Classroom Strategies

Misti Neely
Educational Psychology

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #1-

Getting and Keeping Students Attention

Create stimulation lessons where the students want to pay attention.
Get students physically involved with the subject matter.
Incorporate a variety of instructional methods into lessons
Provide frequent breaks from quiet, sedentary activities, especially when working with
students in the elementary grades.
In the middle school and grades, encourage students to take notes.
Minimize distractions when students must work quietly and independently.

Encouraging Elaboration of Classroom Topics

Communicate the belief that students can and should make sense of what they are saying.
Ask questions that require students to draw inferences from why theyre learning.
Have students apply what theyve learned to new situations and problems.
Focus on an in-depth understanding of a few general principles-the big ideas within a
discipline-instead of covering many topics superficially.
Create opportunities for small-group or whole-class discussions in which students can
freely exchange their views.
Helping Students Acquire New Skills
Help students understand the logic behind the procedures theyre learning.
When skills are especially complex, break them into simpler tasks that students can
practice one at a time.
Provide mnemonics that can help students remember a sequence of steps.
Give students many opportunities to practice new skills, and provide the feedback they
need to help them improve.

Promoting Conceptual Change

Probe for misconceptions that may lead students to interpret new information incorrectly.
Provide information and experiences that explicitly contradict students
misunderstandings.
Ask questions that challenge students misconceptions.
Show students how an alternative explanations is more plausible and useful-how it makes
more sense than their original belief.
Give students corrective feedback about responses that reflect misunderstanding.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #2-

Using Feedback to Improve Learning and Behavior

Be explicate about what students are doing well-ideally, at the time they are doing
it.
Give concrete guidance about how students can improve their performance.
Communicate optimism that students can improve.
Dont overwhelm students with too much feedback; tell them only what they can
reasonably attend to and remember at the time.
Minimize feedback when students already know exactly what theyve done well
or poorly.
Teach students strategies for appropriately asking for feedback.
Addressing Students Stereotypes and Prejudices
Use curriculum materials that represent all cultures and ethnic groups as
competent, legitimate participants in mainstream society, rather than as exotic
curiosities who live in a separate world.
Assign literature depicting peers from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Conduct class discussions about prejudice and racism that exist in the school and
local community.
Expose students to successful role models from various ethnic backgrounds.
Assign small-group cooperative projects in which students from diverse
backgrounds must combine their unique talents to achieve a common goal.
Emphasize that some people affiliate with two or more cultural groups and that
individual members of any single group are often very different from one another
in behaviors, beliefs, and values.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #3-

Fostering Self-Regulation
Have students observe and record their own behavior.
Teach students instructions they can give themselves to remind them of what they need
to do.
Provide the guidance students need to evaluate their own performance.
Use video technology to enhance students self-monitoring and self-evaluation abilities.
Teach students to reinforce themselves for appropriate behavior.
Give students age-appropriate opportunities to engage in learning tasks with little or no
help from their teacher.
Fostering Critical Thinking
Teach elements of critical thinking.
Foster epistemic beliefs that encourage critical thinking.
Embed critical thinking skills within the context of authentic activities.
Teach students how to evaluate the accuracy of information posted on internet websites.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #4-

Working with Students Who Have Exceptional Abilities and Talents

Individualize instructions in accordance with students specific talents.
Form study groups of students who have similar abilities and interests.
Teach complex cognitive skills within the context of specific school topics rather than
separately from the regular school curriculum.
Provide opportunities for independent study.
Engage students in challenging, multifaceted public service projects (i.e., service
learning; see Chapter 4 and Chapter 8)
Encourage students to set high goals for themselves.
Seek outside resources to help students develop their exceptional talents.
Working with Students Who Have Significant Delays in Cognitive Development
Introduce new material at a slower pace, and provide many opportunities for practice.
Explain tasks and expected behaviors concretely and in very specific language.
Give students explicit guidance about how to study.
Encourage independence.
Provide technology that can enhance students self-reliance.
Conducting Effective Discovery and Inquiry Learning Activities
Identify a concept of principle about which students can learn something significant
through interaction with their physical or social environment.
Make sure students have the necessary prior knowledge to make sense of what they
observe.
Show puzzling results to create disequilibrium and arouse curiosity.

