Week 7 - Instructional Strategies

Today's lecture was a good break away from all the theories we have been learning for the past few weeks. Mr Low taught and brought in the use of strategies when devising lesson plans today.

Instructional Strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives...

As a current conductor, and an ex relief teacher, i've got to say that this process is definitely not an easy one.

After doing some other additional readings on instructional strategies, it has come to my attention that the options that are available for teachers like us are unlimited. The trick here is to implement the correct strategy in the student. I personally feel that the successfulness of the strategy would very much depend on the students, and the conditions in which the strategy is implemented..

When implementing strategies such as games, or debates, or case studies, how much a student absorbs depend on himself. (This can be linked to the previous week's lecture of affective learning).

After doing some research on instructional strategies, it has been brought to my attention that these strategies can be classified into 5 broad spectrums.

Direct Instruction:
where possibilities include simply having lectures, a structured overview, straightforward and direct teaching.

Interactive Instruction:
where we attempt to group people up to discuss topics in the form of activities such as debates, role playing, problem solvings, or have group discussions in tutorial classes (although in the case of Singapore, tutorial classes are usually hardly interactive as compared to the classes i had in international school)

Indirect Instruction:
using strategies such as concept mapping

Experiemental learning:
Using hands on activities such as games, or field trips to allow students to learn

Instructional skills:
explaining, demonstrating, and questioning students

BACK TO WHAT WE'VE LEARNT DURING LECTURES....

Mr Low introduced to us a few tactics that resulted in heated debates with my classmates taking this module.

In particular, the use of Mnemonics to learn..

I personally feel that Mneomics is a perfect way to learn. For example, i used Mnemonics in the past such as the "Four Letter F word" FACE to highlight the importance of intercultural communication during my NM2201 class.

I also used words like SING to let my students remember how to learn the basic techniques of singing.

These techniques, in my opionin, are very useful - although some of my classmates seem to think otherwise..

Nonetheless, i believe these instructional strategies have given me an insight, and a wider range of options for me when i plan my lessons in future for my choir and singing classes..