Strategic Teaching

for enhanced learning

Integrating brain research into classroom teaching

“Teaching is a constant stream of professional decisions made before, during and after interaction with the students: decisions which, when implemented, increase the probability of learning.”

Madeline Hunter, author of Mastery Teaching.

To teach strategically means that we are purposeful and thoughtful in how we plan instruction. Every aspect of the lesson needs to contribute toward achieving the instructional goals and desired learning outcomes. The teaching and learning strategies we select need to effectively enable learners to build upon previous knowledge, create new knowledge and deepen understanding. In addition, they need to enable learners to further develop and refine mastery of skills and strategies. Everything we do in the lesson needs to better enable our learners to learn. This means that we need to be mindful of how the brain learns.

Thanks to brain research, we now know a lot more about how the brain learns than ever before. And the research data are still coming in. We want to integrate brain research in how we design and deliver lessons so that we can make sure that learners are better able to make meaning and build academic knowledge from classroom experiences, lectures and reading. Without the ability to make meaning from new information, learning cannot take place.

MetaGroup’s Resources and Professional Development Courses help you create conditions for the brain to learn. When we teach strategically:

(1)  We create safe and accepting learning environments to ensure that the brain releases the chemicals that enable learning. We can apply these tools:

• Co-operative Learning principles and practices that design groupwork tasks for co-operation and share responsibility for the smooth running of the class with the learners. The CL People Organisers assist us. Click here for explanation of CL People Organisers 
• The Co-operative Learning Lesson Sequence that enables us to implement lessons for inclusion. We want to enable learners to constructively address their social and emotional needs so that they will want to and are able to learn together co-operatively.  Click Here for The Co-operative Learning Lesson Sequence
• The latest brain research by enabling learners to feel accepted, included, competent and liked. View an excerpt of our ANIMATION on how the brain learns

(2)  We design simulations and actively engage learners to ensure sufficient neural activity to enable learners to recall and connect to prior knowledge, process new information and build background academic knowledge for future learning. We can apply these tools:

• The MetaGroup Planner for Strategic Teaching enables educators to design lessons for enhanced learning by integrating Schema Theory with Co-operative Learning and Multiple Intelligences
• View excerpt of ANIMATION  of the reading process 
• View excerpt of ANIMATION of how the brain processes information