and unconditionally viewing students as capable and competent. When students make mistakes, fail, or misbehave, it is the teacher’s role to continue to let students know that they believe in the student and their abilities.

• Empowering: when students are given unconditional positive regard, they know that their teacher believes in their ability to constantly do better.
• Shows Empathy and builds Trust: children come to learn to respect and trust their teacher when they know their teacher is always on ‘their side’.
• Teachers need to ensure that they still let students know that inappropriate behavior or lack of effort is unacceptable. The teacher should follow-up their discipline with comments about positive regard.

Humanist theory of Education : Humanist Carl Rogers invented this approach. He believed unconditional positive regard was necessary for building students’ self-confidence.

• “Even though you did not do well today, I expect that you will come to school doing better tomorrow.”
• “The quality of your work does not match your potential. Let’s talk about some strategies for improvement before you go away and do it again.”

See my full post on the Humanist approach to Education .

9. Modeled Teaching

Modeled teaching is an instructional strategy that involves the teacher ‘showing’ students how to do a task. The teacher shows the task while also breaking it down into small steps. This helps students to see how to complete the task.

• A very effective way to introduce new topics.
• The teacher maintains control when introducing a new idea to ensure students have appropriate understanding and safety knowledge before trying for themselves.
• Shows that learning can occur passively – students can learn simply by watching.
• Not appropriate as a standalone strategy. Students need to eventually try things alone to show competency. Therefore, consider matching modeled teaching up with the I Do, We Do, You Do method

Bandura’s Behaviorism: Bandura blends behaviorism with constructivism by showing that learning can occur through observation only.

See my full post on Behaviorism in Education , which has a segment on Bandura’s modelled instruction approach.

10. I Do We Do You Do Method

The I Do, We Do, You Do method is a scaffolding strategy that provides gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student. It involves three steps: (1) I Do: Teacher models the task; (2) We Do: Student and teacher do the task together; (3) You Do: Student attempts to complete the task alone.

• Students are provided an appropriate balance of support and freedom.
• Teacher has ample time to assess students’ abilities to make adjustments to their pedagogy as they move through the 3 steps (particularly in step 2)
• In large groups, students may fall behind at Steps 2 and 3.

Sociocultural Theory: Students learn through social interaction with a more knowledgeable other (see: Lev Vygotsky).

• Teacher asks all students to sit on a mat at the front of the class.
• Teacher models the steps required to complete the day’s task (I Do).
• Teacher re-does the task. This time, instead of telling the students the steps, the teacher asks students to raise their hand and tell the teacher what to do next (We Do)
• Teacher asks students to complete the task in small groups. Teacher walks around providing support (We Do)
• Students complete the lesson by doing the task alone. Teacher only intervenes for the few students who are still struggling (You Do)

See my full guide on implementing the I Do, We Do, You Do method .

11. Guided Practice / Cognitive Apprenticeship

Students follow along with their teacher as an ‘apprentice’. By working side-by-side, they learn the subtle little things (‘ tacit knowledge ’) required to know in order to master a skill.

• Students get very close one-to-one interaction with an expert, helping them learn.
• By learning-by-doing, the student learns not only the theory but also the skills required to complete tasks.
• An approach predominantly used for young children in Indigenous communities, which is not applicable on a wide scale in Western mass education systems.
• Requires one-to-one support, which is not often available.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Rogoff studied Guatemalan Indigenous teaching methods to come up with this approach. It fits under the socio-cultural theory because its emphasis is on social interaction between master and apprentice.

Common in trade schools for students studying to be mechanics, engineers, etc.

See my full guides on the Guided Practice teaching strategy and cognitive fexibility .

12. Scaffolding

Scaffolding involves providing support to students while they cannot complete a task alone. Then, when the student can complete the task alone, the teacher withdraws their support.

• Students feel supported while learning tasks that are just outside of their grasp at the present time.
• A clear way of guiding students towards new skills.
• May require a lot of one-to-one support, which can be difficult to provide in a classroom environment.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Scaffolding was invented by Jerome Bruner ( not Vygotsky).

• The teacher models a task before students try it themselves.
• The teacher provides the student with a visual aid (the scaffold, in this instance) that breaks the task down into small parts.
• After 15 minutes of practice with the visual aid, the aid is withdrawn and the students try the task alone.

13. Direct Instruction (a.k.a Explicit Teaching)

Direct instruction (also known as explicit teaching) is a teacher-centered approach that involves the teacher using simple straightforward language to explain concepts to students.

• Provides clear and direct knowledge to students
• Is sometimes the only way to teach something, particularly when introducing a new idea.
• Students cannot consolidate their knowledge with direct instruction alone. Explicit teaching should be followed-up with other teaching strategies that involve more active learning so students can practice and demonstrate their knowledge.

Behaviorism: Traditionally, direct instruction was embraced by behaviorists who believed in teacher-centered teaching. Today, it is used in most teaching approaches.

14. Repetition (Rote Learning)

Repetition involves giving students time to retry tasks over and over again until it is consolidated in their minds. The information should be safely in a student’s long-term memory before moving on.

• Repetition commits information to memory, and is often one of the only ways to ensure something is truly remembered long-term.
• Repetitive rote learning that lacks contextual background is hard to remember. Sometimes, giving context through doing tasks through real-life scenarios can be better for memory long-term.
• Repetition can disengage students and demotivate them.
• Doesn’t account for social and cognitive aspects of learning.

Behaviorism: Repetition is central to a behaviorist approach. Pavlov, a famous behaviorist found that he could teach his dog through repetitively associating a bell with food. The dog came to learn through repetition that the bell meant ‘food’.

See my full post on Behaviorism in Education.

15. Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition builds on simple repetition. Spaced repetition involves gradually increasing the space between times you repeat something. Repetition of a task should be very common. Over time, the task should be re-examined less and less often.

The idea behind spaced repetition is that the concept being learned is re-engaged with just before it is forgotten so that it is consistently recalled into memory and gradually sedimented into long-term memory.

• Provides long-term support to ensure students remember information over a sustained period of time.
• Perfect for revision and standardized test preparation.
• Can be disengaging and boring for students who tend to prefer active learning.

Behaviorism: Spaced repetition was invented by behaviorist theorist Ebbinghaus in 1885.

• Provide students with a sprinkle of review tasks as a part of their weekly homework.
• Start lessons (or set aside some time each week) with revision of tasks from months previously to jog students’ memory.

16. Prompting

Prompting involves providing students with nudges, guides and questions that will help them to move closer towards an answer. A prompt is a suggestion to a student that they pay attention to a particular aspect of a task that will help them get closer to the answer.

• Prompts are used regularly by teachers to get beyond blocks in student learning. Without prompts, students may never develop or improve.
• It is hard to know exactly how much prompting to give and at what stage. Students need time to think things through and make mistakes. Too much prompting too soon can prevent students from thinking for themselves.

Social Constructivism: Social constructivists believe teachers have a role in helping students to build knowledge in their minds. Teachers’ interventions can help spur knowledge development.

• A teacher might ask a question to get the student to look at the task from a different perspective.
• A teacher may point at a section of a diagram and ask them about that section.
• A teacher might start a sentence and ask a student to finish it.

17. Differentiation

Differentiation is a teaching strategy that requires teachers to change their teaching styles and educational materials to meet the diverse needs of students within a classroom. It generally involves grouping students into several sub-groups in the classroom based on ability, skillset or learning preferences.

• Enables the teacher to more effectively address the diverse needs of students in a large classroom.
• Ensures learning is more personalized in the hope that no child will be left behind in a lesson.
• Differentiation is often used as an excuse to dumb down a task – differentiated instruction should be paired with high expectations to ensure all students are working to their maximum potential.

Socio-cultural Theory: This approach acknowledges that all students have different social and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, each student requires a personalized learning approach. It realizes that one size fits all will not work because all students are different.

• Separate students into three ability groups: Advanced, Middle, and Lower. The advanced students can be provided with project-based learning tasks to complete while the teacher works with the middle and lower groups to provide additional support.
• Provide students with a range of tasks that addresses the same learning outcome. Students can choose between different tasks depending on their learning preferences.

18. Manipulatives

Manipulatives are physical educational toys (or: ‘tools’) which are used to support learning. Providing students with physical manipulatives during learning enables them to visualize their learning in a 3D space.

• Students can learn more actively when they have manipulatives than when learning through teacher-centered direct instruction methods.
• Helps students who need to visualize information to learn.
• Creation of physical models helps students to form mental models (‘ cognitive schemata ’).
• It can be expensive to gather enough materials for all students in a classroom.
• Providing students with toys can distract them from the task. Strong classroom management skills are required.

Constructivism: Constructivists including Freidrich Froebel and Maria Montessori have advocated for the use of educational toys to help students to explore and discover in student-led active learning contexts.

• Base Tens ‘Dienes Cubes’ are cubes that can be bunched into singles, groups of ten, groups of 100, and groups of 1000 to help students visualize the decimal system of counting.
• Colored beads can be used to help students in early childhood learn to recognize patterns.
• Froebel’s Gifts are 9 manipulative toys that students can use to solve developmentally appropriate puzzles.

19. Prior Knowledge Assessment

Prior knowledge assessment entails assessing students’ knowledge at the beginning of a unit of work in order to teach students at an appropriate level. If prior knowledge does not take place, teachers may teach content at a level that is either above or below a class’s optimal learning level.

• Ensures the content being taught is at an appropriate level.
• Respects the fact that students come into the classroom with pre-existing knowledge.
• Identifies misconceptions students may have about a topic.
• Enables teachers to take into account students’ cultural knowledge when preparing a unit of work.
• Ensure you assess prior knowledge well in advance so you can plan lessons based on prior knowledge. I’ve assessed prior knowledge at the start of a class before and realized the lesson I planned was completely useless!

20. Student-Teacher Conference

A student-teacher conference is a one-on-one discussion between a student and a teacher to take stock of a student’s needs. The conference usually involves a discussion of both strengths as well as areas for improvement. The conference should conclude with a list of goals for the teacher and student to mutually strive toward.

• An opportunity for both the teacher and student to express concerns and anxieties
• Helps students to feel ‘seen’, valued and cared for by the teacher
• Hard to achieve in every lesson. Teachers could consider systematically conferring with one or two students per lesson until all students are met with.
• There is a power imbalance in the student-teacher relationship which may prevent students from speaking candidly.

Socio-Cultural Theory: Interactions between teachers and students are important to learning within the socio-cultural approach.

• Print a list of your students with a column for ‘achievements’, ‘goals’ and ‘struggles’. Over the course of a week, meet up with your students and discuss with them what they’ve achieved in the current unit of work, what their goals are, and what the barriers are to achieving those goals.

21. Fill-In the Gaps (Cloze Passages)

A simple teaching strategy that involves asking students to fill-in an incomplete piece of text. This can happen verbally (starting a paragraph and asking students to complete it) and in writing (a traditional cloze passage).

• Helps students to jog their own memories by prompting them slightly.
• Enables teachers to quickly assess students’ knowledge (just-in-time assessment).
• Cannot be a consistently used strategy as students also need to learn through more challenging approaches such as discovery learning and project-based learning.
• Paper cloze passages involving a story in which the key phrases are removed.
• Prompting questions like: “Can you finish this sentence? The first king of England was …”

22. Peer Assisted Learning (PAL)

Has the teacher step aside and allows students to take charge of the learning environment.

• Students can often explain concepts to one another in a clear way because they’re on the same level and closer in their learning journey than the teacher, who probably learned the content years ago!
• Peer assisted learning is not the same as the students doing the teaching. Students should continue to view each others as partners in learning.

Socio-Cultural Theory: students learning through collaborative discussion fits firmly into the sociocultural theory of education .

• Invite students from a grade level above to come into the classroom and act as moderators of discussions on topics of interest.
• Pair stronger students with weaker students. Have the stronger students demonstrate their knowledge by supporting the weaker students. I find this works really well because children can often explain things in a clear language that other children can understand.

23. Poster Presentations

A poster presentation is a great way to demonstrate knowledge at the end of a lesson or unit of work. Provide the students with posters, pens, and printing materials if required.

• A fast, effective way of presenting knowledge to the class.
• Allows students to practice demonstration skills.
• Ends up with a physical product that can be photographed and added to the student’s portfolio to prove that outcomes have been met.
• Can be a lazy way to achieve presentation of knowledge. Ensure the focus remains on the content and not the coloring-in or drawing pretty pictures.
• Not useful for all lessons: when students can create a working model, diagram, etc. this would be preferred.
• Have students work in groups to write up their knowledge in a visually engaging way.
• Then, have each group verbally present their poster to the class.

24. Two-Minute Presentation

Two Minute verbal presentations, like posters, are an effective way of having students demonstrate their knowledge at the end of a lesson or unit of work. Each student gets two minutes to present their knowledge on a topic to the rest of the class.

• An effective, fast way of doing summative assessment.
• It is an inefficient use of other students’ time having them listen to 20 other two-minute presentations when they could be engaging in higher-order learning during that time. Students find it very boring and frustrating to sit through the assessment of other students.
• Use the two-minute presentation method for the final lesson in a series of lessons on one topic.
• Have students read over their notes from previous classes and write a summary of the top 10 points.
• Have students prepare their two-minute presentations by adding the notes to palm cards. With 10 points, students have about 12 second per point!
• Ensure students have time to practice with one another and instruct them on how to take additional notes on their palm cards for points they forgot during practice.
• If each student has a different topic or angle to present engagement may be enhanced during the class presentations.

25. De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats

De Bono’s 6 thinking hats strategy asks students to look at an issue from multiple perspectives. It can be used for groups or individuals. Depending on the hat a student is provided, they have to think from a different perspective.

The Six Hats

• White hat: Provide the facts.
• Yellow hat: Explore the positives.
• Black hat: Explore the negatives (devil’s advocate).
• Red hat: Express your feelings and intuitions . Include concerns, dislikes and likes.
• Green hat: Be creative. Come up with new ideas and alternatives.
• Blue hat: The manager who ensures all the hats are sticking to their lane.
• Helps students to think outside of their own perspectives.
• Encourages students to attack an issue from many different angles.
• Teachers group work skills if used in a group.
• I often find it’s hard to get groups of 6, so sometimes one student has to use two hats.
• Introduce a contentious topic with a video or reading.
• Distribute hats to the students.
• Have students spend some time brainstorming what they would say on the issue from their perspective. If you have a large class, group all the white hats together, red hats together, etc. to work in groups for this part.
• Then rearrange students into groups where there is one colored hat per group (groups of 6 is ideal, or 5 with one person taking the role of blue hat as well).
• At the end of the class, have a whole group discussion summing up our points and list the details of the topic on the white board. Hopefully students will see that the issue is a very complex one!

26. Pop Quiz

A pop quiz is a short test that takes place with no prior warning. The quiz can be formative or summative. Link the quiz to rewards to keep students motivated to do well and be prepared at any moment.

• Can be motivating for students who enjoy the challenge of competing with themselves or others.
• Keeps students on their toes which encourages ongoing review and homework on the part of the students.
• May worry some students who are unprepared.

27. Democratic Vote

Taking a democratic vote is a progressive education strategy that attempts to empower students in the classroom. Have students vote on what or how they will learn within the classroom. This can be done at a small scale in a lesson plan by asking students to vote on how a lesson will progress, for example.

• Can empower students, giving them a sense of ownership over the classroom.
• Can build trust and rapport between the students and the teacher.
• Helps the teacher take the pulse of the class and understand what they want and need.
• Teachers may lose their power and control over the class if they overuse this approach.
• Just because the majority supports something, it doesn’t mean it’s best. A small group of students may fall behind and have their voices drowned out by the majority.