 Structure and guide a discovery session so that students proceed logically toward
discoveries you want them to make.
Have students record their findings.
Help students relate their findings to concepts and principles in the academic discipline
theyre studying.
Promoting Productive Dispositions
Communicate your own enthusiasm for learning about new topics.
Model open-mindedness about diverse viewpoints and a willingness to suspend judgment
until all the facts are in.
Conduct learning activities in which students collaborate to address intriguing,
multifaceted issues.
Ask students to evaluate the quality of science evidence, a scaffold their efforts
sufficiently that they can reach appropriate conclusions.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #5-

Enhancing Self-Efficacy and skills to mastery.

Teach basic knowledge and skills to mastery.
Define success in terms of task accomplishment or improvement, not in terms of
performance relative to others.
Assure students that they can be successful at challenging tasks, and point out that
others like them have succeeded before.
Assign large, complex tasks as small group activities.
Help students track their progress.
When negative feedback is necessary, present it in a way that communicates competence
and the ability to improve.
Forming Productive Expectations and Attributions
Look for strengths in every student.
Consider multiple possible explanations for students low achievement and classroom
misbehaviors.
Communicate optimism about what students can accomplish.
Objectively assess students progress, and be open to evidence that contradicts your initial
assessments of students abilities.
Attribute students successes to a combination of high ability and such controllable
factors as effort and learning strategies.
Attribute students failures to factors that are controllable and easily changed.
When students fail despite obvious effort, attribute their failures to a lack of effective
strategies and help them acquire such strategies.
Remember that teachers can definitely make a difference.

Showing and Promoting Caring

Have students work together on some learning tasks.
Continually communicate the message that you like and respect the students.
Praise students privately when being a high achiever is not sanctioned by peers.
Create a classroom culture in which respect for everyones needs and well-being is
paramount.
Easing the Transition to Middle and Secondary School
Provide a means through which every student can feel part of a small, close-knit group.
Address students personal and social needs as well as their academic needs.
Teach students the skills they need to be successful independent learners.
Assign grades based on mastery (not on comparisons with peers), and provide reasonable
opportunities for improvement.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #6-

Accommodating Diverse Temperaments

Minimize down time for students with high energy levels.
Provide regular opportunities for highly sociable students to interact with classmates.
Be especially warm and attentive with very shy students.
When students have trouble adapting to new circumstances, give them advance notice of
unusual activities and provide extra structure and reassurance.
If students seem to be overwhelmed by noisy or chaotic situations, find or create a more
calm and peaceful environment.
Teach self-regulation strategies to students who act impulsively.
Encourage Productive Interactions among Diverse Individuals and Groups
Set up situations in which students can form cross-group friendships.
Minimize or eliminate barriers to social interaction.
Encourage and facilitate participation in extracurricular activities, and take steps to
ensure that no single group dominates in membership or leadership in any particular
activity.
Conduct class discussions about the negative consequences of intergroup hostilities.
Develop nondisabled students understanding of students with disabilities, provided that
the students and their parents give permission to share what might otherwise be
confidential information.

Encouraging and supporting Students at Risk for Dropping Out

Make the curriculum relevant to students lives and needs-for example, through service
learning activities.
Pique students interest with stimulating activities.

 Use students strengths to promote a positive sense of self.

