Instructional Strategies

Instructional strategies are techniques used to invite students to actively engage in their own learning, including to connect with new knowledge, practice a skill, reflect on dispositions, exchange viewpoints, and correct and affirm their understanding.

Instructional strategies may include individual, group, and whole class activities. In large classes, it can seem challenging to be able to engage everyone, but there are techniques that are designed/adapted for such contexts.

Also keep in mind that ‘engagement’ can range from overt speaking and performing an action to silently solving problems and composing a written response. What is important is that learners are reflecting, analyzing, applying or otherwise making meaning and connections to the subject at hand.  

Group Work

Evidence-based teaching guides covering diverse topics such as group structures, characteristics, accountability and delegating tasks.

• Group Work (CBE – Life Science Education)

Teaching Large Classes

• Instructional Development (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Active Learning

Active Learning Modules including examples for large group, small group, and individual learners (Queens University) 

Strategies for Inclusion and Decolonization

• Iseke-Barnes, J. M. (2008). Pedagogies for decolonizing. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 31(1), 123-148

• Chaudhary, V. B., & Berhe, A. A. (2020). Ten simple rules for building an antiracist lab. PLOS Computational Biology, 16(10)

• Provost, M. (Jan. 21, 2022). Unpacking the Indigenous Student Experience | Matthew Provost | TEDxSFU

• Biship, K. (2023). Co-dreaming New Ways of Supervising: Reciprocal Mentorship and Allyship with Indigenous Students. In Active Learning for Real-World Inquiry by Doug Hamilton, Richard Kool, and Elizabeth Childs

• Oskineegish, M. (2020). Exploring Instructional Strategies in an Indigenous Education Course in Initial Teacher Education. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 66(3)

• Sinclair, N. (Apr. 13, 2016). What an Indigenous university could look like. TEDxUManitoba