Progressive Education: Progressive educators such as Alfie Kohn advocate for empowering students through increased democracy in the classroom.

See my full post on Citizenship Education .

28. Non-Verbal Gestures

Using non-verbal gestures are powerful ways to help students learn, as well as to manage the classroom. Educators can explicitly teach signs or use gestures common in society.

• Teachers can give individual students instant feedback that is subtle and does not disrupt the rest of the class.
• Students feel acknowledged when small gestures are used just for them.
• It is a non-intrusive way of prompting students.
• Cultural sensitivity required. Different cultures ascribe different meanings to non-verbal gestures.
• Nods of approval can let a student know you have recognized their good work without disrupting the flow of the lesson.
• Pointing can be used to direct students’ attention toward prompts around the room or on worksheets that may help stimulate thinking.
• Tapping a watch can remind students to pay attention to time limitations of a lesson.

29. Environmental Manipulation

Environments have a strong impact on learning. Temperature, lighting, seating plans , colors and posters on the walls can all affect learning.

• A non-intrusive way of supporting learning.
• Helps students feel more comfortable in the classroom.
• Your classroom has limitations which may prevent the ideal environmental settings.
• Different students may work better in different environments (e.g. heat settings)

Humanism: Teachers pay attention to the conditions required for creating an optimal learning environment.

Classical Conditioning (Behaviorism): Students are ‘conditioned’ by cause-and-effect mechanisms that are subtle and that they aren’t even aware of.

For more, see my full post on behaviorism in education.

• When a class is too loud, try subtly turning off the fan. It’s amazing how often this small environmental manipulation can quiet down a class.
• Ensure the classroom is not too dark. A dark classroom can impede reading, especially for students who do not have perfect eyesight.
• Heat and noise can both prevent learning.
• Calm colors on the walls can help students relax into the learning environment.

30. Associative Learning

Associative learning takes place when several ideas are introduced to a student that are mutually reinforcing. In the classroom, this means presenting students with several stimulus materials that help a student to recall a fact.

• Is very effective during revision for an exam.
• Has questionable long-term benefits as at this stage the concept is not yet solidly consolidated in long-term memory. The recall of information is dependant on other associated information.

Behaviorism (Pavlov’s Dog): Most famously, Pavlov managed to get a dog to associate the ringing of a bell with food. The dog would salivate whenever the bell rang, whether or not there was food around.

Cognitive Constructivism: while associative learning is most commonly associated with Pavlov, constructivists also have an explanation. The more associations someone has with a topic, the more neural pathways are created connecting ideas. This helps improve memory recall.

See Also: Non-Associative Learning

• The teacher presents students with rhyming pairs to help a student associate one word with another. This can be effective in teaching vocabulary.
• When attempting to recall a fact, you can try to reflect on where you were and what else you were talking about when that fact was first introduced to you.

31. Cooperative Learning (Group Work)

Cooperative learning is a teaching strategy that involves having students work together rather than in competition. Usually, this takes place in small groups where the success of the group is dependant on the students working together to achieve a common goal (also known as positive interdependence). See more: Cooperative learning examples .

• Minimizes destructive competitiveness in the classroom which may undermine a collaborative and collegial atmosphere.
• Requires students to talk to one another which can help them learn from each other’s perspectives.
• Students need to be explicitly taught group work skills before participating.
• Some students may become lazy and let others do the work for the whole group.

Sociocultural Theory: Learning is stimulated when students converse with one another. They get to see others’ viewpoints which may help each student build upon or challenge their existing views.

32. Agenda Setting

The teacher presents the students with the agenda at the start of the day. The use of visual aids may be helpful here, allowing students to see a timeline of the day’s events on the board at the front of the classroom.

• Very effective for students with autism who often feel calmed knowing there is some structure to their day.
• Helps relax students into a day or even a lesson by giving them certainty about what’s to come.
• Any benefits that may arise lack scientific backing.
• Download a card set of images that represent different lesson types and activities. Use this card set to lay out a visual timeline for the students every morning.

33. Team Teaching

Instead of one teacher delivering a lesson to a group of students, several teachers get their classes together to teach one lesson to a larger group.

• Teachers can be more flexible. One teacher may take the role of presenter while the other acts as a support with students falling behind.
• Teachers can share the workload, particularly for preparation.
• Large groups may lead to some students falling behind without the teachers realizing.
• There is the potential for more noise distractions and subversive behavior in large groups.
• Teachers need to have the same work ethic for this to be effective.
• Large class sizes required.
• Consider having one teacher take the lead on all mathematics lessons and the other take the lead on all literature lessons. This enables each teacher to become more expert on their topic.

34. Directing Attention

Directing attention involves diverting students away from negative non-learning behaviors and towards positive behaviors by presenting them with engaging learning materials or ideas.

• Prevents negative behaviors without confrontation.
• Focuses on creating engaging lessons.
• Can be done multiple times in one lesson whenever a teacher sees a student is distracted.
• Tends to be more effective with younger children than older children.
• Use visual aids, worksheets and manipulatives to help direct and maintain students’ attention on something physical. With adults, I use flipchart paper (also known as butcher’s paper) as the prop to direct attention.

34. Visual Aids

Visual aids are any objects used in the classroom to attract students’ eyes and therefore immerse them more into a lesson. Visual aids can have both cognitive benefits (see: cognitive tools) and engagement benefits.

• Engagement: students are more likely to pay attention if they have something to look at.
• Cognition: some students may benefit from visualizing a concept to help them order ideas in their minds.
• Visual learning : some learners prefer learning visually than aurally (see: learning styles).
• A visual aid needs an educational purpose. Consider why you are using the visual aid before deciding to use it.
• Graphic Organizers
• Educational toys (see: Manipulatives)

35. Flexible Seating

Allowing students to sit where they choose, rather than having assigned seating, has had a resurgence in popularity in the past decade. A flexible seating classroom often has a range of differently organized workstations, allowing students to select a spot to sit that’s most comfortable for them and which best suits the style of learning that will be occuring in that lesson.

• Can reduce sedentary periods of time by allowing students to move around more during a lesson.
• Enables students to sit at a table that best suits their learning (computer table, group table, individual table, on a bean bag, etc.)
• There is often not enough space at workstations, meaning students end up not actually sitting where they choose.
• Often students like to have a spot they can call their own. It helps give students a sense of place and belonging.
• This approach is very common in the Agile Learning Spaces and Flexible Classrooms movement.

See my full post on the Common Classroom Seating Arrangements .

36. Formative Assessment (a.k.a Assessment for Learning)

Formative assessment involves assessing students’ learning throughout the learning process, not just at the end. Formative assessments can take place at one point in a unit of work or regularly throughout a lesson.

• Allows teachers to adjust their teaching if students are not quite up to where you expected, or if they are exceeding your expectations.
• Students get feedback on their progress before the summative assessment, allowing them to adjust.
• Gives the teacher a better understanding of their students. If a student fails a summative assessment but the teacher knows the student could do the task at the formative stage, more investigation can take place to see why there is a discrepancy.
• Can be time consuming to constantly assess students’ abilities.
• Formative assessments often lack the authority of summative assessment pieces.
• Formative assessments can be simple stops to get feedback and ongoing questioning of students.
• They can also take the form of pop quizzes or student-teacher conferences.

37. Summative Assessment

Summative assessments take place at the end of a unit of work and are often the formal final / overall grading of a student’s knowledge.

• Summative assessments are necessary for providing a final grade for a student and are often required by school boards.
• Summative assessments give students something to strive toward which may keep them motivated and encourage them to study.
• They are seen as too high-stakes and can cause stress for students.
• If a student does poorly, the assessment is right at the end, so the teacher and student often don’t have any more time address the problems and help progress the student’s learning.
• Standardized tests.
• Assessments for student portfolios.
• End-of-year exams.
• Entry exams.

38. Gamification

Gamification involves implementing elements of gameplay in your lessons. This can be as simple as creating a competition out of a mathematics quiz.

Recently, computer software such as excel and programming languages have been used in the classroom as elements of ‘digital’ gamification.

Don’t confuse gamification with game-based learning, which is discussed next.

• Gamification can make boring lessons fun , thereby increasing the engagement and motivation of students.
• Teachers must not lose focus on the learning outcomes that must be met. ‘Fun’ is not the goal, it is the means for achieving the goal, which is always learning .
• Get your students into two groups and have them compete in a trivia contest based on your lesson content.
• Give students table groups and reward tables with points depending oh how well they do.

See my full article on the pros and cons of digital play.

39. Game-Based Learning

Not to be confused with gamification, game-based learning involves the use of actual games (board games, computer games, sports games, etc.) into a lesson.

While gamification involves using elements of gameplay into lessons (points, competitions), game-based learning involves using actual games in a lesson.

• Students often love video games at home, so they get excited that they can play them in school as well.
• Games can also support cognition by prompting students to complete and practice tasks to win games. See also: cognitive tools.
• Parents may feel playing games in the classroom is not acceptable. Make sure parents know your reasoning behind using games.
• Ensure the focus remains on the learning outcomes, not just on ‘having fun’.
• Minecraft is a very popular computer game that is used in classrooms.
• Sim City is a popular game for city design courses.
• Use card games to teach counting. I teach ESL students counting using the game UNO.

See my full article on game-based learning as well as my explanations about how to use minecraft and sandbox games in the classroom .

40. Coaching

A coach does not stand in front of players and simply tell them what the ‘facts’ are. A coach stands behind a player. He watches the player and gives feedback on their performance. His job is to encourage, suggest adjustments and be the support network for the player.

Coaching is one of the great metaphors for teaching . A teacher who uses coaching as a strategy tried to emulate the role of the coach: observing and offering support and suggestions for adjustments.

• Student-centered : the student is the focus and the teacher is the supporter.
• Personalized: each student will get unique feedback based on their performance.
• Sometimes the teacher needs to introduce new ideas, meaning coaching may not be as useful as another approach such as modeling or direct instruction.

Sociocultural Theory: In sociocultural theory, teachers tend to encourage active learning and provide social support.

41. Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning involves the teacher presenting a problem for the students to solve by making their own inquiries. It is similar to discovery learning, but is different in that inquiry based learning generally involves the teacher setting out a puzzling problem to solve at the start of the lesson.

• Students ‘find’ the answers rather than being given them by teachers.
• Answers emerge out of exploration, problem solving and discovery, meaning students learn why something is true, not simply what is true.
• Significant support is required to help guide students through their inquiry. Students need to be taught how to inquire and given the right inquiry tools (such as books, appropriate websites, etc.)

Constructivism: Students learn through constructing ideas in their heads rather than being told the facts.

42. Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching involves having students facilitate their own small group lessons. It is usually used in reading lessons.

The teacher first models how to guide group discussions before sending students off to facilitate their own lesson. In groups of four, students usually take the roles of: questioner, clarifier, summarizer and predictor. Students read stimulus materials then self-facilitate a group discussion about the text.

• Students learn self-regulation learning skills which are essential for later in their lives.
• When students are trained up, the classes work very effectively and the teacher can fade into the background.
• Students learn group work, communication and negotiation skills. They also learn how to speak up in a group.
• Students learn to be mature even when the teacher isn’t looking. By taking on responsibility as ‘teachers’, students should rise to the challenge.
• Requires a lot of pre-teaching so students have the required skills for these sorts of lessons to work.

Sociocultural theory: working in groups, communicating and sharing ideas help stimulate thinking and encourages students to challenge their own ideas in order to improve them.

Example (Modelled off the I Do, We Do, You Do approach)

• The teacher should model the four roles required in front of the whole class, with several volunteers to act as the demonstration group.
• The teacher assigns groups and the four group roles: questioner, clarifier, summarizer and predictor.
• When students do the activity in small groups for the first time, explicitly walk the students through the steps. Use a bell or similar audible cue to cycle students through the group work steps.
• Allow the students to work in independent groups – walk around and help groups who are struggling.

43. Blended Learning

Blended learning involves a mix of online instruction and face-to-face learning. This strategy can be employed by giving students part of their instruction as homework online and part of it in class. It differs from flipped learning because a flipped classroom involves at-home instruction and in-class practice. Blended learning can have both practice and instruction occuring at home and/or in class

• Gives the teacher flexibility to teach partially during homework time and partially in class.
• Students need access to technology at home unless the at-home parts are only reading and printouts.
• Usually only suitable for university students who are short on time. Blended learning allows them to do some of the learning in their own time.
• Used regularly for distance learning students and rural and remote students.
• Used regularly at university level.
• If using this method, I recommend taking a look at the flipped learning model for some ideas of how to split your distance and in-class segments efficiently.

See my List of 10 Pros and Cons of teaching Online .

44. Growth Mindsets

A growth mindset focuses on teaching students that they have the power to improve and succeed if they put their effort into it. The opposite would be students refusing to try because they don’t think they have the power in their own hands to succeed.

Teaching growth mindsets is all about modelling positive behaviors. Include growth mindset in your lesson plans by finding points in the lesson to discuss specific strategies to move toward success, strategies for studying, and positive thinking.

• Focuses on helping students see that they have ‘ agency ’ (in other words, they are capable of improving their lives)
• Motivates students to improve their own lives
• Many students have many barriers to success. If you ignore those barriers and simply say ‘you can work harder’, this will make students feel disempowered. Teachers need to show students the pathways to success.
• Ensure the content is actually achievable for your students.
• Break down tasks into manageable chunks so that students know the steps toward success. Then, use encouragement to motivate students to put in their effort.
• Celebrate success to show students that they are competent and capable.

45. Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching is an instructional strategy that involves ensuring students’ cultures are integrated into lessons. This includes celebrating students’ cultural backgrounds when relevant and using learning styles that are dominant within your students’ cultures.

• Includes children from cultures that have been traditionally marginalized within the classroom.
• Minimizes the impact of Westernization of education.
• May make new students from cultures that are different to the majority in the class to feel a sense of inclusion and belonging in the classroom.
• Helps all students see the world from a variety of perspectives and learn to respect pluralism.
• Teachers need to be sensitive to cultures different to their own.
• Teachers should consult parents and community members about best strategies for the cultural needs of the students in the class.

Sociocultural theory: sociocultural theory believes

• Have role models from minority backgrounds come into the classroom to share their backgrounds.
• Consult with parents about ideal teaching methods within their culture.
• Avoid nonverbal gestures that have different meanings in different cultures.
• Another example: eye contact is considered respectful in Western cultures but acts of defiance in Indigenous Austealian culture.

46. Teaching to Mastery

Mastery learning and teaching is a strategy for ensuring all students meet a certain standard of understanding or ability before moving on.

Teachers set a benchmark of knowledge 9r ability for students to meet. Then, all assessment in this method is formative, where students are given feedback and as much time as possible to improve before progressing.

• Students are not left behind and gaps in their knowledge are not overlooked.
• Students may feel less stressed or rushed with this approach.
• There is no talk of inability or failure in this method as teachers and students keep working away at the task until success is achieved.
• There is not enough time in traditional school systems for this approach.
• The difference in abilities between students means some students will get a long way ahead while others remain a long way behind.

Humanism: there are elements of unconditional positive regard in this approach (see Carl Rogers).

• An example.may be that all students must get 80% on a test to progress to the next unit of work.
• This approach is common for getting a “handwriting license” in primary / elementary school.

47. Stimulus Materials and Props

Stimulus materials are tools that a teacher provides during lessons to spur students into engaging with the lesson or thinking more deeply about the content provided. They include videos, educational toys (manipulatives), worksheets, visual prompts, objects from outside the classroom, and so on.

Without stimulus materials, the classroom feels empty and detached from real life. Bring stimulus materials into the classroom to help students make stronger connections to things going on outside.