Through both words and actions, communicate optimism about students chances for
short-term and long-term personal and professional success.
Provide extra support for academic success.
Show students that they are personally responsible for their successes.
Create peer support groups that enable students to provide mutual encouragement.
Get students involved in extracurricular activities, especially those that involve making
long-term commitment to a group effort.
Involve students in school policy and management decisions.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #7-

Identifying Goals and Objectives of Instruction

Consult local, state, national, and international standards, but dont rely on them
exclusively.
Be realistic about what can be accomplished in a given time frame; allow time to pursue
important topics in depth.
Identify both short-term objectives and long-term goals.
In addition to goals related to specific topics and content areas, identify goals related to
students general long term academic success.
Consider physical, social, motivational, and affective outcomes as well as cognitive
outcomes.
Describe goals and objectives not in terms of what the teacher will do during a lesson
but in terms of what students should be able to do at the end of instruction-and, ideally,
also in ways that point to appropriate assessment tasks.
When formulating short-term objectives, identify specific behaviors that will reflect
accomplishment of the objectives.
When formulating long-term goals that involve complex topics or skills, list a few
abstract outcomes and give examples of specific behaviors that reflect each one.

Asking Questions to Promote Assess Learning

Direct questions to the entire class, not just to a few students who seem eager to respond.
When a question has only a few possible answers, have students vote on the particular
answer they think is correct.
Provide a means through which all students can write and show their answers.
Ask follow-up questions to probe students reasoning.
When students initially struggle with a question, provide sufficient scaffolding to enable
them to answer correctly.

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning

Choose challenging tasks that students may have trouble accomplishing alone but can
accomplish when several of them coordinate their efforts.
Form groups of students who are likely to work together productively and have unique
knowledge and skills to offer.
Provide clear goals toward which groups should work.
Structure tasks so that group member are dependent on one another for success.
Provide clear guidelines about how to behave.
Monitor group interactions.
Provide critical information and insights when (but only when) a group is unlikely or
unable to provide such information and insights for itself.
Make students individually accountable for their achievement.
Reinforce group success.
Ask students to evaluate their effectiveness in working as a group.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #8-

Using Punishment Humanely and Effectively

Inform students ahead of time that certain behaviors are unacceptable, and explain how
those behaviors will be punished.
Help students understand why the punished behavior is unacceptable.
Emphasize that it is the behavior-not the student-that is undesirable.
Administer punishment privately, especially when other students are not aware of the
transgression.
Simultaneously teach and reinforce desirable alternative behavior.
Talking with Parents about Students Misbehaviors.
Consult with parents if a collaborative effort might bring about a behavior change.
Begin with a description of a students many strengths.
Describe the problem in terms of inappropriate behaviors, not in terms of undesirable
personality characteristics.
Dont place blame; instead, acknowledge that raising children is rarely easy.
Ask for information, and express your desire to work together to address the problem.
Agree on a strategy.

Classroom Strategies:
Entry #9Constructing Multiple-Choice Items
When assessing basic knowledge, rephrase ideas presented in class or in the
textbook.
Present incorrect alternatives that are clearly wrong to students who know the
material but plausible to students who havent mastered it.
To assess complex cognitive processes, ask students to apply what theyve learned
to new situations.
Occasionally incorporate visual materials.
Developing Performance Assessments
Have students create products that reflect what they have learned.
When the assigned task doesnt yield a tangible product, observe students
behaviors and, if appropriate, probe their thinking processes.
Consider assigning complex, lengthy tasks as group projects.
Consider incorporating the assessment into normal instructional activities.
Summarizing Students Achievements with Portfolios
Identify in advance the specific purpose(s) for which a portfolio will be used.
Align portfolio contents with important instructional goals and/or content area
standards.
Ask students to select the contents of their portfolios; provide the scaffolding they
need to make wise choices.
Identify specific criteria that should guide students selections; possibly include
students in the criteria identification process.
Have students include reflections on the products they include.
Give students a general organizational scheme to follow.

 Determine whether a physical format or electronic format is more suitable for the
circumstances.
When using portfolios for summative assessments, develop a rubric to guide

evaluation.