Teaching Strategies
This page provides resources to support excellent, innovative instruction in a variety of teaching settings. You’ll also find links to more general resources addressing effective teaching principles and techniques.
General Resources :
- Active learning
- What is Active Learning?“Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing”.
How can you incorporate active learning into your classroom?
The following list summarizes some of the many approaches.
! Clarification Pauses: This simple technique fosters “active listening.” Throughout a lecture, particularly after stating an important point or defining a key concept, stop presenting and allow students time to think about the information. After waiting, ask if anyone needs to have anything clarified. Ask students to review their notes and ask questions about what they’ve written so far.
- ! Writing Activities such as the “Minute Paper”: At an appropriate point in the lecture, ask the students to take out a blank sheet of paper. Then, state the topic or question you want students to address. For example, “Today, we discussed emancipation and equal rights. List as many key events and figures as you can remember. You have two minutes – go!”
- ! Self-Assessment: Students receive a quiz (typically ungraded) or a checklist of ideas to determine their understanding of the subject. Concept inventories or similar tools may be used at the beginning of a semester or the chapter to help students identify misconceptions.
- ! Large-Group Discussion: Students discuss a topic in class based on a reading, video, or problem. The instructor may prepare a list of questions to facilitate the discussion.
- ! Think-Pair-Share: Have students work individually on a problem or reflect on a passage. Students then compare their responses with a partner and synthesize a joint solution to share with the entire class.
- ! Cooperative Groups in Class (Informal Groups, Triad Groups, etc.): Pose a question for each cooperative group while you circulate around the room answering questions, asking further questions, and keeping the groups on task. After allowing time for group discussion, ask students to share their discussion points with the rest of the class.
- ! Peer Review: Students are asked to complete an individual homework assignment or short paper. On the day the assignment is due, students submit one copy to the instructor to be graded and one copy to their partner. Each student then takes their partner's work and, depending on the nature of the assignment, gives critical feedback, and corrects mistakes in content and/or grammar.
- ! Group Evaluations: Similar to peer review, students may evaluate group presentations or documents to assess the quality of the content and delivery of information.
- ! Brainstorming: Introduce a topic or problem and then ask for student input. Give students a minute to write down their ideas, and then record them on the board. An example for an introductory political science class would be, “As a member of the minority in Congress, what options are available to you to block a piece of legislation?”
- ! Case Studies: Use real-life stories that describe what happened to a community, family, school, industry, or individual to prompt students to integrate their classroom knowledge with their knowledge of real-world situations, actions, and consequences.
- ! Hands-on Technology: Students use technology such as simulation programs to get a deeper understanding of course concepts. For instance, students might use simulation software to design a simple device or use a statistical package for regression analysis.
- ! Interactive Lecture: Instructor breaks up the lecture at least once per class for an activity that lets all students work directly with the material. Students might observe and interpret features of images, interpret graphs, make calculation and estimates, etc.
- ! Active Review Sessions (Games or Simulations): The instructor poses questions and the students work on them in groups or individually. Students are asked to show their responses to the class and discuss any differences.
- ! Role Playing: Here students are asked to "act out" a part or a position to get a better idea of the concepts and theories being discussed. Role- playing exercises can range from the simple to the complex.
- ! Jigsaw Discussion: In this technique, a general topic is divided into smaller, interrelated pieces (e.g., a puzzle is divided into pieces). Each member of a team is assigned to read and become an expert on a different topic. After each person has become an expert on their piece of the puzzle, they teach the other team members about that puzzle piece. Finally, after each person has finished teaching, the puzzle has been reassembled, and everyone on the team knows something important about every piece of the puzzle.
- ! Inquiry Learning: Students use an investigative process to discover concepts for themselves. After the instructor identifies an idea or concept for mastery, a question is posed that asks students to make observations, pose hypotheses, and speculate on conclusions. Then students share their thoughts and tie the activity back to the main idea/concept.
- ! Forum Theater: Use theater to depict a situation and then have students enter into the sketch to act out possible solutions. Students watching a sketch on dysfunctional teams, might brainstorm possible suggestions for how to improve the team environment. Ask for volunteers to act out the updated scene.
- ! Experiential Learning: Plan site visits that allow students to see and experience applications of theories and concepts discussed in the class.
