Effective Teaching Strategies

Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from Research and Practice provides a practical overview of nine common teaching strategies used in all levels of education and training from early childhood through to higher education.

Initial chapters discuss the range of teaching strategies, the Australian Curriculum framework and introduce the key principles of quality teaching and learning. These ideas are then applied through chapters devoted to different teaching strategies: direct instruction, discussion, small-group work, cooperative learning, problem solving, inquiry, role-play, case study and student writing.

This structure, and balance between theory and very practical strategies, makes this market-leading text a valuable resource for students to use across multiple courses – especially in their professional placement – as well as in their future classrooms. Instructor resources include NEW instructor guide and updated PowerPoints and lesson planning documents What's New

• NEW Chapter 1, 'Frameworks for thinking about teaching' draws out the unique strategy of this text for pre-service teachers
• Enhanced layout and NEW full-colour visual design for improved student navigation of the key issues, theories and concepts covered in this valuable resource for pre-service and graduate teachers
• NEW Appendix: 'Techniques to support teaching strategies' to bring all the information about techniques into a single place rather than have it scattered through the text. This appendix provides supporting information for all the strategy chapters (Ch 7 to 15)
• Pre-service teachers build their professional vocabulary with important key terms which are marked in bold in the text and with a NEW glossary with key term definitions
• NEW Instructor guide, created by the author team, with guidance for instructors on how to get the most out of each chapter and suggested tutorial activities

Features

• In-depth discussion of nine of the most frequently used teaching strategies, progressing from the most teacher-centred (direct instruction) to the most student-centred (writing) strategies. Each of these teaching strategy chapters is self-contained so they can be studied in any order
• Uncover how and why experienced teachers put particular strategies and techniques into practice by following the interview questions in the 'Different perspectives' boxes
• 'At a glance' boxes help students to quickly assess when to use, or NOT use, each strategy. And the 'Compare and contrast' boxes help students to explore the similarities and differences between various teaching strategies
• Teaching and learning activities encourage readers to apply ideas to their own teaching specialisation in practice.
• The end-of-chapter Study Tools section provides students with 'Review and reflect on your learning' questions and a list of reputable weblinks directing students to follow up on ideas presented and find examples of their application
• Coverage of the importance of being a reflective teacher: helps readers to learn to reflect on their philosophy of teaching and determine which teaching strategy to use in different situations

About the Authors

Roy Killen was formerly an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and an Extraordinary Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He lectured in teacher education for 25 years, specialising in teaching strategies, assessment, curriculum development and reflective teaching.

Mitch O’Toole has long been involved in the preparation of resources for science teachers who have become conscious of the language component of their expectations of students at various levels of education. He is employed by the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where he formerly acted as Deputy Head of School (Teaching & Learning) and convened the science education teacher preparation programs.