• Provides something for students to focus on which can focus students’ minds.
• Helps students to learn actively if they have the opportunity to touch and manipulate the props.
• Can inspire and draw-in students at the start of the lesson.
• Stimulus materials can be very expensive.
• Students can get distracted playing with the materials rather than listening to their peers or the teacher.
• Students need to learn to share materials.

Constructivism: constructivists encourage the use of props so that students can ‘learn by doing’ and be ‘hands on’ in their learning.

• Place several props into a bag. Have the students put their hands in the bag and see whether they can guess what the props are.
• Place an unusual prop related to your lesson in the middle of the classroom. Get the students to guess what it is before beginning the lesson.

48. Service Learning

Service learning involves having students meet learning outcomes while contributing to and ‘giving back to’ their community. This often involves volunteer work, internships and placements within the community where assistance is needed.

• Students can increase their sense of belonging within the community.
• Connections between learning and life are made explicit in this sort of learning.
• Learning moves from the theoretical to the practical.
• Students can come to see how they are connected to a wider ecosystem, and that they have an important part to play in serving that ecosystem for the good of all.
• It can be hard to place all your students in a service learning placement if there are many students to allocate.
• It may be impractical given safety and security requirements.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory: EST highlights that people are situated within community from whom they get their values and beliefs. By being more connected to the community, students learn who they are and how they’re connected to a society and culture that surrounds them.

• Prepare your students in the classroom. Consider having organizers or community members come into the classroom to tell the students what to expect.
• Have students write preparatory notes about what the intend to learn, who they intend to speak to, and what their day-by-day goals will be whilst doing the service learning.
• Have students complete their service learning / voluntary work in groups or individually.
• Meet with the students intermittently during the service learning and have student-teacher conferences on how it is progressing. Intervene where needed.
• Have students come together at the end of the project to reflect on what was learnt and how their understanding of their place in the community has evolved. Discuss possible future involvement and engagement in the community to emphasize that community involvement is an ongoing project.

49. Situated Learning

Invented by Lave and Wegner, situated learning involves learning by being embedded within a professional environment and slowly picking up the ways of doing and speaking within that context.

It has similarities to other instructional strategies outlined in this article such as service learning and cognitive apprenticeships. However, its defining feature is the slow absorption of knowledge through prolonged exposure to an authentic professional setting.

• Students learn the most important practical information required for a job.
• Students learn the ways of speaking and behaving that are required within a professional situation.
• Not practical as a teaching strategy in classrooms. It works best as an apprenticeship model for new graduates from university.

Sociocultural theory: the situated learning approach emphasizes the importance of learning from ‘more knowledgeable others’.

50. Sixty-Second Strategy

The sixty second strategy involves having students review one another’s work in three steps which take 60 seconds each. The steps are: respond, reflect and review. This usually takes place after a student presentation where the students give a cumulative 3 minutes of feedback and reflection on the presentation.

The goal is not just to give feedback to the presenter, but for the listeners to also think about how they would have done the presentation and what their own thoughts on the topic are.

• Students learn how to give feedback to others in positive and constructive ways.
• It is a great way for students to actively engage with other students’ presentations.
• Students need to know how to be positive in feedback and not be hurtful.
• Have the student who is presenting their work give their presentation.
• The students who watched the presentation have 60 seconds to write their thoughts on the topic that was presented.
• Next, the students have 60 seconds to write down feedback on the presenter’s work.
• Then the students have 60 seconds to provide positive affirmation and praise.
• At the end, have the students share their feedback with the presenter in small groups so that the environment is not so intimidating for the presenter.

51. Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up

Thumbs down, thumbs up is a simple strategy for getting immediate feedback from students. During a lesson, pause after each step to get instant thumbs down, thumbs up feedback on whether students understand the previous step.

If there are thumbs down, the teacher should ask those students if they have direct questions or whether they might want that section to be covered again in different language or more slowly.

• Enables the teacher to gauge students’ reactions in real time.
• Gives the students an opportunity to give the teacher feedback immediately so that they don’t fall behind or become frustrated.
• If the majority of students give thumbs up but only one or two give thumbs down, this is not endorsement to move on. Rather, the teacher should make sure no students fall behind.

52. Summarizing and Paraphrasing

For this teaching strategy, either the teacher or student summarizes something someone previously said in their own words in order to ensure they understanding each other without any misconceptions.

• In having a student repeat the teacher’s statement in their own words, the teacher can see whether students actually understand something.
• In repeating a student’s statement in different language, the teacher can see whether they truly understand what the student means.
• The biggest risk here is in the teacher ‘putting words in the student’s mouth’. This may give the student a free pass.
• The teacher explains a concept, then asks the student to repeat it without using the same words. A pause of a few minutes between the teacher’s explanation and the student’s response can be helpful in preventing the student from directly copying the teacher’s language. As time passes, the meaning should stay but the exact words should be forgotten.
• Alternatively, the student makes a statement, and the teacher translates it in their own words and finishes with “Is that what you meant?”

53. Demonstration

Demonstration involves showing the students a practical example of something that is being learned in class.

The difference between demonstration and modeling is that a demonstration usually:

• does not involve explicit explanation of all the steps, and
• is usually not followed by students having a go themselves.

Demonstration (rather than modelling) may be necessary when the concept being demonstrated is dangerous or requires expertise.

• Having something complex or theoretical demonstrated can be exciting to link theory to practice.
• Demonstrations may require expensive field trips or inviting experts and expert equipment into the classroom.
• A demonstration could be as complex as going to watch a space rocket launch or as simple as a ranger demonstrating how to use bear spray.

54. Role Modelling

Role modelling involves demonstrating the requisite behaviors or ideal way of acting within a learning environment. Role modelling has the intention of positively influencing students into copying the teacher’s positive learning behaviors.

• Students are socialized into behaving and learning in socially appropriate ways.
• A teacher who sets personal high expectations for their own learning will have those high expectations flow on toward the students.
• A teacher needs to be aware that all of their behaviors rub off on students. This means they need to ‘put on their happy face’ despite what’s going on in their private lives.

Bandura (Social learning theory): Albert Bandura believed that observation was important in influencing how people will behave and learn. See his famous Bobo doll experiment where children were more aggressive toward a doll when they observed an adult being aggressive toward it.

• Male teachers may role model positive masculinity, such as politeness and respect to all people regardless of gender.
• A teacher can be a role model my demonstrating engagement and volunteering within the community, insisting on respectfully welcoming guests when they enter the classroom, or having high regard and respect for reading, learning, and apologizing.

55. Predicting

Predicting involves asking students to make predictions or ‘guestimates’ before a study is undertaken. The teacher may make a prediction for the students to respond to, or ask students to make predictions themselves.

• It stimulates students to think about the logical flow-on effects of the things they are learning about (such as in science: gravity, momentum, etc.)
• Students are asked to think forward rather than simply react in the learning environment.
• At the start of a lesson (before introducing too much information), ask students what they think will happen during the lesson.
• Show the students a diagram or comic strip demonstrating sequence of events with the last few events missing. Have students fill-in the gaps.

56. Intentional Mistakes

The teacher inserts intentional mistakes into their teaching materials (such as misspellings in their presentations) or their speech in order to:

• Check students’ depth of knowledge,
• Make memorable teaching moments, or
• Keep students critically engaged.
• It keeps students on their toes throughout the lesson, particularly during the boring parts.
• It can make learning into a game if you let the students know to look out for the mistakes in advance. You could also offer a reward for the person who identifies the mistake.
• It can lead to critical discussion about common mistakes that students make in a topic.
• You may risk having students believe you had made the mistakes intentionally.
• Students may believe the mistakes are truths and end up believing things that are untrue.
• Create intentional spelling errors in your worksheets and powerpoint presentations.
• Mispronounce a word and see if students realize.
• Flip two words in a sentence and see if anyone realizes.

57. Reflection-in-Practice / Immediate Feedback

Immediate feedback is any feedback that takes place during a lesson rather than after a lesson or exam has been completed.

There are two primary types of immediate feedback: feedback from students to teachers, and feedback from teachers to students.

The feedback’s purpose should be to make impromptu changes during the lesson before it is too late.

• Teachers can adjust their teaching methods in the moment to ensure the lesson is a success.
• Students can adjust the ways they are going about completing a task to ensure it is successful.
• In large groups, one-to-one feedback can be difficult.
• Teachers need to be able to think on their feet to make immediate adjustments.

David Schon’s ‘Reflection in Practice’: According to Schon, successful practitioners reflect in practice rather than just on practice. Reflection in practice requires practitioners to reflect on what they’re doing while they’re doing it.

• Asking for a thumbs up / thumbs down from students to see if they understand something.
• Looking over the shoulder at children’s work to see how they’re coming to their conclusions.
• Accepting ‘hands up’ questions at any point during an explanation or lecture.

58. Whole Group Class Discussion (a.k.a Circle Time)

A whole group class discussion gets all students in the class talking to one another in one group. When I use this strategy, I try to get students sitting in a conversation circle. The benefits of students sitting in a circle include:

• There is a neutral power structure with no one at the head of the discussion.
• All students can see one another.
• Whole class discussions encourage all students to develop the confidence to share their own views publicly.
• If the whole class gets into it, there can be a lot of great back-and-forth.
• Often, the loudest and most confident students dominate the discussion.
• Some students are too shy to speak up.
• It is easy to embarrass a student, so be careful to be sensitive.
• Use a speaking stick so only one person speaks at a time. The only person who can speak is the person with the speaking stick.
• Use discussion circles so that all students can see each other when talking.
• If conversation is slow to start, consider asking individual students direct questions.
• Use open-ended questioning to force students to answer in full sentences.

59. Concentric Circles

Concentric circles is a method that builds on the whole group circle time discussion. Students sit in two concentric circles with the inner circle facing the outer circle. The students in the inner circle should be paired one-to-one with a student in the outer circle (like speed dating).

The teacher poses a question and the pairs are given 60 seconds to discuss the problem. Then, the students from the inner circle rotate one person to the right so they are facing a new partner for the next question.

• Disagreements about pairing and students working with their friends are resolved because each student gets a turn working with another student.
• Students get to learn and communicate with other students they don’t usually spend time with.
• Discussion can help students see perspectives that they did not come up with on their own.
• There needs to be an even number of students in the class so each student has a partner to work with.

Sociocultural theory: students learn by interacting with others to help them test, challenge and extend their own ideas.

60. Hot Seat

One student takes the role of a character from a book, history, etc. They dit in front of the class and get interviewed by their classmates. The student must stay in character and answer the questions from the perspective of that character.

• Students explore topics from perspectives other than their own, helping them to develop lateral thinking skills .
• Students need time to research their character and brainstorm their character’s perspectives on various topics before being put in the hot seat.
• Shy students or students who are not confident with the material may be intimidated by this instructional strategy.
• This strategy can be linked up with strategies like De Bono’s thinking hats where students would answer questions from a particular perspective.

61. Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are visual aids in the classroom designed to help students visualize and conceptualize ideas and their relationships with other ideas. Examples of graphic organizers include flowcharts, mind maps and venn diagrams. Use them to help students think more deeply about topics.

• Very useful for students who are visual learners.
• Provides a framework for deeper and critical thinking.
• Provides structure to help students who are unsure of how to proceed with critical thinking.
• Don’t stick to just one framework as the frameworks narrow the scope of thinking in exchange for depth. Mix up your graphic organizers.

Cognitive Constructivism: cognitive constructivists such as David Jonassen believe graphic organizers help students to share their cognitive load with the organizer, helping them to organize and sort ideas in their heads more effective.y

• Flow charts
• Venn diagrams
• Concept maps
• Network or family tree
• Spider diagram
• Compare-contrast matrix
• Series of events chain
• Character charts

62. Think Pair Share

This is one of the simplest, most frequently used, but also most effective classroom teaching strategies. Students think about a topic on their own. Then, they pair up with a partner and discuss, compare and contrast their thoughts together. Thirdly, the pair share what they discussed with the whole class.

• Moves students from individual thinking to social thinking in a clear process.
• Helps students to vocalize their own thoughts in small and large groups.
• Helps students to see other people’s perspectives by encouraging communication, compare and contrast.
• Students need the confidence to speak up in front of the whole class. I have found some students like to have the comfort of flip chart (butcher’s) paper as a prop when presenting their discussions to the class.

Sociocultural theory: learning through conversation allows students to see diverse perspectives and therefore improve on their own perspectives.

• Step 1: Think. Students are given 2 minutes to think about the topic on their own and take 5 bullet points on their own.
• Step 2: Pair. Students get together in pairs (or groups of 3 if appropriate) to compare and contrast their own ideas. Students discuss the ideas and come up with a collective group of ideas.
• Step 3: Share. Each group shares their own thoughts with the whole class. As each group presents, other classmates can challenge ideas or take additional notes to add to their own group’s thoughts.

63. Group Roles

Assigning group roles for students who are doing small group work is another simple instructional strategy to try. There are many group role types to be found online. I tend to use the roles of: timekeeper, moderator, notekeeper, and collector. All students should be equal discussion contributors, and this is managed by the moderator.

• Helps to structure the activity, give students certainty in what they are doing, and reduce the uncertainty from group work.
• Encourages communication to get students hearing other students’ ideas and perspectives
• Students must be explicitly taught the group roles and need time to practice them.

Sociocultural Theory: By communicating with peers, students widen their perspectives and (with more knowledgeable peers) have their knowledge scaffolded.

• Ensure you model the group roles before beginning the activity. Consider using a fishbowl method by having a sample group sit in the middle of a circle modeling the roles to the rest of the class.
• For the class’s first attempt at group roles, structure it very clearly by getting the students to follow a clear step-by-step guide. Slowly release responsibility to students when they are ready.

64. Barometer

The barometer method gets a measure of students’ opinions by asking them to stand on a line from 0 to 10 (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = unsure or conflicted, 10= strongly agree).

• Students tend to find this a non-intimidating way of sharing their opinions.
• Can be a good way of getting students talking. Once they stand on the line, you can ask them to explain why they stood where they did.
• It may be beneficial to prevent students from taking a neutral “I don’t know” stance without sufficient defence of this position.

Critical theory : The barometer could be paired with critical theory if students critique assumptions in society with a focus on the perspectives of marginalized groups.

• Introduce a complex or controversial issue through a book, video or class discussion.
• Ask students to stand on an imaginary line from 0 to 10 representing their opinion.
• Place students into three groups based on their position in the line: agree, unsure and disagree. Have the three groups present their 5 best arguments to the class.

65. Cognitive Tools

Cognitive tools are educational technologies designed to promote thinking beyond what a student can do without the technology. This might include using wearable technologies to help students map out their own movements to then test their knowledge of geography, use of excel sheets to create financial estimations, etc.

• Educational technologies can help us do things we couldn’t do without them.
• Can engage students who love computers and technology in learning tasks.
• Teachers must ensure technology use is focused on helping students learn more or at a higher level of critical thinking than if they didn’t have technology.

Cognitive Constructivism: this approach, invented by david Jonassen, emphasizes that computer technologies should be used to extend and promote higher-order cognition.

See my full article: Examples of Congitive Tools in Education .

66. Anticipation / Guestimation

Anticipation and guestimation is an instructional strategy designed to get students thinking about the consequences or flow-on effects of actions. Teachers ask students to make predictions based on limited knowledge about a topic

• Students often have to use mathematics and logical reasoning to succeed in this task.
• Students are required to be resourceful and seek clues that will show them the possible consequences of action.
• It is important to strike a balance between giving enough information to make informed guesses and not too much information that the students can deduce the full answer.

67. Silent Conversation

A silent conversation is a way of getting students to communicate without having them speak up in front of the class. Students write their responses to a prompt on sheets of paper but cannot speak while doing so. They should then also write responses to one another’s points so that they are ‘conversing’ through writing.

