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Most teachers I know care deeply about helping their students succeed at school, and if you are reading this article, you are undoubtedly one of them. Yet, research has revealed some teaching strategies have far more impact than others. These are evidence-based teaching strategies. Busy teachers have so many demands on their time that it is hard to keep abreast of what the research really says - especially amidst the noise of trendy fads.

That's where I can help. I am a passionate teacher who recently had both my legs amputated. This gives me time to read the research and share my findings with teachers like you.

If you want to make a larger difference in how well your students do, then learn about these 10 evidence-based teaching strategies. Some of them may surprise you!

Evidence-Based Teaching Strategy 1: A Clear Focus

A clear focus enables you to focus everything you do and everything you get your students to do on achieving this intended learning. In turn, this has a sizeable impact ( d = 0.75) ¹ on your students' learning.

Note, the impact of a clear focus relies on you adjusting your teaching and learning activities in line with that focus. It doesn't come from fancy names such as learning intentions or learning targets. You can call them goals, intentions, objectives or anything else - it doesn't matter.

Teaching Strategy 2: Pretesting

The term 'testing' tends to get a bad rap in teaching circles. Yet, when viewed more broadly, it actually a potent teaching strategy that underpins x strategies in this list. Pretesting is the first of these.

Teaching Strategy 3: Show & Tell

I call the second evidence-based teaching strategy show and tell, although the research refers to be various other names. It is grounded in the idea that novice learners learn best with explicit instruction ² and represents the I Do phase of the I Do - We Do - You Do model. instruction should make use of:

The nature of show and tell varies slightly between procedural and conceptual knowledge.

Procedural Show & Tell

With procedural learning, show and tell involves:

Modelling often involves working an example, which has a moderate-to-large impact on students learning ⁴.

When worked examples are coupled with verbal explanations of the steps or actions needed, they have even more impact ⁵.

Conceptual Show & Tell

With conceptual learning, show and tell involves:

Visuals may include text, but they are not text-based. Research on the modality and multimedia effects 3 show that combining meaningful visuals with verbal explanations enhances learning.

However, visuals must be used carefully. See The Use of Visuals article.

Checking for Understanding

Models of explicit instruction, such as the I Do - We Do - You Do framework, advise that you should check for understanding before moving on from this stage.

Strategy 4: Integrate Prior Understandings

Pretesting is a powerful way to activate prior understandings. Yet, activating prior understandings is only the first step. You also need to prompt your students to integrate the new information with what they already understood, with questions such as, how does/is this new information:

Relationships could be sequential, hierarchical, cause-effect or comparative. You can ask your students to show these relationships using some form of a graphic organiser:

And, the impact is even larger in mathematics when integrating prior understandings is coupled with worked examples.

Strategy 5: Retrieval Practice

Research shows that retrieving information from memory is a powerful way to learn. In psychology, we refer to this as the testing effect.

In fact, students who practise retrieving information from memory do far better than students who spend an equivalent amount of time restudying.

You can also ask students to practise using a mixture of the above methods.

Strategy 6: Feedback

Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and it is the breakfast served by extraordinary teachers around the world.

Giving feedback involves telling a student:

Feedback is different to praise. Praise focuses on the student, while feedback focuses on what your student did. It provides your students with a tangible understanding of:

In John Hattie's view, any teachers who seriously want to boost their children's results should start by giving them dollops and dollops of feedback.

If you want to learn more about giving feedback, subscribe to our email list. You will then receive a free copy of our eBook How to Give Feedback to Students: The Advanced Guide. You should also check out our student feedback infographic.

Teaching Strategy 7: Spaced Practice

We know that retrieval practice works well, that it works better than restudying material, and that it gas even more impact when accompanied by feedback.

Yet, research shows that students learn more when they practice the same thing repeatedly with spaces in between than they do when they study the same thing intensely for a block of time.

For more details see Distributed vs Massed Practice.

Teaching Strategy 8: Productive Group Work

Group work can have a potent and positive impact on your students' learning.

Yet, group work done at the wrong time or in the wrong way can backfire. Kids can muck around and leave one or 2 group members to do the work. So, follow these tips:

1. Don't use group work as teaching strategy until your class is routinely behaving well as a whole class

2. When you first use group work, make the task easy enough that students won't need help. Then spend your time watching all the groups, offering praise and positive correction when appropriate.

3. Only use group work once all indivdual students have a basic mastery of the task

4. Choose tasks that have a small number of discrete steps

5. Make group sizes equivalent to the number of steps in the class

6. Have each student complete one step, then rotate roles with repeat tasks

7. Hold groups accountable for their behaviour, effort and results

SHAUN KILLIAN
(MEd., MLead.)

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10 Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies for 2023

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Some teaching strategies have more impact on your students' results than others. Discover this core list of 10 evidence-based teaching strat ..

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Part 1