- Inclusive teaching
- Teaching styles
- Teaching resources listed by discipline
- Instructional technology
Teaching Settings and Modes:
- Case-based teaching
- Clinical teaching
- Discussion-based teaching
- Experiential learning and field work
- Group work and teamwork
- Lab teaching
- Large classes and lectures
- Online teaching
- Service learning
- Teaching with archival, botanical, and museum collections
- Certainly, we flnd much to applaud in these de- velopments. However, when consumption of avalu- able resource spikes that dramatically, it should alsogive us pause. Consider a typical week in your own organization. How much time do people spend in meetings, on the phone, and responding to e-mails?At many companies the proportion hovers around Bo%, Ieaving employees little time for all the critical worktheymust complete on their o'vrm. Performance suffers as they are buried under an avalanche ofre- quests for input or advice, access to resources, or at- tendance at a meeting. They take assigrrments home, and soon, according to a large body ofevidence on stress, burnout and turnover become real risks.
What's more, research we've done across more than 3oo organizations shows that the distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 2oo/o lo 35% of value-added collabora- tions come from only 3% to 5% of employees. As peo- ple become known for being both capable and will-ing to help, they are drar,rm into projects and roles of growing importance. Their giving mindset and desire to help others quickly enhances their performanceand reputation. As a recent study led by Ning Li, of the University of Iowa, shows, a single "extra miler" - an employee who frequently contributes beyond the scope of his or her role-can drive team performance more than all the other members combined.
But this "escalating citizenship," as the Uni- versity of Oklahoma professor Mark Bolino calls it, only further fuels the demands placed on topcollaborators. We f,nd that what starts as a virtuous cycle soon turns vicious. Soon helpful employees become institutional bottlenecks: Work doesn'tprogress until they've weighed in. Worse, they are so overtaxed that they're no longer personally ef- fective. And more often than not, the volume and
Certainly, we flnd much to applaud in these developments. However, when consumption of avaliable resource spikes that dramatically, it should also give us pause. Consider a typical week in your own organization. How much time do people spend in meetings, on the phone, and responding to e-mails? At many companies the proportion hovers around Bo%, Ieaving employees little time for all the critical worktheymust complete on their o'vrm. Performance suffers as they are buried under an avalanche ofre- quests for input or advice, access to resources, or at- tendance at a meeting. They take assignments home, and soon, according to a large body ofevidence on stress, burnout and turnover become real risks.
What's more, research we've done across more than 3oo organizations shows that the distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 2oo/o lo 35% of value-added collabora- tions come from only 3% to 5% of employees. As peo- ple become known for being both capable and will- ing to help, they are drar,rm into projects and roles of growing importance. Their giving mindset and desire to help others quickly enhances their performance and reputation. As a recent study led by Ning Li, of the University of Iowa, shows, a single "extra miler" - an employee who frequently contributes beyond the scope of his or her role-can drive team performance more than all the other members combined.
But this "escalating citizenship," as the Uni- versity of Oklahoma professor Mark Bolino calls it, only further fuels the demands placed on topcollaborators. We f,nd that what starts as a virtuous cycle soon turns vicious. Soon helpful employees become institutional bottlenecks: Work doesn't progress until they've weighed in. Worse, they are so overtaxed that they're no longer personally effective. And more often than not, the volume and
?6 Harvard Business Review January-February 2016
Precious Personal Resources
First, it's important to distinguish among the three types of "collaborative resources" that individual employees invest in others to create value: informational, social, and personal. Informational resources are knowledge and skills-expertise that can be recorded and passed on. - Social resources involve one's awareness, access, and position in a network, which can be used to help colleagues better collaborate with one another. Personalresources include one's o'¡m time and energ'y.
These three resource types are not equally efficient. Informational and social resources can be shared-often in a single exchange-without deplet-ing the collaborator's supply. That is, when I offer you knowledge or network awareness, I also retain it for my own use. But an individual employee's time and energy are finite, so each request to participate in or approve decisions for a project leaves less available for tlat person's ornm work.
Unfortunately, personal resources are often the default demand when people want to collaborate. Instead of asking for specific informational or so-cial resources-or better yet, searching in existing repositories such as reports or knowledge libraries- people ask for hands-on assistance they may not
THE SITUATION
Over the past two decades,
the amount of time managers and employees spend on co[[aborative work has ballooned.
At many companies people now spend about 8oo/o of their time in meetings or answering clleagues' requests.
THE PROBLEM
Although the benefits of cotlaboration are weIl documented, the costs often go unrecognized. when demands for collaboration run too high or aren't spread evenly through the organization, workflow bottlenecks and employee burnout result.