• Students who are shy to speak up my be more willing to participate, especially if their written response can stay anonymous.
• It can often be easier to respond in writing than speaking because students have time to reflect and think about the wording of their response before writing it.
• Only one student at a time can write their response. Consider what other students will be doing during this time.
• Students must be competent writers.

Sociocultural theory: we learn and extend our knowledge through social interaction. By seeing others’ points, we can improve or amend our own.

• One way to do this is to have a flip chart paper sheet (butcher’s paper) on a wall with a discussion prompt written above. Have students walk up to the paper intermittently thought a lesson to write responses to the prompt. After the first few students write their responses, the rest of the students must respond not to the prompt but to the answers written by previous students – how can they add to or challenge what someone else has already said?
• The second common way of having a silent conversation is to pass a piece of paper around the class and have students write their responses to conversation chains on the piece of paper.

68. Devil’s Advocate

A devil’s advocate is someone who argues for an opposing point of view in order to stir up an argument and poke holes in other points of view. The devil’s advocate does not necessarily need to believe the points they are arguing. Either the teacher or students can be the devil’s advocate I’m this teaching strategy.

• Encourages students to see their own blind spots or misunderstandings.
• Helps students to see a diversity of points of view.
• Improves students’ debating skills.
• Students and parents may interpret you devil’s advocate position as an attempt to teach unsavory views in the classroom.

Critical theory: A devil’s advocate can help students with skills desirable within critical theory, like seeing views of people who are not commonly heard in society and the capacity to critique dominant narratives in society.

• The teacher can note in their lesson plan moments when they believe there are opportunities to play devil’s advocate role promote debate.
• The teacher can give students debating points where one person acts as devil’s advocate and another as the person defending the dominant perspective.

69. Strategic Pauses

Strategic pauses are one of the most important tools in a teacher’s toolbox of teaching strategies. A strategic pause is a gap between statements to let a point sink in or linger, or to give students a moment to think about an answer before the teacher moves on.

•  An excellent classroom management strategy
• Encourages students to think and not rely on teacher prompting
• Emphasizes important points
•  Can leave students confused
• Requires follow-up and knowledge testing

Cognitive load theory: Too much information at one time can cause a student to lose track. Time is required for the mind to interpret, sort, stack, save and withdraw information in their mind (‘create cognitive schemata’).

• Pause after a question for 10 seconds before discussing the answer.
• If the class has started getting unsettled, often a pause in the teacher’s speaking is enough to settle them again and remind them to re-engage with the learning materials.
• Slow speech with sufficient pauses between ‘chunks’ of information (seeL ‘chunking’ strategy) can help students arrange information in their minds appropriately.

70. Chunking

Chunking involves presenting information in manageable ‘chunks’ to allow students to sufficiently process information before moving on to the next section of a lesson or task.

Teachers should present only a manageable amount of information to students before giving them a chance to consolidate the information and practice their new knowledge.

Without giving sufficient time to consolidate information before giving new information to a student, the student will struggle to keep up with the information and old information may fall away before it is secured into their memory.

• Less students will be left behind, confused and disillusioned in the classroom if they are given consolidation time.
• There is often not enough time in a crowded school curriculum to chunk information well enough.
• It is hard to tell how much is ‘too much’ information, and how long is long enough before knowledge is consolidated into memory.

Cognitive Overload Theory: If students are given too much information, their mind becomes ‘overloaded’ and they are unable to process more information. We only have a limited amount of working memory space in our minds. See: John Sweller’s cognitive overload theory .

• Only teach two or three key points per lesson.
• Provide a lot of discussion and practice time before moving on to presenting new information.
• Consistently use formative assessment and reflection in action during the lesson to see when is the ideal time to move on.

71. Snowball Discussions

Snowball discussions are another twist on the think-pair-share method. For snowball discussions, students start in pairs and share their thoughts and ideas together. Then, the pairs join up with another pair to create a group of four. These four people share thoughts together, compare notes, debate ideas, and come up with an agreed list of points on a topic.

Then, groups join up again to make groups of eight. The groups of eight compare points and perspectives, then join up to create groups of 16, etc. until it ends up being a whole class discussion.

• An effective strategy for promoting discussion between students. It can be useful for getting students to compare how different groups of students approach points from different perspectives.
• The class group needs to be large (20+) for enough rounds of this strategy to happen.

Sociocultural theory: social interaction helps students see perspectives that are not their own and challenge their own views. This helps them pick holes in their own points and improve their misconceptions.

72. Homework: Knowledge Consolidation

Yes, homework is a teaching strategy! A traditional approach to homework sees it as an opportunity for students to consolidate information that was taught in class. Studying for upcoming exams is often also an important part of homework.

Other homework strategies like flipped classroom are possible – see the flipped classroom discussion earlier in this article.

• Help students to consolidate information learned in class.
• Ensures students have an opportunity to keep information fresh in their minds and be reminded of information learned in previous months.
• Excessive homework can impede students’ rights to enjoyment, sports and extracurricular activities out of school.
• Students often do not have support at home if they get stuck.

Behaviorism: repetition over time helps memory retention.

73. Active Listening

Active listening involves using strategies to pay close attention to what someone is saying. Teachers can explicitly model active listening by giving students strategies like pointing their bodies at the speaker, keeping their eyes on the speaker, nodding when they agree, and putting hands up to ask questions or clarification.

• Active listening encourages respect in the classroom.
• It could help students to remember better because it minimizes distractions.
• Students may be more likely to contribute questions if they are paying more attention.
• Some students (such as students with autism) need stress balls, fidget toys, etc to help them concentrate.

Examples that show active listening include:

• Facing the speaker square-on
• Eye contact
• Asking questions
• Repeating, paraphrasing or summarizing the speaker’s statement.

74. Connect, Extend, Challenge

The “connect, extend, challenge” teaching strategy is a three-step strategy designed to get student thinking about how their knowledge is progressing.

In step 1, students ‘connect’ what they’re learning to their prior knowledge. In step 2, students think about how the new knowledge ‘extends’ what they already knew. In step 3, students reflect on what ‘challenges’ they still face: what is still confusing to them?

• This is a framework that gets students to explicitly think about how they are progressing in their learning.
• The clear steps give students guidelines to help them achieve success.
•  Requires prompting and scaffolding

Social Constructivism: This strategy has implicit links to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory. Students look at how their backgrounds impact their thinking, what level they are at, and what is still sitting in their ‘zone of proximal development’ (.e.g what they need to learn next).

• Split a piece of paper into three columns to help students in this task: one column for ‘connect’, one for ‘extend’, and one for ‘challenge’.

75. Create a Headline

While a seemingly simple activity, this instructional strategy gets students to refine the topic they’re exploring down to one simple sentence that catches the essence of the issue.

For this strategy, have students come up with a headline for the lesson as if they’re a journalist reporting on the issue at hand. Get them to think about how it can be catchy, explain the problem at hand, and provide an engaging ‘hook’ to draw readers in.

• Helps students identify the key point of a lesson, forcing them to think about what is really important in the lesson.
• Some issues are complex and refining it down to one sentence may risk simplification.

To extend this activity, have students write a journalistic piece to go under the headline.

76. Lesson Objective Transparency

Being transparent about a lesson objective is a teaching strategy designed to help students understand the purpose of the lesson. By knowing the objective from the outset, the students are less likely to get confused about the purpose and direction of their lesson.

• Students are aware of the purpose of the lesson, which may make it more relevant .
• Students can more objectively measure how successful they have been in the lesson.
• Lesson objectives are often worded for adults not children, so the wording may just confuse the students at times.
• Write your lesson objectives on the first slide of lecture slides if relevant.

77. Open-Ended Questioning

Open-ended questioning involves asking questions that require an elaboration in the response. In other words, it cannot be a question that can be answered with “yes” or “no”.

• Students are required to provide explanations and justifications for the points they make.
• Teachers get a more detailed appreciation of students’ levels of knowledge .
• Make a habit of using open ended questions when talking to students about their work.
• Write all assessment tasks with open ended questions.
• Pose open ended questions as stimulus prompts.

78. Fishbowl

The fishbowl strategy gets a small group of students to sit in a circle in the center if the classroom with the rest of the class sitting in a circle around the group.

The students in the middle of the circle complete a discussion or task as a demonstration for the students observing.

• Teachers can use advanced students in the middle of the group as a way of modeling skills or behaviors for the remainder of the class.
• More knowledgeable students can model behavior for less knowledgeable students.
• Students get a chance at performing in front of others.
• Many students will find doing a task I’m front of their peers intimidating.

Bandura’s observational learning : Bandura argues that students can learn from observing the modeling of others.

• Get older students from higher grades to sit in the middle of the fishbowl.
• Or, use the fishbowl as the “we do” step in the I do, we do, you do method.

79. Four corners

Use the four corners of the classroom as different stations for answering questions proposed by a teacher.

The stations may have answers like: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. Another example may be periods of time for a history exam: the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Or, the corners may have specific answers in the corners related to the questions being asked.

• This activity may be appealing for kinesthetic learners who want to move about to stay engaged.
• Provides a visual comparison between different views of students in the class.
• When students head to the corners, the teacher needs to ask students to explain their decisions to ensure depth is achieved in the lesson.

Multiple Intelligences: The lesson can help students who are kinesthetic learners.

80. Give One, Get One

This strategy involves getting students to trade ideas with one another.

Students write down their answer or thoughts to a TEACHER’S question. Then, they pair up. The students give their answer to their partner and take their partner’s answer. They discuss the differences between and merits of each answer.

Students then split up and find a new partner to repeat the activity.

• Writing down an answer ensures all students participate and that all students provide an explicit response.
• Seeing other people’s answers helps students get a broader perspective on a topic.
• Pre-plan for what to do when you don’t have an even number of students in the class.

Sociocultural theory: students learn from their peers through discussion. Discussion can help broaden horizons and allows students to see multiple perspectives on an issue.

• Present a discussion topic or question to the class.
• Have each student write down 3 points on a piece of paper to answer the question.
• Pair students up to discuss their answers. Get them to consider similarities and differences as well as pros and cons of each answer.
• Have students break apart and trade answers in another pair.

81. Brainstorming

Brainstorming involves asking students to come up with their initial thoughts on an issue. The thoughts do not have to be refined or correct. Instead, the students should use the brainstorming time to get their mind flowing and discussion started. Usually, this activity takes place using flip chart / butcher’s paper.

• A good way to start discussion among students, especially if they don’t know each other well or are shy.
• The students may need to assign some roles to group members. Consider rotating the role of ‘writer’ between students (usually one person writes an idea for the whole group on the brainstorming paper).
• A good way of doing this activity is to place students in small groups and provide them a large sheet of paper to write down all their initial thoughts.
• Students can then report all their thoughts back to the class.

82. Expert Jigsaw

The expert jigsaw method teaching method involves having students split into groups of ‘experts’ and then ‘topics’.

First, each ‘expert’ group focuses on a sub-area of a topic to develop their ‘expertise’ as a group.

Once the initial group work discussion has concluded, the ‘expert groups’ split.

The teacher then forms new ‘topic groups’ with one student from each of the original expert groups in the new groups.

The idea is that each group in the second part of the lesson will have an ‘expert’ on a particular area of a topic. Every expert will be able to contribute their perspective to the group

For example, if the topic is dinosaurs, the initial ‘expert groups’ may get together to discuss separate issues: Group 1 will discuss extinction, Group 2 will discuss bones, Group 3 will discuss diets, and Group 4 will discuss geographical locations.

When the ‘topic groups’ converge, they should contain one expert on extinction, one expert on bones, one expert on diets and one expert on geographical locations. The topic group will therefore have a broad range of expert knowledge to discuss and share.

• Gives each student a sense that they have something meaningful to contribute because they will be an expert on something when converging in the ‘topic’ groups.
• Encourages collaboration and positive interdependence in group work.
• Requires forethought and organization by the teacher.

Social Constructivism: social interaction helps students construct ideas in their minds. Each student gets to hear the expert perspective of another student who is a ‘more knowledgeable other’, while also acting as the more knowledgeable other when it is their turn to share their expertise.

83. KWL Charts

A KWL chart is a type of graphic organizer that can be used throughout the course of a lesson to help students keep track of their learning.

The chart can be on a simple piece of paper split into three columns: (K) What I already know; (W) What I want to know in this lesson; (K) What I learned.

At the start of the lesson the students can fill out the first two columns. The first column will help the teacher assess prior knowledge. The second column will help the teacher and students guide the lesson by outlining what they want out of it.

At the end of the lesson, the third column can be filled-in: (L) What I learned in the lesson. This helps students reflect on the lesson to show them that they did actually learn something!

• Students can keep track of their own learning.
• There is physical evidence of what was learned that teachers can use in students’ final report card comments and teaching portfolios.
• It is a good structured tool to help guide a lesson.
• It would be good if there was a fourth column for ‘what I still want to know’ so student can leave the lesson with more questions that can be addressed in future classes.
• Students sometimes place topics in the (W) What I want to know column that are relevant but not covered in a pre-made lesson plan. This can require the student to get a bit creative in re-arranging their lesson on the fly.

84. SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is a teaching tool used to help students identify their own Strengths , Weaknesses , Opportunities , and Threats .

It is often used at the beginning of a term or unit of work to help students self-identify how best to proceed in their studies.

A SWOT analysis starts with a piece of paper split into four quadrants. The top-left has ‘Strengths’, top-right has ‘Weaknesses’, bottom-left has ‘Opportunities’ and the bottom-right has ‘Threats’.

There are plenty of templates online you could download also.

Students then fill out the SWOT sheet, identifying their strengths and weaknesses (e.g. ‘I am organized’ or ‘I am time poor’) and opportunities and threats (e.g. ‘I have the opportunity to work with my peers to improve’ or ‘I have an upcoming swim meet that will take up more of my time’).

• Students are taught to self-assess and plan ahead to avoid upcoming challenges in their lives.
• Students can balance affirming statements about their own skills with honest recognition of their weaknesses.
• I often find students use generic phrases copied from their neighbors. It’s a good idea to insist on depth of engagement and thinking when doing this strategy .

85. Read Aloud

Read aloud is a strategy that involves the teacher reading a text out loud to students. The strategy relies on the teacher using strategic pauses, pitch and tone changes, pace and volume changes, and questioning and comments. These reading aloud strategies help students to become more engaged in a lesson and get more out of the reading experience.

• Can be more engaging than getting students to read to themselves.
• By using strategic pauses and asking questions of students, the text can both be read and analyzed at the same time. This may improve comprehension.
• I’ve found many pre-service teachers get nervous doing this task. Remember that people of all ages love being read to.

86. SIT: Surprising, Interesting, Troubling

A SIT analysis asks students to list aspects of a lesson that were surprising, interesting and troubling. It is useful following the viewing of a short film or reading a book about a topic that seems bizarre or a fact that is counterintuitive.

Like a KWL chart, you could do this task by splitting paper into three columns: one for ‘surprising’, one for ‘interesting’ and one for ‘troubling’.

• Gets students to take a critical stance and make judgements (particularly for ‘troubling’)
• Is a good way to take stock of students’ interests in order to create follow-up lessons based on topics the students have already demonstrated concern for.
• The ‘troubling’ part is often hard for students to complete – consider explicitly modeling a sample response before asking students to complete it alone.

Critical theory: students can use a SIT analysis to critique the justice or inequality issues presented in a text.

87. Higher Order Thinking

When writing a lesson plan, it’s often a very good idea to note any time you’re encouraging higher order thinking – especially if there’s a column in your lesson plan for ‘teaching strategies’. This help people reading the lesson plan to see that you’ve been intentional about promoting higher order thinking.

