Instructional strategies
Using a variety of text- (differentiation, culturally-responsive, social justice)
- Having students listen, view and read a various text forms due to the fact that students learn better through different forms of text
- Have different characters within text to show students that they can be seen within a book. This can show students that diversity is needed within school and life.
- Having text that can influence and benefit students.
Within my health lesson I thought about the Canadian Food Guide in which students were able to see the guide and discuss it with their group members. One of the food guide they discussed was the First Nation, Metis and Inuit food guide, students were able to make connections to previous information to expand their understanding of this particular guide.
Intergrade real world examples within lessons (Culturally- Responsive)
- Help students make the connection between school and the outside world. It helps students to interact with the real world examples to feel as if they have a place within the classroom.
Within a health lesson about food guides, I had students create a grocery list on a budget to show how difficult it can be to feed people using a budget and the Canadian food guide.
Give students time to work independently, in partners, small groups and as a whole class. (Differentiation)
- Each person is different meaning they will learn and produce ideas differently, using strategies like think-pair-shares allow students to think independently but also bounce ideas off of one and other.
- As mentioned earlier, everyone learns differently, so allowing students to have different chances and ways to share their ideas allows for a better community building.
During some of my jigsaw activities I gave students the information they are learning about, gave them time to think about it and then time to meet with their expert groups to share thoughts and ideas. I found this allows the students who prefer independent work or find it hard to speak in front of people time to think of their ideas.
Use deep thought provoking questions (Social Justice)
- It is one thing to ask questions to see a student’s understanding of a topic but it is another to move pass the surface level questions and move to questions that that hopefully inspire students to learn more.
- Use questions that inspire students to understand, to want to know more. Have questions that move students toward a change.
Within one of my first lessons I co-taught a lesson discussing family structures and biases. The students did a gallery walk and were asked questions like what is a family, who can create a family and more; these questions can lead towards deep conversations and discussions that showed students that they themselves had biases about families.
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