Instructional Strategies

STAGE 3- PLAN LEARNING EXPERIENCES AND INSTRUCTION

At this stage, you consider:

  • The instructional methods/strategies that you will use to guide the learning so as to get students ready to tackle the assessments you planned for
  • The resource materials, i.e. recommended text and readings
  • The sequence of your lessons, i.e. the Weekly Lesson Plan

CTE recommendations: 

  1. Increasing students’ cognitive engagement through active learning approaches

The ICAP framework researched extensively and proposed by Michelene Chi and Ruth Wylie (2014)1 , states that students’ overt behaviors when engaging in active learning approaches can be categorized into passive, active, constructive and interactive modes, where I>C>A>P, with the Interactive mode of engagement achieving the greatest level of student learning. We recommend that you include learning activities at the constructive and interactive modes whenever possible in your instructional strategies. You can find some suggestions on how to implement the ICAP framework for each of the instructional strategies in Table 3.

  1. Selecting instructional strategies that prepare students for the assessments that you planned

Depending on the level of thinking you require your students to demonstrate in your learning objective and assessment, your instructional strategies should provide opportunities for relevant practice and feedback. Bloom's Revised Taxonomy (Table 1) offers one framework to understand the different levels of thinking and Table 3 lists some recommended instructional strategies corresponding to each level.

Putting into practice: Completing your course outline document

Instructional Methods/Strategies
Describe the ways in which you will deliver the course, and the key instructional activities that your students need to do in order to achieve the learning outcomes. Strive for interactivity in the way you deliver your course to be better aligned to SMU’s pedagogy.

Expectations
Expectations are desired behaviors or outcomes of students. Stating your expectations upfront on what you want students to complete prior to coming to class (e.g. homework assignments, pre-readings) and expected classroom behaviour (e.g. punctuality, attendance, laptop/handphone usage) can help you greatly in managing your students.
An example is as follows:

Instructional Method/Strategy Description (Purpose/Format) Expectation(s)
Group Presentation

Purpose: The purpose of the group presentation is for you to share your research findings on an area that you are interested in, related to international financial market.

Format: Each group will be given 20 minutes to present, followed by 10 minutes for Q&A. The instructor will probe and question you during the presentation so as to assess your ability to reason critically in areas that cannot be assessed by written exam, e.g. oral communication skills, conciseness, persuasiveness, quality and clarity of responses to questions, body language and professional manner.

You will be expected to work collaboratively and contribute actively towards the group presentations. You will be assessed by the instructor and your peers of your contributions.

Recommended Text and Readings
E.g.: Book title, edition, year of publication; Author(s); Publisher: ISBN number of available

Consultations
State your consultation hours and mode(s) (e.g. online and/or face-to-face), and the minimum work efforts expected from your students before they come for their consultation sessions with you.