Following Bloom’s taxonomy, higher order thinking usually includes tasks that involve verbs like : Judge, Appraise, Evaluate, Compare, Criticize, Assess, Estimate, Deduce, Hypothesize and Generalize.

• Helps a teacher to be more explicit in their language and to ensure a lesson is challenging for students.
• Ensures students are practicing their critical thinking skills rather than just repeating a teacher’s ‘facts’.
• For higher order thinking tasks, it’s important that you don’t give students the answers. Instead, give them hints, pointers and resources that will help them to come up with the answers on their own.

Constructivism: Bloom was a constructivist who believed learning happens when students build knowledge in their mind rather than just copying facts from an authority figure in the classroom.

88. Debating

Getting students to debate an idea is a great way of getting them to build coherent and logical arguments in defence of a position. It requires them to gather, analyze and sort facts before they present them to an audience.

• Students learn to identify positive arguments on a topic even if they disagree with it, helping them to see things from multiple perspectives.
• Students may require resources to do background research to come up with strong points for or against a position.
• Split the class into two groups and assign each group a position for or against a statement.
• Give each group 15 minutes to come up with some arguments for their side of the argument. Each student in the group should have one argument to make for the team. The student writes their argument down on a piece of paper.
• Line the two groups of students up facing one another.
• Go down the lines getting each student to make their point for or against the position. Zig-zag from one group to the next as you go down the line
• Once the students have completed, do an anonymous poll of the class to find out which position is most convincing. For the poll, students do not have to vote for their team’s position.

89. Note Taking (Cornell Method)

Note taking involves getting students to actively listen out for key points in a speech or video and synthesize it into key points for remembering later.

A popular framework for not taking is the Cornell method. This involves splitting a page into two columns.

The column on the left is a ‘Cue’ column. In the cue column write key words, phrases or Quotes as if they were headings or headline points to remember.

The column on the right is the note taking column. This column is larger and allows space to add detail and diagrams explaining the ‘cues’ that were written on the left in more detail.

• Turns passive learning during a didactic explicit instruction lesson into a more active learning environment.
• Helps students organize and synthesize their thoughts.
• Helps with studying for exams later on.
• Teachers may talk too fast for students to take detailed notes. Remember to use strategic pauses and remind students at strategic times that they need to be taking notes.
• Feel free to download cornell method worksheets off the internet. Just look for them on your favorite search engine!

90. Lesson Recording

Recording a lesson involves using either video, audio or Screencast technology to save the lesson for revision later on.

• This method is very useful for students with learning disabilities who may require more time to process information. They can rewatch later on and make use of pause, rewind and slow functions during the revision.
• Great for when students miss a day so they can catch up.
• Whenever you work with technology, be prepared for issues to arise that may delay the lesson.
• Use Screencasts when teaching a lesson online.
• Screencasts can also save your work when writing on an Interactive Whitenoard. Revision at a later date will show the steps you took in doing the ‘working out’.

91. Word Wall

Word walls are sections on the walls of a classroom where teachers and students can record new vocabulary, quotes or key terms they encounter during a unit of work.

• Word walls can be visible evidence of progression through a unit.
• Students can refer to the word walls when trying to explain their points and ideas to the class.
• During exams, remember to cover the word walls so students can’t cheat by looking over at the answers.
• Word walls can be great props for refreshing students’ memories at the start of a lesson. Start the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary learned in the previous lesson.

92. Goal Setting

Goal setting involves explicitly instructing students on how to set short (within a lesson), medium (within a unit of work) and long term (through the year) personal targets for success.

The goals can be for a whole group or individual.

• Goal setting gives students something to strive toward.
• It is a way of gamifying education. Students can challenge themselves to reach their step by step goals.
• It helps students understand where they are headed and what the purpose of the lesson is.
• Ensure goals are achievable lo that students do not become disillusioned.
• Have students prepare their daily goals at the end of the previous day or start of the current day.
• Reflect on medium-term goals weekly.

93. Worked Examples

A worked example is a completed piece of work that students can look to as models for their own work.

A worked example could be a sample of a completed diagram our 3D model, a completed essay or anything else that is a finished product of something the students are about to attempt.

• Students feel more secure knowing what they are working toward.
• Students can get ideas from the worked sample that they can adapt for their Ken work.
• Sometimes students copy the sample too closely rather than using their own thinking. Consider using a sample that requires similar skills and processes but a different end product.
• Make sure you spend time discussing the steps it takes from going from nothing to the completed product.
• Provide students with past examples of creative writing pieces and discuss the strategies used by the authors.
• Show samples that are good and poor. Get students to discuss how the poorer samples could be improved.

94. Multiple Intelligences

Students have different learning styles (or more accurately, different learning preferences ).

One theory proposes that there are eight ‘intelligences’. A student may have one that is dominant and others that are weaker.

The eight intelligences are:

• Visual-Spatial : Prefers learning through images and visual arts. Uses diagrams to model relationships between concepts.
• Linguistic-Verbal : Prefers learning through storytelling, reading and writing.
• Interpersonal : Good at working in social situations, gets energy from social interaction, and can empathize with others easily. Enjoys group work.
• Intrapersonal : An introverted person who prefers learning alone. They do a lot of thinking and reading but mostly like to think through things in their own time (see: intrapersonal skills ).
• Logical-Mathematical : Sees patterns easily. Enjoys mathematical puzzles.
• Musical : Enjoys learning through music, songs and rhymes.
• Bodily-Kinesthetic : Learns through movement. Prefers lessons that require moving about.
• Naturalistic : Has an affinity with nature. Learns well in calm natural environments.

A teacher can integrate different activities into a lesson plan that appeal to different people’s learning preferences. In this way, they create a more inclusive classroom for multiple different types of learners.

• Inclusion: Teachers can use this theory to engage students who do not learn well in traditional lessons.
• Attempts to be student-centered and teach in ways that are appealing to students.
• In 2004, a detailed study in Scotland found no evidence or scientific toxic basis for the theory that different people have learning styles. Furthermore, it argued that the 8 styles in the multiple intelligences model were a arbitrarily contrived. Thus, learning styles may simply be learning preferences.
• It is unclear whether a teacher should create lessons catered to a student’s learning preference or help students strengthen their skills in areas students identify as their weaknesses.
• If students are not given a chance to practice all “styles” (not just their preferences) they may miss important skills, such as mathematical skills or literacy skills.

Howard Gardner: The theory of multiple intelligences was invented by Howard Gardner in the United States.

95. Non-Interventionism

Non-interventionism involves a teacher taking the role of ‘unobtrusive observer’ while students learn. The students are left to come to their own conclusions, face up to their own challenges, and ‘struggle’ through the lesson.

The teacher’s intervention may come through changing what they plan for the next lesson based on what they see, or lightly intervening after the students have struggled for some time.

Other reasons for intervention may be for safety or fairness reasons.

• Struggling to find an answer is Important for learning. Students can make mistakes and learn why the mistakes are wrong instead of just being told what us correct.
• Without a teacher imposing their views, students can come up with creative and thoughtful solutions to problems that the teacher dis not foresee.
• Students develop independent minds.
• Many parents and mentors watching your lesson may come away with a sense that you were lazy or did not do enough to help the students. This approach needs to be clearly explained and justified in lesson plans (I’d recommend referring to Montessori in your justification) and situations when you would go from observer to intervener should be spelled out in advance.
• If students are struggling too much, learning may not occur – there is a limit to this approach!

Montessori Classrooms: The role of the teacher as “unobtrusive observer” was pioneered by Maria Montessori.

Montessori argued that children learn best when placed in resource rich environments and left to explore. Our interventions may impede creativity, self-belief, autonomy and self-discovery.

96. Constructive Alignment

Constructive alignment involves explicitly linking the lesson assessment tasks to the compulsory learning outcomes in the curriculum.

This is an impressive thing to see in a lesson plan.

Use language (including verbs and nouns) from the learning outcome in the assessment task. Furthermore, make sure to provide a criteria for what constitutes pass or fail.

• Teachers can easily justify their lesson choices to their boss or assessor.
• The assessment tasks are always relevant and focused.
• Students can see the relevance of the assessment task to their learning goals.
• If the language of the curriculum objectives are complex or obtuse, it may just confuse students to use that language in their assessment task.

Biggs: Constructive alignment was invented by John Biggs who designed this method to ensure all lessons are relevant and move students a step closer to completing all learning outcomes.

97. Zone of Proximal Development

The ‘ zone of proximal development ‘ is a phrase used to explain the ideal difficulty level for a lesson.

A lesson that is too easy won’t help a student progress.

A lesson that is too hard will disengage a student who just won’t be able to do the task.

But a lesson that is difficult but achievable with effort will push a student forward. These lessons that are just hard enough but not too hard are lessons in the “zone of proximal development”.

• Students get lessons catered to their own needs.
• There is always catered support for any student in the class.
• By creating lessons that are always challenging, you are setting high expectations for all students.
• Differentiation like this can lead to bug Differences in ability levels across the whole class.
• You’re often under pressure to teach content that is too hard for students to meet standardized curriculum requirements

Sociocultural theory: Lev Vygotsky, one of the most famous educational psychologists, invented this approach to help teachers provide lessons that are at the right level for progressing a student’s learning.

• Weave the ZDP into a lesson plan by stating that you will assess a student’s current ability then teach them the thing that is the logical next.step.
• Another way to do this is create three student worksheets for three different ability levels. State in your lesson plan that you will assess each student’s ability and give them the appropriate worksheet. Each worksheet should build on the previous to help students move through their ZPD one step at a time.

98. Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is the use of praise, stickers, candy or other rewards to show students that they have done a good job.

Teachers can stack positive reinforcements so students can take steps to get small, medium and large rewards to encourage students to keep on trying and working hard consistently.

• Students get clear signals to know when they have done well.
• Students get encouragement to keep going and keep trying in order to get the reward.
• Too much positive reinforcement can come across as insincere and lose students’ respect. Furthermore, students may become desensitized to praise if it occurs too much. Praise ‘scarcity’ makes occasional praise more valuable.
• Explicit reinforcements are extrinsic motivation . The best sort of motivation is intrinsic motivation (wanting to do something for the pleasure of doing it). For more, see my full guide on intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation .

Behaviorism: Positive reinforcement is believed to be beneficial for changing behavior over time. See: John Watson’s operant conditioning examples .

• Sticker charts
• A subtle nod or wink
• Certificates and awards

99. Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of a privilege, points or tokens when a student gets an answer wrong.

This is often confused with punishments. For me, negative reinforcements should not punish but be used in limited learning scenarios as part of the learning ‘game’.

An example might be losing points in a gamified lesson so the student is less likely to win against their opponents. Students know it is part of the game and not a punishment designed to distress the student.

• Provides very clear messages to students about what is correct and incorrect, helping them to learn quickly.
• Parents often do not like any negative reinforces, so be very careful to set clear guidelines and use this strategy in limited circumstances.
• Be careful not to embarrass students in front of their classmates.

Behaviorism: Watson brought negative reinforcements into education, arguing that repeated use of them can change students’ behaviors.

• Losing points in a class contest.
• Failing a level in an educational computer game.

100. Drop Everything and Read

Drop everything and read (DEAR) involves getting students to stop what they are doing and read for 10 minutes.

It is a strategy that helps build students’ literacy skills (especially when students can choose their own book). However, it is also useful for helping students get more depth of knowledge on a topic being taught when you give them all an article or book to read to help them have more knowledge for subsequent parts of the lesson.

• An effective way of getting students to spend intense time learning about a topic.
• Helps integrate literacy into your daily activities.
• There will always be a small group of students who squirm and struggle when asked to read. Consider alternatives like the Read Aloud strategy or using videos instead if DEAR doesn’t work for your class.
• Make sure to follow up DEAR time with discussion and comprehension tasks.
• Introduce a topic with initial information to engage the class.
• Set a 10 minute silent reading task based on the topic.
• Discuss what was read with comprehension prompts.

101. Gallery Walk

A gallery walk involves a teacher placing stimulus questions on flip chart paper (butcher’s paper) around the walls of the classroom.

The charts the teacher has put up are stations that students will stop at during the activity.

The teacher places students into groups. If there are 5 stations around the room, the teacher will create 5 groups.

Students get a set amount of time at each station to read the prompt questions. The students can write on the chart paper with their group response and also respond to other groups who have already written their points.

Once all students have rotated through the stations, the students end up back at the station where they began. The teacher the. gives each group 3 minutes to present to the class a summary of the comments written on the paper at their station.

• Students get to learn from others and see other groups’ responses.
• The students are up and moving about which may help the concentration of bodily-kinesthetic learners.
• Some students may not participate fully. Consider getting students to rotate who writes on the paper at each station to mitigate this challenge a little.

102. Metacognition

Note whenever you would encourage metacognition in a lesson within your lesson plan. This will help anyone reading it know that you’ve thought about giving students strategies for “thinking about thinking”.

Metacogntion is about thinking about how you think. Strategies include:

• Thinking aloud
• Writing your steps to reach an answer
• Explaining your thought processes
• Reflecting on your learning and considering faster ur more efficient processes
• Helps students understand the processes required for thinking deeply about an issue.
• Gives students the strategies and skills to learn any task, not just the ones at hand.
• Metacognition is difficult because it requires explanation of your thinking. However, it is necessary if people want to know how to think .

103. Case Studies

Case studies are in-depth examples of an issue being examined. A case study should show how an issue or theory looks in real life. Teachers can present case studies through videos, newspaper articles, magazine articles, guests coming into the classroom, etc.

• Case studies help students to see how theories and ideas look in real life. This can also help a student understand the relevance of the topic being studied.
• A case study may help students make sense of a complex idea by putting it in real concrete terms.
• Case studies might not be representative of a generalized issue – they may be outliers or flukes. Pick your case study carefully and discuss whether it is a typical or outlier sample.
• A case study of city planning may be an innovative city that has recently been designed.
• A case study in mathematics may include looking at the mathematics underpinning a famous bridge’s construction.
• A case study during a unit of work on refugees might look at the experiences of one real-life refugee.

104. Mystery Making

Educators can create ‘mystery’ in their classroom by carefully structuring lessons that give ‘clues’ to a mystery that needs to be solved by the students. Ask the students to act as detectives and place clues around the classroom (like a gallery walk). Have students move around the classroom taking notes on the mystery which will reveal an answer after thorough investigation.

• Creates a sense of excitement in the classroom, helping students to engage.
• Forces students to use critical, logical and lateral thinking in order to find the answer.
• Ensure the mystery is not too far outside a student’s zone of proximal development so that the mystery can be solved.

105. Storytelling

Storytelling in the classroom involves teaching through narrative-style stories rather than telling (‘didactic learning’). Teachers can tell stories by reading books (see: Read Aloud strategy), turning a dry explanation into an allegorical story off the cuff, or bringing people into the classroom who have an engaging personal story to tell.

• Stories can draw students into a topic through the creation of a sense of excitement and entertainment.

Steiner-Waldorf Schools: Rudolf Steiner called the teacher the ‘chief storyteller’ whose role is to create a sense of enchantment around learning through stories.

• Invite guests into the classroom who have stories to tell.
• Use stories that have a moral of the the story, then analyze the moralistic message.

106. Newspaper Clippings

Use newspaper clippings to link topics and theories to current affairs. Teachers can bring in recent newspapers to let students search through them for relevant stories or use old newspapers to search for how a topic was discussed in the past. Alternatively, teachers can get students to search for newspaper articles online.

Teachers could also assign reading through newspapers and bringing newspapers to class as a part of their homework.

