What is the difference between models, strategies and methods?

    The fundamentals of teaching: Explore part one  

What is the difference between models, strategies, and methods?  Share the answer in your blog. Illustrate your answer with examples.

There is a big difference between models, strategies, and methods. The article "Approaches to instructions" explains that models "represent the broadest level of instructional practices and present a philosophical orientation to instruction. Models are used to select and structure teaching strategies, methods, skills, and student activities for a particular instructional emphasis." Models most typically include information processing, social interaction, and they may be personal or behavioral. When a teacher is determining his or her overall instructional model, she should ask herself, "How do I want my students to understand this lesson?", "what social interactions do I want my students to have?" "do I want to focus on a particular student for this lesson?" and " what is the overall concept I want my students to master ?" An example of a behavioral instructional method may include computer-assisted instruction. Computer-Assisted instruction is where a teacher uses a computer as the one way she will present her lesson to the class. The article "Computer-Assisted Instruction" states, "CAI refers to using the computer as a tool to facilitate and improve instruction. CAI programs use tutorials, drill and practice, simulation, and problem-solving approaches to present topics, and they test the student's understanding. " CAI can be used by teachers in a variety of ways to help students learn. It can be used as a way to present multiple-choice questions and practice problems. CAI can also be used as a way to have students practice skills over and over again until students have mastered them. An example of a personalized instructional model is individualized instruction. Individualized instruction is special education accommodations. Students in these classes get one on one time with a teacher to work on skills they may have trouble within a normal class setting. An example of a social interaction instructional model may be peer tutoring. Peer tutoring is a way for peers with different academic abilities to interact. When explaining one-room schools, the textbook Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary School: Communities, Connections, and Citizenship states, " Second, older students tutoring younger students provided more one-on-one instruction as well as multiple explanations and examples of the subject matter being taught by the teacher." Peer tutoring is a way for students to get different ways of looking at a problem if whatever the teacher is saying does not make sense. An example of an information processing model synthetics. Synectics is used in the classroom to help students see comparisons between two unrelated objects.  

 

   The article "Approaches to instructions" explains that "strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives. Strategies can be classed as direct, indirect, interactive, experiential, or independent." These strategies are the different lesson plans a teacher may use to help her class learn about specific topics. The direct strategy is highly focused on just the teacher teaching the lesson. An example of a direct strategy may involve the lecture the teacher uses or the questions she has asked. A direct strategy may revolve around activities involving compare or contrast, drill, and practice or demonstrations. An indirect strategy is where students' journey to learn about a topic is just as important as the answer. An example of an indirect approach may be inquiry lessons or case studies. The article states, " Inquiry is a technique which involves students in questioning to explore an area of study. It is a process students engage in to investigate and explain problems. Students collect and test data logically to discover why things happen the way they do." This is a process where the teacher steps back and lets the students teach themselves to further develop their understanding of a topic. The article also states, "Students should be encouraged to determine their issues and develop case studies that are personally relevant or interesting. The outlines or boundaries of the selected case study are set, in part, by those interested in the case." Case studies are a way to help students understand the overall topic of a lesson and not focus on small details. The article "Approaches to instruction" defines an interactive strategy as a way to have "two-way communication and rely heavily on discussion and sharing among participants. The interactive instruction strategy allows for a range of groupings which may include total class discussion, small group discussions or projects, or student pairs or triads working on assignments together." Examples of interactive strategies include Brainstorming, Corporative learning, and more. Brainstorming is used as a way to quickly come up with ideas. It is a way to get students to work together to find a solution to a problem. The more groups of people work together, the more ideas they will have and the more likely they will quickly find a solution to the problem they are trying to solve. Corporative learning is defined as "an approach where students work together to achieve a group learning goal." Corporative learning takes away the differences between students. It does not matter if you are in a different social group, if you have different grades and if you have a different culture. Students have to put all of their differences on the back burner to solve a common goal. An experimental approach involves lessons that are " learner-centered, activity-oriented and inductive. It involves students using what they have learned in various other activities. Some examples of experimental learning can include oral history interviews and surveys. When using oral history interviews, students may realize that there are different ways to learn history than through a textbook. When using a survey, students are required to collect information and keep it organized before displaying it properly. If a student is taking a survey, they might have to rely on prior information they have to answer the questions. The article defines an independent approach as a way to "enable individuals to respond to the changing demands." With an independent approach, students are responsible for their learning and completing assignments. There is not someone over their shoulder telling the student when to complete an assignment or to tell them what to write. Examples of an independent approach may include Learning contracts or research projects. 

    The article "Approaches to instruction" defines instructional methods as "Methods are the most specific ways of creating learning environments and specifying the nature of the activity in which the teacher and learner will be involved during the lesson to achieve the educational goal." Instructional methods are ways the teacher plans to teach her students the information they learn over the year. Examples of instructional methods may be learning contracts. Learning contracts explain the assignments that they teach will most likely hand out. As well as what the purpose behind her giving them to you is and finally learning contracts explain what she expects you to learn and be able to use while you are in her class s and even after you have finished her class. For example, in social studies methods at the end of the class, we are required to know how to properly teach a social studies class with little to no issue and write a corporative lesson plan. 

     As we progress through the course I hope to learn more about the different approaches to instruction that a teacher can use in her classroom.