Teaching Strategies

1. Mini-Lecture: the mini-lecture is a concise way to provide participants with background information, research findings, or motivational examples to spark interest and give them a frame work for discussion or activity to follow. Mini-lectures should be brief and targeted, setting up an activity or discussion.
• Mini-Lecture occurs every time we move into a new topic or activity, providing students with brief background information and tapping into prior knowledge. I usually use visuals, manipulative, demonstrations and other teaching strategies to have students grasp the whole concept of what is being taught. After the mini-lecture, questions are asked to assess their understanding of what is being discussed and further explain for students who are still not grasping the lesson or topic. From then, I provide them with hands-on activities or worksheets that they perform within their small groups.

2. Experiments and Demonstration: demonstrations and experiments can be used to show how something works or why something is important. These activities also provide a way to show the correct process for doing something, like a procedure. They should be carefully planned and conducted. They often involve the use of supporting materials.
• During Science Fair week, students were required to perform one individual science experiment within the classroom as a part of their third quarter science project grade. Prior to this project, we worked on one science experiment as a whole so that students can better understand the whole concept of what Science Fair Projects are all about. I focused on one science experiment title, and working from their by providing background information on all the fundamentals of a science project. Others include visuals, research, handouts, and so forth. The following week, we then moved into working on their individual science experiment. We focused on four different science experiment topic, which were given to each assigned group to work on. In the group, students had to work individually following all steps necessary to complete their experiment, while guiding them through the whole process.

3. Artistic Expression: participants may be offered a choice of expressing themselves in art, or through writing. Such a choice accommodates the different learning need and talents of students. Completed work should be displayed.
• We usually perform a lot of artistic expression, where students had to create arts and crafts for most of our activities, especially during our learning centers on Fridays. Students used a variety of art skills, which included water color paints, clays, drawings, etc. Students also created hands on crafts, especially during holiday celebrations and other special occasions. I can see that students really enjoy themselves when doing this type of skill, because they get to do a lot of hands on activities which also helps students tap into their artistic skills.

4. Creative Writing: this strategy can take many forms, from poems, stories, written role play (scripted) journal written reflective thoughts. They can be shared or not. This form gives participants a creative outlet to the subject taught or discussed. One can also see transfer learning happen in this form of expression.
• During Language Arts block, students are required to perform a writing activity of the focused topic of that week. For example, if we were learning about poems, students focus on that writing process throughout that week. On the first day, we do a discussion and examples are provided on a teaching transparency and other examples are given on the board. We do brainstorming, visuals and other examples to help students better grasp the concept of what is being taught. Then, students are given a graphic organizer to outline their ideas. After, students start working on their sloppy copy, where they roughly write out their story form, and then continuing the next day with their neat sheet. This is done as a daily routine during Language Art writing block.

5. Cooperative-Group Work: cooperative-group work is a special form of small-group work. All small-group activities are not necessarily cooperative groups. For a group to be cooperative, a “sink-or-swim together” mentality must be created. Students, participants work in small heterogeneous groups (2-6 members) where each member is accountable not only for his own learning (or task completion) but for helping other members of the group do the same thing. The success of each individual depends on the success of the entire group. For a group to be cooperative, a sense of positive interdependence among the group members must be established. The leader must help the group establish mutual goals, joint rewards, assign specific roles, and shares materials. Cooperative-learning situations promote the development and practice of higher-level reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, problem solving, communication, and interpersonal skills. The leader, teacher manages the activity by setting up the groups, and clearly explaining the tasks that must be accomplished. The teacher also serves as a consultant.
• Cooperative-Group work is done within their assigned group. Each group members are responsible for each others behavior, especially when given out group points for good behaviors and following directions. They work together as group and are responsible to help each other on necessary tasks that need to be completed as a whole.

6. Small Groups: participants working together can help stimulate each others creativity. Small group activities are cooperative but have less formal structure than cooperative learning. These activities encourage collective thinking and provide opportunities for participants to work together and increase social skills.
• Working with their assigned group members, students usually together as a whole when working on learning centers. Students are on task, working cooperatively in completing each center task cards.

7. Class Discussion: a true discussion occurs when a GROUP of people including the leader, share expressions, debate ideas and theories, discuss experiences, and work together on common problems. It is not: a teacher asks questions and a participant answers. Class discussion can used to initiate, amplify, or summarize a session.
• Class discussion usually occurs every beginning of a new lecture of a topic or lesson. Students are given the chance to share ideas and experiences that is relevant to the discussion. An example of class discussion usually occurs when reinforcing different stories in our Trophies textbook. After reading each story, students are given a chance to express their ideas and experiences pertaining to each story in the book.

8. Dyad Discussion: working in pairs allows students to provide encouragement and support to each other. It means to Buddy Up and work in pairs to do the assignment. Often in a group of 2 sharing will happen than in a larger group. You can have the dyad report out their discussion.
• With this teaching strategy, students partnered up with a Reading Partner during Language Arts block. Students are assigned to their reading buddy, where they are given a task card with a list of different questions that they are to ask each other in regards to Trophies story that they have read in class. We match our students with their reading abilities, having the higher level reader help the lower level reader understand the story much better. This strategy is a win-win situation because both students are retaining a much higher level of learning while working together.

9. Brainstorming: is a technique for generating ideas quickly. When conducted properly, it enables participants to respond creatively, without fear of being judged. It stimulates fresh ideas and helps participants break loose from fixed ways of responding to problems. Brainstorming also helps to vary the pace of the class. It involves everyone and is an effective way of getting discussion started.
• Students do a lot of brainstorming, especially during morning message, which is usually done after Sharing Literature in the mornings. Students would read whatever message is on the board and they have to generate different word(s) that best fits into the blanks of each sentence. Another brainstorming activity we usually do is when we open up to a new lesson or topic. I would usually do webbing up in the board, where students generate different ideas that best describes the topic or lesson and to have an overview of what the topic is all about.

10. Celebrations: Activities that focus on the joy of completion and accomplishments. These activities serve as reminders and markers. It is appropriate to stop and acknowledge and appreciate their accomplishments.
• We usually have culminating activities towards each end of our themes. One of these themes includes Space Activities, where we had the whole day of activities that was based on Space. Students star gazed for constellation under the table, they ate astronaut ice cream, made Oreo Moon phases, Space story read aloud, and so forth. We also holiday celebrations, which included Martin Luther King Day, Valentines Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter. Students enjoyed of the activities that they did during these holiday celebration activities.

11. Guest Speakers: guest speakers provide a link between the training, classroom and the real world. Be sure to screen before being invited to present. They need to have been given direction on type of information they are to address, and policies that pertain to their subject.
• While working on our theme on Space, we had the opportunity to invite the principal of our school, Mrs. Charlotte Camacho to come in and share a little of her experience while visiting the Space Mission Camp that she attended when she was the CNMI’s Teacher of the Year. She shared a power point presentation and also provided a lot of pictures for the students to enjoy. The students had so much fun, and also had tons of questions to ask her about space and also about her experience. Another guest speaker that we had the opportunity to have in our classroom was Mrs. Narvaez, which was one of our student’s parents. Throughout the week she did a read aloud to the students. The books where based on Georgia Perez’s books, which Georgia later came to visit all of the CNMI PSS campuses, which we happen to attend this exciting event. These books were a wonderful for students to read, because it promoted Healthy Eating Habits and Living. Students really enjoyed having these two wonderful guest speakers in our classroom, because it was relevant to our learning and also helping us learn how to live a better and healthier lifestyle.