• Newspaper stories can show students how the topic being discussed plays out in real life.
• They also show students how the topic is relevant to the present-day lives of people in the community,
• Newspapers are increasingly uncommon – consider adjusting this to use online news sites and printing out articles from the web.
• Some topics won’t have relevant news articles associated with them. Do a search in newspapers and online yourself for articles before using this teaching strategy.

107. Self-Paced Learning

Self-paced learning involves.letting students progress from activity to activity in their own time. For this approach, a teacher lays out a list of 10 – 20 lessons that students can work on at their own pace. Students work on the activities while the teacher walks around and gives support.

• Students are encouraged to reflect on their own learning development and only move on when they are confident that they have consolidated the knowledge from an assessment.
• Less students will fall behind if the teacher doesn’t pressure them to move on.
• Teachers have time to work one-on-one with students while students work away at student-led tasks.
• Fast students will need extension tasks or personal projects to complete once they have finished and are waiting for slower students.
• There is often not enough time for slower students to finish.

These teaching strategy examples are clearly not the only ones out there – there are probably thousands! But, in my time teaching, these have been the most effective and common teaching strategies that I have come across. Use this teaching strategies list for your own lesson plans to demonstrate pedagogical knowledge and depth of understanding of how to educate a range of different learners.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 15 Animism Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 10 Magical Thinking Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?

4 thoughts on “List of 107 Classroom Teaching Strategies (With Examples)”

this is valuable in my course production of Instructional materials in social studies. maraming Salamat!

Thank you very much for these valuable teaching strategies & techniques which can be used to enliven the classroom atmosphere, encourage students to do their tasks and learn more in the process. God bless!

As a student of Curriculum and Pedagogic Studies and also the Curriculum Lead in my school, this is best of resources I have had on the subject of teaching strategies. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, these are very helpful and remind me that some of my teaching styles are already mentioned here.

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Key Tips On Problem Solving Method Of Teaching

Problem-solving skills are necessary for all strata of life, and none can be better than classroom problem-solving activities. It can be an excellent way to introduce students to problem-solving skills, get them prepped and ready to solve real problems in real-life settings.  

The ability to critically analyze a problem, map out all its elements and then prepare a solution that works is one of the most valuable skills; one must acquire in life. Educating your students about problem-solving techniques from an early age can be facilitated with in-class problem-solving activities. Such efforts encourage cognitive and social development and equip students with the tools they will need to tackle and resolve their lives.  

So, what is  a  problem-solving method of teaching ?

Problem Solving  is the act of defining a problem; determining the cause of the problem; identifying, prioritizing and selecting alternatives for a solution; and implementing a solution. In a problem-solving method, children learn by working on problems. This skill enables the students to learn new knowledge by facing the problems to be solved. It is expected of them to observe, understand, analyze, interpret, find solutions, and perform applications that lead to a holistic understanding of the concept. This method develops scientific process skills. This method helps in developing a brainstorming approach to learning concepts. 

In simple words, problem-solving is an ongoing activity in which we take what we know to discover what we do not know. It involves overcoming obstacles by generating hypotheses, testing those predictions, and arriving at satisfactory solutions. 

The problem-solving method involves three basic functions

• Seeking information
• Generating new knowledge 
• Making decisions 

This post will include key strategies to help you inculcate problem-solving skills in your students. 

First and foremostly, follow the 5-step model of problem-solving presented by Wood

Woods' problem-solving model

Identify the problem .

Allow your students to identify the system under study by interpreting the information provided in the problem statement. Then, prepare a list of what is known about the problem, and identify the knowledge needed to understand (and eventually) solve it. Once you have a list of known problems, identifying the unknown(s) becomes simpler. The unknown one is usually the answer to the problem; however, there may be other unknowns. Make sure that your students have a clear understanding of what they are expected to find. 

While teaching problem solving, it is very important to have students know how to select, interpret, and use units and symbols. Emphasize the use of units and symbols whenever appropriate. Develop a habit of using appropriate units and symbols yourself at all times. Teach your students to look for the words only and neglect or assume to help identify the constraints. 

Furthermore, help students consider from the beginning what a logical type of answer would be. What characteristics will it possess?  

Think about it

Use the next stage to ponder the identified problem. Ideally, students will develop an imaginary image of the problem at hand during this stage. They need to determine the required background knowledge from illustrations, examples and problems covered in the course and collect pertinent information such as conversion factors, constants, and tables needed to solve the problem. 

Plan a solution

Often, the type of problem will determine the type of solution. Some common problem-solving strategies are: compute; simplify; use an equation; make a model, diagram, table, or chart; or work backwards. 

Help your students choose the best strategy by reminding them again what they must find or calculate. 

Carry out the plan

Now that the major part of problem-solving has been done start executing the solution. There are possibilities that a plan may not work immediately, do not let students get discouraged. Encourage them to try a different strategy and keep trying. 

Encourage students to reflect. Once a solution has been reached, students should ask themselves the following questions: 

•  Does the answer make sense? 
•  Does it fit with the criteria established in step 1? 
•  Did I answer the question(s)? 
•  What did I learn by doing this? 
•  Could I have done the problem another way?  

Other tips include

Ask open-ended questions.

When a student seeks help, you might be willing to give them the answer they are looking for so you can both move on. But what is recommend is that instead of giving answers promptly, try using open-ended questions and prompts. For example: ask What do you think will happen if..? Why do you think so? What would you do if you get into such situations? Etc. 

Emphasize Process Over Product

For elementary students, reflecting on the process of solving a problem helps them develop a growth mindset. Getting an 'incorrect' response does not have to be a bad thing! What matters most is what they have done to achieve it and how they might change their approach next time. As a teacher, you can help students learn the process of reflection. 

Model The Strategies

As children learn creative problem-solving techniques, there will probably be times when they will be frustrated or uncertain. Here are just a few simple ways to model what creative problem-solving looks like and sounds like. 

• Ask questions in case you don't understand anything.
• Admit to not knowing the right answer.
• Discuss the many possible outcomes of different situations. 
• Verbalize what you feel when you come across a problem.
• Practising these strategies with your students will help create an environment where struggle, failure and growth are celebrated!

Encourage Grappling

Grappling is not confined to perseverance! This includes critical thinking, asking questions, observing evidence, asking more questions, formulating hypotheses and building a deep understanding of a problem. 

There are numerous ways to provide opportunities for students to struggle. All that includes the engineering design process is right! Examples include: 

• Engineering or creative projects
• Design-thinking challenges
• Informatics projects
• Science experiments

Make problem resolution relevant to the lives of your students

Limiting problem solving to class is a bad idea. This will affect students later in life because problem-solving is an essential part of human life, and we have had a chance to look at it from a mathematical perspective. Such problems are relevant to us, and they are not things that we are supposed to remember or learn but to put into practice in real life. These are things from which we can take very significant life lessons and apply them later in life. 

What's your strategy? How do you teach Problem-Solving to your students? Do let us know in the comments. 

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• Published: 11 January 2023

The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in promoting students’ critical thinking: A meta-analysis based on empirical literature

• Enwei Xu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6424-8169 1 ,
• Wei Wang 1 &
• Qingxia Wang 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  16 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Science, technology and society

Collaborative problem-solving has been widely embraced in the classroom instruction of critical thinking, which is regarded as the core of curriculum reform based on key competencies in the field of education as well as a key competence for learners in the 21st century. However, the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking remains uncertain. This current research presents the major findings of a meta-analysis of 36 pieces of the literature revealed in worldwide educational periodicals during the 21st century to identify the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking and to determine, based on evidence, whether and to what extent collaborative problem solving can result in a rise or decrease in critical thinking. The findings show that (1) collaborative problem solving is an effective teaching approach to foster students’ critical thinking, with a significant overall effect size (ES = 0.82, z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]); (2) in respect to the dimensions of critical thinking, collaborative problem solving can significantly and successfully enhance students’ attitudinal tendencies (ES = 1.17, z  = 7.62, P  < 0.01, 95% CI[0.87, 1.47]); nevertheless, it falls short in terms of improving students’ cognitive skills, having only an upper-middle impact (ES = 0.70, z  = 11.55, P  < 0.01, 95% CI[0.58, 0.82]); and (3) the teaching type (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01), subject area (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05), group size (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05), and learning scaffold (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01) all have an impact on critical thinking, and they can be viewed as important moderating factors that affect how critical thinking develops. On the basis of these results, recommendations are made for further study and instruction to better support students’ critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

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Principal component analysis

Introduction.

Although critical thinking has a long history in research, the concept of critical thinking, which is regarded as an essential competence for learners in the 21st century, has recently attracted more attention from researchers and teaching practitioners (National Research Council, 2012 ). Critical thinking should be the core of curriculum reform based on key competencies in the field of education (Peng and Deng, 2017 ) because students with critical thinking can not only understand the meaning of knowledge but also effectively solve practical problems in real life even after knowledge is forgotten (Kek and Huijser, 2011 ). The definition of critical thinking is not universal (Ennis, 1989 ; Castle, 2009 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). In general, the definition of critical thinking is a self-aware and self-regulated thought process (Facione, 1990 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). It refers to the cognitive skills needed to interpret, analyze, synthesize, reason, and evaluate information as well as the attitudinal tendency to apply these abilities (Halpern, 2001 ). The view that critical thinking can be taught and learned through curriculum teaching has been widely supported by many researchers (e.g., Kuncel, 2011 ; Leng and Lu, 2020 ), leading to educators’ efforts to foster it among students. In the field of teaching practice, there are three types of courses for teaching critical thinking (Ennis, 1989 ). The first is an independent curriculum in which critical thinking is taught and cultivated without involving the knowledge of specific disciplines; the second is an integrated curriculum in which critical thinking is integrated into the teaching of other disciplines as a clear teaching goal; and the third is a mixed curriculum in which critical thinking is taught in parallel to the teaching of other disciplines for mixed teaching training. Furthermore, numerous measuring tools have been developed by researchers and educators to measure critical thinking in the context of teaching practice. These include standardized measurement tools, such as WGCTA, CCTST, CCTT, and CCTDI, which have been verified by repeated experiments and are considered effective and reliable by international scholars (Facione and Facione, 1992 ). In short, descriptions of critical thinking, including its two dimensions of attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills, different types of teaching courses, and standardized measurement tools provide a complex normative framework for understanding, teaching, and evaluating critical thinking.

Cultivating critical thinking in curriculum teaching can start with a problem, and one of the most popular critical thinking instructional approaches is problem-based learning (Liu et al., 2020 ). Duch et al. ( 2001 ) noted that problem-based learning in group collaboration is progressive active learning, which can improve students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Collaborative problem-solving is the organic integration of collaborative learning and problem-based learning, which takes learners as the center of the learning process and uses problems with poor structure in real-world situations as the starting point for the learning process (Liang et al., 2017 ). Students learn the knowledge needed to solve problems in a collaborative group, reach a consensus on problems in the field, and form solutions through social cooperation methods, such as dialogue, interpretation, questioning, debate, negotiation, and reflection, thus promoting the development of learners’ domain knowledge and critical thinking (Cindy, 2004 ; Liang et al., 2017 ).

Collaborative problem-solving has been widely used in the teaching practice of critical thinking, and several studies have attempted to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical literature on critical thinking from various perspectives. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of collaborative problem-solving on critical thinking. Therefore, the best approach for developing and enhancing critical thinking throughout collaborative problem-solving is to examine how to implement critical thinking instruction; however, this issue is still unexplored, which means that many teachers are incapable of better instructing critical thinking (Leng and Lu, 2020 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). For example, Huber ( 2016 ) provided the meta-analysis findings of 71 publications on gaining critical thinking over various time frames in college with the aim of determining whether critical thinking was truly teachable. These authors found that learners significantly improve their critical thinking while in college and that critical thinking differs with factors such as teaching strategies, intervention duration, subject area, and teaching type. The usefulness of collaborative problem-solving in fostering students’ critical thinking, however, was not determined by this study, nor did it reveal whether there existed significant variations among the different elements. A meta-analysis of 31 pieces of educational literature was conducted by Liu et al. ( 2020 ) to assess the impact of problem-solving on college students’ critical thinking. These authors found that problem-solving could promote the development of critical thinking among college students and proposed establishing a reasonable group structure for problem-solving in a follow-up study to improve students’ critical thinking. Additionally, previous empirical studies have reached inconclusive and even contradictory conclusions about whether and to what extent collaborative problem-solving increases or decreases critical thinking levels. As an illustration, Yang et al. ( 2008 ) carried out an experiment on the integrated curriculum teaching of college students based on a web bulletin board with the goal of fostering participants’ critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving. These authors’ research revealed that through sharing, debating, examining, and reflecting on various experiences and ideas, collaborative problem-solving can considerably enhance students’ critical thinking in real-life problem situations. In contrast, collaborative problem-solving had a positive impact on learners’ interaction and could improve learning interest and motivation but could not significantly improve students’ critical thinking when compared to traditional classroom teaching, according to research by Naber and Wyatt ( 2014 ) and Sendag and Odabasi ( 2009 ) on undergraduate and high school students, respectively.

The above studies show that there is inconsistency regarding the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking. Therefore, it is essential to conduct a thorough and trustworthy review to detect and decide whether and to what degree collaborative problem-solving can result in a rise or decrease in critical thinking. Meta-analysis is a quantitative analysis approach that is utilized to examine quantitative data from various separate studies that are all focused on the same research topic. This approach characterizes the effectiveness of its impact by averaging the effect sizes of numerous qualitative studies in an effort to reduce the uncertainty brought on by independent research and produce more conclusive findings (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001 ).

This paper used a meta-analytic approach and carried out a meta-analysis to examine the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking in order to make a contribution to both research and practice. The following research questions were addressed by this meta-analysis:

What is the overall effect size of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking and its impact on the two dimensions of critical thinking (i.e., attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills)?

How are the disparities between the study conclusions impacted by various moderating variables if the impacts of various experimental designs in the included studies are heterogeneous?

This research followed the strict procedures (e.g., database searching, identification, screening, eligibility, merging, duplicate removal, and analysis of included studies) of Cooper’s ( 2010 ) proposed meta-analysis approach for examining quantitative data from various separate studies that are all focused on the same research topic. The relevant empirical research that appeared in worldwide educational periodicals within the 21st century was subjected to this meta-analysis using Rev-Man 5.4. The consistency of the data extracted separately by two researchers was tested using Cohen’s kappa coefficient, and a publication bias test and a heterogeneity test were run on the sample data to ascertain the quality of this meta-analysis.

Data sources and search strategies

There were three stages to the data collection process for this meta-analysis, as shown in Fig. 1 , which shows the number of articles included and eliminated during the selection process based on the statement and study eligibility criteria.

This flowchart shows the number of records identified, included and excluded in the article.

First, the databases used to systematically search for relevant articles were the journal papers of the Web of Science Core Collection and the Chinese Core source journal, as well as the Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) source journal papers included in CNKI. These databases were selected because they are credible platforms that are sources of scholarly and peer-reviewed information with advanced search tools and contain literature relevant to the subject of our topic from reliable researchers and experts. The search string with the Boolean operator used in the Web of Science was “TS = (((“critical thinking” or “ct” and “pretest” or “posttest”) or (“critical thinking” or “ct” and “control group” or “quasi experiment” or “experiment”)) and (“collaboration” or “collaborative learning” or “CSCL”) and (“problem solving” or “problem-based learning” or “PBL”))”. The research area was “Education Educational Research”, and the search period was “January 1, 2000, to December 30, 2021”. A total of 412 papers were obtained. The search string with the Boolean operator used in the CNKI was “SU = (‘critical thinking’*‘collaboration’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘collaborative learning’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘CSCL’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem solving’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem-based learning’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘PBL’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem oriented’) AND FT = (‘experiment’ + ‘quasi experiment’ + ‘pretest’ + ‘posttest’ + ‘empirical study’)” (translated into Chinese when searching). A total of 56 studies were found throughout the search period of “January 2000 to December 2021”. From the databases, all duplicates and retractions were eliminated before exporting the references into Endnote, a program for managing bibliographic references. In all, 466 studies were found.

