I get asked a lot of times "what's the best instructional strategy?" or "what was your favorite instructional strategy?" This question makes me more uncomfortable than just about any other question I have been asked. Not because I don't know any good strategies, but because I may not know you and what you're trying to accomplish.
One of my pet peeves in education is when we, as educators, go out and want to instantly latch on with the latest shiny object because we've seen it work for someone else. Don't get me wrong, that's a great way to find an inspiration, a curiosity or a spark to start the journey. It's not a good reason to sell out wholeheartedly and commit yourself to that thing, system, protocol or anything else. Going back to my initial point, the question makes me uncomfortable because I need to get to know you and what you are about as an educator. The best strategies are the ones that work for you. Guess what? Just because they work for you doesn't mean that they will work for someone else and just because they work for someone else doesn't mean they will work for you. You have to ask yourself questions like what am I comfortable with? What are things you know you just can't manage within your classroom? Does it require a specific knowledge? Are you willing to commit to it long-term? In my opinion, one of the best things you can do is continue to seek out those new strategies. Attend training, seminars, conferences and the like. When you do, be honest with yourself about what this strategy is going to entail in your classroom. If you leave the training thinking "that's not for me" then that is awesome. Somehow we've been engrained to think that if we attend the training that we should walk away from it all systems go and begin implementation immediately. It shouldn't be that way. If a strategy won't work for you it's not a bad strategy, it's just not the one for you. If we invoke a comparison to the Frayer Model, one of my personal favorites, then strategies that don't work for us can fill in our non-example box; and if you know anything about Frayer Models, the non-example can be the hardest one to fill in. As you go through your learning and growth as an educator, remember strategies that don't work for you are a step in your process of growing as an educator. As Thomas Edison once said about his journey toward inventing the light bulb: "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
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AuthorJeff Lahey Archives
January 2020
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