The Strategic Teacher

Book excerpt: Are you looking for high-impact, research-based strategies to transform your students into high-achieving and inspired learners? In The Strategic Teacher, you'll find a repertoire of strategies designed and proven to meet today's high standards and reach diverse learners. Twenty reliable, flexible strategies (along with dozens of variations) are organized into these groups of instruction: *mastery style to emphasize the development of student memory; *understanding style to expand students' capacities to reason and explain; *self-expressive style to stimulate and nourish students' imaginations and creativity; *interpersonal style to help students find meaning in the relationships they forge as partners and team members, united in the act of learning; and *four-style strategies that integrate all four styles. To guide teachers in delivering content to students, the authors started with the best research-based teaching and learning strategies and created a tool called the Strategic Dashboard. The dashboard provides information about each teaching strategy in a concise, visual profile; it is also designed to document how you incorporate current, highly respected research into your instructional plans. For each strategy, you'll find the following information: *a brief introduction to the strategy; *an example of a teacher using the strategy in the classroom; *the research base supporting the strategy and how the strategy benefits students; *how to implement the strategy using a list of clear steps; *guidance through the planning process, providing steps, examples, and suggestions for designing superior lessons; and *additional tools, strategies, and resources for adapting and expanding the use of each strategy. The authors have combined their years of research and practice to deliver reliable, high-impact, flexible teaching and learning strategies grounded in current, highly regarded research to teachers at all levels of experience.