Second, the studies that matched the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the meta-analysis were chosen by two researchers after they had reviewed the abstracts and titles of the gathered articles, yielding a total of 126 studies.

Third, two researchers thoroughly reviewed each included article’s whole text in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Meanwhile, a snowball search was performed using the references and citations of the included articles to ensure complete coverage of the articles. Ultimately, 36 articles were kept.

Two researchers worked together to carry out this entire process, and a consensus rate of almost 94.7% was reached after discussion and negotiation to clarify any emerging differences.

Eligibility criteria

Since not all the retrieved studies matched the criteria for this meta-analysis, eligibility criteria for both inclusion and exclusion were developed as follows:

The publication language of the included studies was limited to English and Chinese, and the full text could be obtained. Articles that did not meet the publication language and articles not published between 2000 and 2021 were excluded.

The research design of the included studies must be empirical and quantitative studies that can assess the effect of collaborative problem-solving on the development of critical thinking. Articles that could not identify the causal mechanisms by which collaborative problem-solving affects critical thinking, such as review articles and theoretical articles, were excluded.

The research method of the included studies must feature a randomized control experiment or a quasi-experiment, or a natural experiment, which have a higher degree of internal validity with strong experimental designs and can all plausibly provide evidence that critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving are causally related. Articles with non-experimental research methods, such as purely correlational or observational studies, were excluded.

The participants of the included studies were only students in school, including K-12 students and college students. Articles in which the participants were non-school students, such as social workers or adult learners, were excluded.

The research results of the included studies must mention definite signs that may be utilized to gauge critical thinking’s impact (e.g., sample size, mean value, or standard deviation). Articles that lacked specific measurement indicators for critical thinking and could not calculate the effect size were excluded.

Data coding design

In order to perform a meta-analysis, it is necessary to collect the most important information from the articles, codify that information’s properties, and convert descriptive data into quantitative data. Therefore, this study designed a data coding template (see Table 1 ). Ultimately, 16 coding fields were retained.

The designed data-coding template consisted of three pieces of information. Basic information about the papers was included in the descriptive information: the publishing year, author, serial number, and title of the paper.

The variable information for the experimental design had three variables: the independent variable (instruction method), the dependent variable (critical thinking), and the moderating variable (learning stage, teaching type, intervention duration, learning scaffold, group size, measuring tool, and subject area). Depending on the topic of this study, the intervention strategy, as the independent variable, was coded into collaborative and non-collaborative problem-solving. The dependent variable, critical thinking, was coded as a cognitive skill and an attitudinal tendency. And seven moderating variables were created by grouping and combining the experimental design variables discovered within the 36 studies (see Table 1 ), where learning stages were encoded as higher education, high school, middle school, and primary school or lower; teaching types were encoded as mixed courses, integrated courses, and independent courses; intervention durations were encoded as 0–1 weeks, 1–4 weeks, 4–12 weeks, and more than 12 weeks; group sizes were encoded as 2–3 persons, 4–6 persons, 7–10 persons, and more than 10 persons; learning scaffolds were encoded as teacher-supported learning scaffold, technique-supported learning scaffold, and resource-supported learning scaffold; measuring tools were encoded as standardized measurement tools (e.g., WGCTA, CCTT, CCTST, and CCTDI) and self-adapting measurement tools (e.g., modified or made by researchers); and subject areas were encoded according to the specific subjects used in the 36 included studies.

The data information contained three metrics for measuring critical thinking: sample size, average value, and standard deviation. It is vital to remember that studies with various experimental designs frequently adopt various formulas to determine the effect size. And this paper used Morris’ proposed standardized mean difference (SMD) calculation formula ( 2008 , p. 369; see Supplementary Table S3 ).

Procedure for extracting and coding data

According to the data coding template (see Table 1 ), the 36 papers’ information was retrieved by two researchers, who then entered them into Excel (see Supplementary Table S1 ). The results of each study were extracted separately in the data extraction procedure if an article contained numerous studies on critical thinking, or if a study assessed different critical thinking dimensions. For instance, Tiwari et al. ( 2010 ) used four time points, which were viewed as numerous different studies, to examine the outcomes of critical thinking, and Chen ( 2013 ) included the two outcome variables of attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills, which were regarded as two studies. After discussion and negotiation during data extraction, the two researchers’ consistency test coefficients were roughly 93.27%. Supplementary Table S2 details the key characteristics of the 36 included articles with 79 effect quantities, including descriptive information (e.g., the publishing year, author, serial number, and title of the paper), variable information (e.g., independent variables, dependent variables, and moderating variables), and data information (e.g., mean values, standard deviations, and sample size). Following that, testing for publication bias and heterogeneity was done on the sample data using the Rev-Man 5.4 software, and then the test results were used to conduct a meta-analysis.

Publication bias test

When the sample of studies included in a meta-analysis does not accurately reflect the general status of research on the relevant subject, publication bias is said to be exhibited in this research. The reliability and accuracy of the meta-analysis may be impacted by publication bias. Due to this, the meta-analysis needs to check the sample data for publication bias (Stewart et al., 2006 ). A popular method to check for publication bias is the funnel plot; and it is unlikely that there will be publishing bias when the data are equally dispersed on either side of the average effect size and targeted within the higher region. The data are equally dispersed within the higher portion of the efficient zone, consistent with the funnel plot connected with this analysis (see Fig. 2 ), indicating that publication bias is unlikely in this situation.

This funnel plot shows the result of publication bias of 79 effect quantities across 36 studies.

Heterogeneity test

To select the appropriate effect models for the meta-analysis, one might use the results of a heterogeneity test on the data effect sizes. In a meta-analysis, it is common practice to gauge the degree of data heterogeneity using the I 2 value, and I 2  ≥ 50% is typically understood to denote medium-high heterogeneity, which calls for the adoption of a random effect model; if not, a fixed effect model ought to be applied (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001 ). The findings of the heterogeneity test in this paper (see Table 2 ) revealed that I 2 was 86% and displayed significant heterogeneity ( P  < 0.01). To ensure accuracy and reliability, the overall effect size ought to be calculated utilizing the random effect model.

The analysis of the overall effect size

This meta-analysis utilized a random effect model to examine 79 effect quantities from 36 studies after eliminating heterogeneity. In accordance with Cohen’s criterion (Cohen, 1992 ), it is abundantly clear from the analysis results, which are shown in the forest plot of the overall effect (see Fig. 3 ), that the cumulative impact size of cooperative problem-solving is 0.82, which is statistically significant ( z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]), and can encourage learners to practice critical thinking.

This forest plot shows the analysis result of the overall effect size across 36 studies.

In addition, this study examined two distinct dimensions of critical thinking to better understand the precise contributions that collaborative problem-solving makes to the growth of critical thinking. The findings (see Table 3 ) indicate that collaborative problem-solving improves cognitive skills (ES = 0.70) and attitudinal tendency (ES = 1.17), with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 7.95, P  < 0.01). Although collaborative problem-solving improves both dimensions of critical thinking, it is essential to point out that the improvements in students’ attitudinal tendency are much more pronounced and have a significant comprehensive effect (ES = 1.17, z  = 7.62, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.87, 1.47]), whereas gains in learners’ cognitive skill are slightly improved and are just above average. (ES = 0.70, z  = 11.55, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.58, 0.82]).

The analysis of moderator effect size

The whole forest plot’s 79 effect quantities underwent a two-tailed test, which revealed significant heterogeneity ( I 2  = 86%, z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01), indicating differences between various effect sizes that may have been influenced by moderating factors other than sampling error. Therefore, exploring possible moderating factors that might produce considerable heterogeneity was done using subgroup analysis, such as the learning stage, learning scaffold, teaching type, group size, duration of the intervention, measuring tool, and the subject area included in the 36 experimental designs, in order to further explore the key factors that influence critical thinking. The findings (see Table 4 ) indicate that various moderating factors have advantageous effects on critical thinking. In this situation, the subject area (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05), group size (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01), learning scaffold (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01), and teaching type (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05) are all significant moderators that can be applied to support the cultivation of critical thinking. However, since the learning stage and the measuring tools did not significantly differ among intergroup (chi 2  = 3.15, P  = 0.21 > 0.05, and chi 2  = 0.08, P  = 0.78 > 0.05), we are unable to explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving. These are the precise outcomes, as follows:

Various learning stages influenced critical thinking positively, without significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 3.15, P  = 0.21 > 0.05). High school was first on the list of effect sizes (ES = 1.36, P  < 0.01), then higher education (ES = 0.78, P  < 0.01), and middle school (ES = 0.73, P  < 0.01). These results show that, despite the learning stage’s beneficial influence on cultivating learners’ critical thinking, we are unable to explain why it is essential for cultivating critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

Different teaching types had varying degrees of positive impact on critical thinking, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05). The effect size was ranked as follows: mixed courses (ES = 1.34, P  < 0.01), integrated courses (ES = 0.81, P  < 0.01), and independent courses (ES = 0.27, P  < 0.01). These results indicate that the most effective approach to cultivate critical thinking utilizing collaborative problem solving is through the teaching type of mixed courses.

Various intervention durations significantly improved critical thinking, and there were significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01). The effect sizes related to this variable showed a tendency to increase with longer intervention durations. The improvement in critical thinking reached a significant level (ES = 0.85, P  < 0.01) after more than 12 weeks of training. These findings indicate that the intervention duration and critical thinking’s impact are positively correlated, with a longer intervention duration having a greater effect.

Different learning scaffolds influenced critical thinking positively, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01). The resource-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.69, P  < 0.01) acquired a medium-to-higher level of impact, the technique-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.63, P  < 0.01) also attained a medium-to-higher level of impact, and the teacher-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.92, P  < 0.01) displayed a high level of significant impact. These results show that the learning scaffold with teacher support has the greatest impact on cultivating critical thinking.

Various group sizes influenced critical thinking positively, and the intergroup differences were statistically significant (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05). Critical thinking showed a general declining trend with increasing group size. The overall effect size of 2–3 people in this situation was the biggest (ES = 0.99, P  < 0.01), and when the group size was greater than 7 people, the improvement in critical thinking was at the lower-middle level (ES < 0.5, P  < 0.01). These results show that the impact on critical thinking is positively connected with group size, and as group size grows, so does the overall impact.

Various measuring tools influenced critical thinking positively, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 0.08, P  = 0.78 > 0.05). In this situation, the self-adapting measurement tools obtained an upper-medium level of effect (ES = 0.78), whereas the complete effect size of the standardized measurement tools was the largest, achieving a significant level of effect (ES = 0.84, P  < 0.01). These results show that, despite the beneficial influence of the measuring tool on cultivating critical thinking, we are unable to explain why it is crucial in fostering the growth of critical thinking by utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

Different subject areas had a greater impact on critical thinking, and the intergroup differences were statistically significant (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05). Mathematics had the greatest overall impact, achieving a significant level of effect (ES = 1.68, P  < 0.01), followed by science (ES = 1.25, P  < 0.01) and medical science (ES = 0.87, P  < 0.01), both of which also achieved a significant level of effect. Programming technology was the least effective (ES = 0.39, P  < 0.01), only having a medium-low degree of effect compared to education (ES = 0.72, P  < 0.01) and other fields (such as language, art, and social sciences) (ES = 0.58, P  < 0.01). These results suggest that scientific fields (e.g., mathematics, science) may be the most effective subject areas for cultivating critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving with regard to teaching critical thinking

According to this meta-analysis, using collaborative problem-solving as an intervention strategy in critical thinking teaching has a considerable amount of impact on cultivating learners’ critical thinking as a whole and has a favorable promotional effect on the two dimensions of critical thinking. According to certain studies, collaborative problem solving, the most frequently used critical thinking teaching strategy in curriculum instruction can considerably enhance students’ critical thinking (e.g., Liang et al., 2017 ; Liu et al., 2020 ; Cindy, 2004 ). This meta-analysis provides convergent data support for the above research views. Thus, the findings of this meta-analysis not only effectively address the first research query regarding the overall effect of cultivating critical thinking and its impact on the two dimensions of critical thinking (i.e., attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills) utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving, but also enhance our confidence in cultivating critical thinking by using collaborative problem-solving intervention approach in the context of classroom teaching.

Furthermore, the associated improvements in attitudinal tendency are much stronger, but the corresponding improvements in cognitive skill are only marginally better. According to certain studies, cognitive skill differs from the attitudinal tendency in classroom instruction; the cultivation and development of the former as a key ability is a process of gradual accumulation, while the latter as an attitude is affected by the context of the teaching situation (e.g., a novel and exciting teaching approach, challenging and rewarding tasks) (Halpern, 2001 ; Wei and Hong, 2022 ). Collaborative problem-solving as a teaching approach is exciting and interesting, as well as rewarding and challenging; because it takes the learners as the focus and examines problems with poor structure in real situations, and it can inspire students to fully realize their potential for problem-solving, which will significantly improve their attitudinal tendency toward solving problems (Liu et al., 2020 ). Similar to how collaborative problem-solving influences attitudinal tendency, attitudinal tendency impacts cognitive skill when attempting to solve a problem (Liu et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ), and stronger attitudinal tendencies are associated with improved learning achievement and cognitive ability in students (Sison, 2008 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). It can be seen that the two specific dimensions of critical thinking as well as critical thinking as a whole are affected by collaborative problem-solving, and this study illuminates the nuanced links between cognitive skills and attitudinal tendencies with regard to these two dimensions of critical thinking. To fully develop students’ capacity for critical thinking, future empirical research should pay closer attention to cognitive skills.

The moderating effects of collaborative problem solving with regard to teaching critical thinking

In order to further explore the key factors that influence critical thinking, exploring possible moderating effects that might produce considerable heterogeneity was done using subgroup analysis. The findings show that the moderating factors, such as the teaching type, learning stage, group size, learning scaffold, duration of the intervention, measuring tool, and the subject area included in the 36 experimental designs, could all support the cultivation of collaborative problem-solving in critical thinking. Among them, the effect size differences between the learning stage and measuring tool are not significant, which does not explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

In terms of the learning stage, various learning stages influenced critical thinking positively without significant intergroup differences, indicating that we are unable to explain why it is crucial in fostering the growth of critical thinking.

Although high education accounts for 70.89% of all empirical studies performed by researchers, high school may be the appropriate learning stage to foster students’ critical thinking by utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving since it has the largest overall effect size. This phenomenon may be related to student’s cognitive development, which needs to be further studied in follow-up research.

With regard to teaching type, mixed course teaching may be the best teaching method to cultivate students’ critical thinking. Relevant studies have shown that in the actual teaching process if students are trained in thinking methods alone, the methods they learn are isolated and divorced from subject knowledge, which is not conducive to their transfer of thinking methods; therefore, if students’ thinking is trained only in subject teaching without systematic method training, it is challenging to apply to real-world circumstances (Ruggiero, 2012 ; Hu and Liu, 2015 ). Teaching critical thinking as mixed course teaching in parallel to other subject teachings can achieve the best effect on learners’ critical thinking, and explicit critical thinking instruction is more effective than less explicit critical thinking instruction (Bensley and Spero, 2014 ).