THE SOLUTION
Leaders must learn to better manage coltaboration in their companies by mapping suppty and demand, eliminating or redistributing work, and incentivizing people to collaborate more efficiently.
How can you incorporate active learning into your classroom?
The following list summarizes some of the many approaches.
! Clarification Pauses: This simple technique fosters “active listening.” Throughout a lecture, particularly after stating an important point or defining a key concept, stop presenting and allow students time to think about the information. After waiting, ask if anyone needs to have anything clarified. Ask students to review their notes and ask questions about what they’ve written so far.
What's more, research we've done across more than 3oo organizations shows that the distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 2oo/o lo 35% of value-added collabora- tions come from only 3% to 5% of employees. As peo- ple become known for being both capable and will-ing to help, they are drar,rm into projects and roles of growing importance. Their giving mindset and desire to help others quickly enhances their performanceand reputation. As a recent study led by Ning Li, of the University of Iowa, shows, a single "extra miler" - an employee who frequently contributes beyond the scope of his or her role-can drive team performance more than all the other members combined.
But this "escalating citizenship," as the Uni- versity of Oklahoma professor Mark Bolino calls it, only further fuels the demands placed on topcollaborators. We f,nd that what starts as a virtuous cycle soon turns vicious. Soon helpful employees become institutional bottlenecks: Work doesn'tprogress until they've weighed in. Worse, they are so overtaxed that they're no longer personally ef- fective. And more often than not, the volume and
Certainly, we flnd much to applaud in these developments. However, when consumption of avaliable resource spikes that dramatically, it should also give us pause. Consider a typical week in your own organization. How much time do people spend in meetings, on the phone, and responding to e-mails? At many companies the proportion hovers around Bo%, Ieaving employees little time for all the critical worktheymust complete on their o'vrm. Performance suffers as they are buried under an avalanche ofre- quests for input or advice, access to resources, or at- tendance at a meeting. They take assignments home, and soon, according to a large body ofevidence on stress, burnout and turnover become real risks.
What's more, research we've done across more than 3oo organizations shows that the distribution of collaborative work is often extremely lopsided. In most cases, 2oo/o lo 35% of value-added collabora- tions come from only 3% to 5% of employees. As peo- ple become known for being both capable and will- ing to help, they are drar,rm into projects and roles of growing importance. Their giving mindset and desire to help others quickly enhances their performance and reputation. As a recent study led by Ning Li, of the University of Iowa, shows, a single "extra miler" - an employee who frequently contributes beyond the scope of his or her role-can drive team performance more than all the other members combined.
But this "escalating citizenship," as the Uni- versity of Oklahoma professor Mark Bolino calls it, only further fuels the demands placed on topcollaborators. We f,nd that what starts as a virtuous cycle soon turns vicious. Soon helpful employees become institutional bottlenecks: Work doesn't progress until they've weighed in. Worse, they are so overtaxed that they're no longer personally effective. And more often than not, the volume and
?6 Harvard Business Review January-February 2016
Precious Personal Resources
First, it's important to distinguish among the three types of "collaborative resources" that individual employees invest in others to create value: informational, social, and personal. Informational resources are knowledge and skills-expertise that can be recorded and passed on.
These three resource types are not equally efficient. Informational and social resources can be shared-often in a single exchange-without deplet-ing the collaborator's supply. That is, when I offer you knowledge or network awareness, I also retain it for my own use. But an individual employee's time and energy are finite, so each request to participate in or approve decisions for a project leaves less available for tlat person's ornm work.
Unfortunately, personal resources are often the default demand when people want to collaborate. Instead of asking for specific informational or so-cial resources-or better yet, searching in existing repositories such as reports or knowledge libraries- people ask for hands-on assistance they may not
THE SITUATION
Over the past two decades,
the amount of time managers and employees spend on co[[aborative work has ballooned.
At many companies people now spend about 8oo/o of their time in meetings or answering clleagues' requests.
THE PROBLEM
Although the benefits of cotlaboration are weIl documented, the costs often go unrecognized. when demands for collaboration run too high or aren't spread evenly through the organization, workflow bottlenecks and employee burnout result.
THE SOLUTION
Leaders must learn to better manage coltaboration in their companies by mapping suppty and demand, eliminating or redistributing work, and incentivizing people to collaborate more efficiently.