In terms of the intervention duration, with longer intervention times, the overall effect size shows an upward tendency. Thus, the intervention duration and critical thinking’s impact are positively correlated. Critical thinking, as a key competency for students in the 21st century, is difficult to get a meaningful improvement in a brief intervention duration. Instead, it could be developed over a lengthy period of time through consistent teaching and the progressive accumulation of knowledge (Halpern, 2001 ; Hu and Liu, 2015 ). Therefore, future empirical studies ought to take these restrictions into account throughout a longer period of critical thinking instruction.

With regard to group size, a group size of 2–3 persons has the highest effect size, and the comprehensive effect size decreases with increasing group size in general. This outcome is in line with some research findings; as an example, a group composed of two to four members is most appropriate for collaborative learning (Schellens and Valcke, 2006 ). However, the meta-analysis results also indicate that once the group size exceeds 7 people, small groups cannot produce better interaction and performance than large groups. This may be because the learning scaffolds of technique support, resource support, and teacher support improve the frequency and effectiveness of interaction among group members, and a collaborative group with more members may increase the diversity of views, which is helpful to cultivate critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

With regard to the learning scaffold, the three different kinds of learning scaffolds can all enhance critical thinking. Among them, the teacher-supported learning scaffold has the largest overall effect size, demonstrating the interdependence of effective learning scaffolds and collaborative problem-solving. This outcome is in line with some research findings; as an example, a successful strategy is to encourage learners to collaborate, come up with solutions, and develop critical thinking skills by using learning scaffolds (Reiser, 2004 ; Xu et al., 2022 ); learning scaffolds can lower task complexity and unpleasant feelings while also enticing students to engage in learning activities (Wood et al., 2006 ); learning scaffolds are designed to assist students in using learning approaches more successfully to adapt the collaborative problem-solving process, and the teacher-supported learning scaffolds have the greatest influence on critical thinking in this process because they are more targeted, informative, and timely (Xu et al., 2022 ).

With respect to the measuring tool, despite the fact that standardized measurement tools (such as the WGCTA, CCTT, and CCTST) have been acknowledged as trustworthy and effective by worldwide experts, only 54.43% of the research included in this meta-analysis adopted them for assessment, and the results indicated no intergroup differences. These results suggest that not all teaching circumstances are appropriate for measuring critical thinking using standardized measurement tools. “The measuring tools for measuring thinking ability have limits in assessing learners in educational situations and should be adapted appropriately to accurately assess the changes in learners’ critical thinking.”, according to Simpson and Courtney ( 2002 , p. 91). As a result, in order to more fully and precisely gauge how learners’ critical thinking has evolved, we must properly modify standardized measuring tools based on collaborative problem-solving learning contexts.

With regard to the subject area, the comprehensive effect size of science departments (e.g., mathematics, science, medical science) is larger than that of language arts and social sciences. Some recent international education reforms have noted that critical thinking is a basic part of scientific literacy. Students with scientific literacy can prove the rationality of their judgment according to accurate evidence and reasonable standards when they face challenges or poorly structured problems (Kyndt et al., 2013 ), which makes critical thinking crucial for developing scientific understanding and applying this understanding to practical problem solving for problems related to science, technology, and society (Yore et al., 2007 ).

Suggestions for critical thinking teaching

Other than those stated in the discussion above, the following suggestions are offered for critical thinking instruction utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

First, teachers should put a special emphasis on the two core elements, which are collaboration and problem-solving, to design real problems based on collaborative situations. This meta-analysis provides evidence to support the view that collaborative problem-solving has a strong synergistic effect on promoting students’ critical thinking. Asking questions about real situations and allowing learners to take part in critical discussions on real problems during class instruction are key ways to teach critical thinking rather than simply reading speculative articles without practice (Mulnix, 2012 ). Furthermore, the improvement of students’ critical thinking is realized through cognitive conflict with other learners in the problem situation (Yang et al., 2008 ). Consequently, it is essential for teachers to put a special emphasis on the two core elements, which are collaboration and problem-solving, and design real problems and encourage students to discuss, negotiate, and argue based on collaborative problem-solving situations.

Second, teachers should design and implement mixed courses to cultivate learners’ critical thinking, utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving. Critical thinking can be taught through curriculum instruction (Kuncel, 2011 ; Leng and Lu, 2020 ), with the goal of cultivating learners’ critical thinking for flexible transfer and application in real problem-solving situations. This meta-analysis shows that mixed course teaching has a highly substantial impact on the cultivation and promotion of learners’ critical thinking. Therefore, teachers should design and implement mixed course teaching with real collaborative problem-solving situations in combination with the knowledge content of specific disciplines in conventional teaching, teach methods and strategies of critical thinking based on poorly structured problems to help students master critical thinking, and provide practical activities in which students can interact with each other to develop knowledge construction and critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

Third, teachers should be more trained in critical thinking, particularly preservice teachers, and they also should be conscious of the ways in which teachers’ support for learning scaffolds can promote critical thinking. The learning scaffold supported by teachers had the greatest impact on learners’ critical thinking, in addition to being more directive, targeted, and timely (Wood et al., 2006 ). Critical thinking can only be effectively taught when teachers recognize the significance of critical thinking for students’ growth and use the proper approaches while designing instructional activities (Forawi, 2016 ). Therefore, with the intention of enabling teachers to create learning scaffolds to cultivate learners’ critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem solving, it is essential to concentrate on the teacher-supported learning scaffolds and enhance the instruction for teaching critical thinking to teachers, especially preservice teachers.

Implications and limitations

There are certain limitations in this meta-analysis, but future research can correct them. First, the search languages were restricted to English and Chinese, so it is possible that pertinent studies that were written in other languages were overlooked, resulting in an inadequate number of articles for review. Second, these data provided by the included studies are partially missing, such as whether teachers were trained in the theory and practice of critical thinking, the average age and gender of learners, and the differences in critical thinking among learners of various ages and genders. Third, as is typical for review articles, more studies were released while this meta-analysis was being done; therefore, it had a time limit. With the development of relevant research, future studies focusing on these issues are highly relevant and needed.

Conclusions

The subject of the magnitude of collaborative problem-solving’s impact on fostering students’ critical thinking, which received scant attention from other studies, was successfully addressed by this study. The question of the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking was addressed in this study, which addressed a topic that had gotten little attention in earlier research. The following conclusions can be made:

Regarding the results obtained, collaborative problem solving is an effective teaching approach to foster learners’ critical thinking, with a significant overall effect size (ES = 0.82, z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]). With respect to the dimensions of critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving can significantly and effectively improve students’ attitudinal tendency, and the comprehensive effect is significant (ES = 1.17, z  = 7.62, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.87, 1.47]); nevertheless, it falls short in terms of improving students’ cognitive skills, having only an upper-middle impact (ES = 0.70, z  = 11.55, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.58, 0.82]).

As demonstrated by both the results and the discussion, there are varying degrees of beneficial effects on students’ critical thinking from all seven moderating factors, which were found across 36 studies. In this context, the teaching type (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01), subject area (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05), group size (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05), and learning scaffold (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01) all have a positive impact on critical thinking, and they can be viewed as important moderating factors that affect how critical thinking develops. Since the learning stage (chi 2  = 3.15, P  = 0.21 > 0.05) and measuring tools (chi 2  = 0.08, P  = 0.78 > 0.05) did not demonstrate any significant intergroup differences, we are unable to explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included within the article and its supplementary information files, and the supplementary information files are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/IPFJO6 .

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the graduate scientific research and innovation project of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region named “Research on in-depth learning of high school information technology courses for the cultivation of computing thinking” (No. XJ2022G190) and the independent innovation fund project for doctoral students of the College of Educational Science of Xinjiang Normal University named “Research on project-based teaching of high school information technology courses from the perspective of discipline core literacy” (No. XJNUJKYA2003).

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Xu, E., Wang, W. & Wang, Q. The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in promoting students’ critical thinking: A meta-analysis based on empirical literature. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 16 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01508-1

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Better Classroom Management Can’t Wait. How to Make Changes Now

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Next year. Whenever I talk to new teachers, whether informally or within a teacher education course that I instruct, there is consistent talk of the changes they will make “next year.”

Many first-year teachers in particular speak longingly about how their actions and classrooms will be improved the following school year. They describe all their mistakes this past year and how they will fix them in the fall.

Undoubtedly, one will eventually regurgitate some version of the old saw: “The first two weeks of the school year are crucial for classroom management and establishing rules and expectations.”

Teachers believe these two weeks are when they should develop the classroom structures that will allow students to know what to expect for the remainder of the school year. Conversely, because they were unable to establish such structures within their first two weeks of a school year, they can only look forward to correcting it the following year.

I’m here to say it’s all a lie.

Believing that one can establish their classroom management plan in the first two weeks of the school year is just one of the many “truths” about “managing” student behavior that teachers learn.

In my own first year of teaching , the first two weeks—and beyond —were full of difficulties. I struggled to understand which rules to enact or how to enforce consequences consistently. At some point, things improved but only well after two weeks. Through support and experience, I and many beginning teachers get better at managing the classroom.

But how? This is the question that all preservice and beginning teachers ask as they consider classroom management. Having now spent over a decade teaching preservice teachers and researching how teachers successfully manage classrooms , I’ve identified some key strategies that can improve classroom management at any point in the year.

Interestingly, these strategies have developed from repeated maxims—or what I deem as misconceptions:

“I build relationships before, between, and after classes.”

While informal conversations before class or between periods are positive, teachers can build relationships within lessons more effectively. Building relationships is central to every classroom, but it’s easier said than done. I love this meta-analysis (find the main table!) that lists concrete strategies from praise and check-ins to rewards and self-regulation.

You won’t know how to manage your students until you know who they are. This means ignoring other trite expressions, such as “not smiling before Christmas.”

“I need to focus on a good lesson, not classroom management.”

A good lesson engages students, reducing opportunities to misbehave. A good lesson also can be derailed if students’ perspectives are not considered. Here are a few tips:

• Think about what students do for each activity, not just what the teacher does. Interesting demonstrations and lectures often have students sitting quietly at their desks for a whole lesson. Consider other ways they could learn the material (e.g., small-group activities) and the appropriate directions and transitions needed to get there.
• Build from their interest. Whether it’s using examples about Paw Patrol or Taylor Swift, incorporating students’ interests engages them.
• Overplan material. Timing is difficult for beginning teachers, so it’s important to have an abundance of activities per day. You’d rather end long (and put a pin in it for tomorrow) than not have enough for your students to do. The more you have prepared, the less time you’ll spend dealing with misbehavior.

“I manage all my students the same.”

Consistent rules, procedures, and expectations are crucial in establishing the boundaries of your classroom. However, while the sentiment of treating everyone the same is understandable, we know that discipline is not administered equally.

Instead, teachers must be responsive to their class and understand that students may respond differently to consequences. Just like we do with instruction, it is important to manage behavior in a way that meets students where they are rather than treating them all the same.

Allow for some flexibility or have students offer suggestions for what’s important for their learning. Teachers can also find ways to promote positive interactions, such as utilizing nonverbal actions, specific praise, and parent partnerships to accommodate for student differences.

While these classroom management sayings are meant to help beginning teachers, they ultimately hurt students by ignoring how teachers can adapt classroom management skills throughout the school year. Of course, these recommendations are not exhaustive, and teachers must recognize that what works now may not work with next year’s students.

Instead of buying into these misnomers, teachers need to focus on skills that they can improve now. Don’t try to change everything all at once; find a few specific strategies to prioritize per day or week and solidify them in your classroom.

Teachers can even utilize the current classroom as a trial-and-error period to see which strategies they like best. Instead of waiting until next year’s first two weeks, how about changing things today?

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When general and special education teachers collaborate as equals, their students benefit.

Throughout my career as a special education teacher, I’ve had many opportunities to co-teach in collaborative classrooms. Some of these experiences were positive, others more challenging. With the ever-increasing demands of today’s classrooms, many school districts are relying on co-teaching to meet the needs of all learners. Yet teachers aren’t often trained in co-facilitation. 

It’s important to fill this gap. Below, I offer insights on how to begin.

Treat Each Other as Equal Partners

In my view, the most important element of a successful, inclusive classroom is parity. For collaborative teaching to be effective, both teachers should be viewed as equals. 

Often, a special education teacher co-teaches in a general education classroom. When entering the room, both teachers should be viewed just as that—the teachers.  Too many times, as a special education teacher, I’ve walked into a classroom and encountered the assumption that I was only there to work with students with special needs. 

But for classrooms to be most effective, every person in the learning community, from teachers, to paraprofessionals to students, must view co-teachers as equal entities there to work with all students. When a teacher is viewed as “less than” a teacher, they have a lesser impact in the classroom.   

For example, I once co-taught fifth-grade social studies. On my inaugural day in the district, I walked into the room, and six heads turned; these students had not met me yet, but they walked to the back of the room and sat at a table where I was sitting. I looked at them and asked, “What are you doing?” “Social studies,” they replied.  I sent them back to their desks. My co-teacher stopped what she was doing and gave me a questioning look, as if to say, “What’re they doing?” It was obvious that their previous co-teachers required students with special needs to work with the special education teacher in the back of a regular education classroom. They were separating themselves by rote.  

For teachers, it can be difficult to find a common planning time. However, co-teachers must work together to find a way to communicate—whether via email, text, meeting before or after school, or having phone conversations. Having a consistent flow of information and ideas enhances parity. In addition to instructional planning and discussing roles and responsibilities for each lesson, you can share information about specific students, types of disabilities and their impact on student performance, or content gaps you can work to strengthen together.

Share Responsibilities

I think back to my first teaching position, when the concept of co-teaching was relatively new. In a co-taught elementary science class, I was told by my counterpart that as the special education teacher, I was expected to sit in the classroom, and if the science teacher needed help (such as with handing out materials) or a student demonstrated inappropriate behaviors, I would get the nod to step in.   

But the strategy above—treating both teachers equally—means this model is inappropriate. Both teachers should assume that the class is “our” class and never “my/your class.” They should both have responsibility for preparing lessons, planning activities, creating assessments, and teaching. 

Be mindful that neither teacher is the primary source of instruction while the other offers support. If one teacher is always teaching the main lesson, the second is seen as a helper and not viewed equally by students (or colleagues). Instead, work with your co-teacher to devise a plan for frequently switching roles and responsibilities.  

When both teachers are teaching, learning improves. Content knowledge, teaching strategies, assessments, classroom management—all are doubled. Teachers grow and learn from each other, improving the quality of the educational experience for all students in the room.

Co-Own Accountability

Another way to create parity is ensuring that both teachers feel responsible for all students’ outcomes. Share the goal of student learning and achievement. 

In the scenarios above, it was clear that the expectation was for one teacher to be concerned with the general classroom population, while the other was expected to work only with certain students. This segregates some students within their own classroom and wastes resources.   

No matter which co-teaching model you choose, make it a practice for both teachers to work with all students, and have student success at the forefront of the strategies you employ. For example, rather than referring to, say, “Mr. Vogel’s students” during pull-out subjects or small group activities, be sure that all students interact with both teachers and don’t feel grouped in any particular way.

Share Knowledge

Co-teaching presents powerful opportunities to learn from colleagues—deepening their understandings of disabilities and how they affect student performance, for example, or filling in content gaps to strengthen the teaching experience.  

I was a high school learning support instructor for a portion of my career. I was assigned to co-teach an algebra class. I was completely intimidated by the content. That year, we worked with a student diagnosed with cerebral palsy who used a wheelchair for mobility. The algebra teacher also seemed intimidated by creating an inclusive learning space. Working together, we were able to grow professionally, and all students benefited.  

Co-teaching, when done collaboratively , can be an amazingly powerful tool in today’s schooling environments. When both teachers are viewed as equal entities, the success of the classroom will be evident.