George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

Teaching Strategies

Discover and share best practices for improving your teaching craft -- delivering instruction, engaging students, reaching struggling students, and more.

  • Teaching Students How to Ask Productive Questions

    Improve engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking by teaching students the process of asking insightful questions.
    Laura Lee

  • Driving Deep Reading Comprehension in K–5

    This five-phase reading strategy exposes every student to challenging texts—and has dramatically improved reading comprehension at a school in the Bronx.
    Emelina Minero

  • Getting Started With Self-Paced Learning

    Giving students some control over the pace of their learning can help them develop self-reliance and better problem-solving skills.
    Katherine Rowe

  • Inviting Participation With Thumbs-Up Responses

    A quick assessment strategy replaces raised hands, encouraging more students to contribute by accommodating their different processing needs.

  • What Doesn’t Work: Literacy Practices We Should Abandon

    The number one concern that I hear from educators is lack of time, particularly lack of instructional time with students. Although we can't entirely solve the time problem, we can mitigate it by carefully analyzing our use of class time.
    Nell K. Duke

  • Managing Your High School Classroom with Compassion

    High school teacher Grace Dearborn says students don’t all respond to consequences in the same way, so teachers need a full toolbox of options.
    Laura Lee

  • 30 Techniques to Quiet a Noisy Class

    Most teachers use silencing methods, such as flicking the lights or ringing a call bell. This article explores some additional ideas categorized by grade bands.
    Todd Finley

  • How Learning Happens

    In this video series, we explore how educators can guide all students, regardless of their developmental starting points, to become productive and engaged learners.

  • Accommodating Students With Dyslexia

    These five easy-to-implement accommodations can make class less stressful and more manageable for students with dyslexia.
    Jessica Hamman

  • 5 Research-Backed Studying Techniques

    Teachers can guide students to avoid ineffective studying habits in favor of ones that will increase their learning outcomes.
    Edward Kang

  • Demonstrating Self-Regulation With Tone of Voice

    When teachers model self-regulation by using a voice that is calm, neutral, and assertive, they help students feel cared for—and ready to learn.

  • 19 Big and Small Classroom Management Strategies

    The year I started teaching seventh- to twelfth-grade English in Minneapolis, Prince launched his song about urban ruin, "Sign o' the Times." That song was an apt musical backdrop for the lives of my students, most of whom lived in poverty and challenged me daily. Fortunately, classroom order improved when I learned that successful classroom management depends on conscientiously executing a few big strategies and a lot of little ones.
    Todd Finley

  • Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools

    Checking for understanding is good for both students and teachers. We’ve rounded up a variety of digital tools to help you do it.
    Vicki Davis

  • 6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

    Support every student by breaking learning up into chunks and providing a concrete structure for each.
    Rebecca Alber

  • Developing Confidence Through Delayed Grading

    Giving students time to explore ideas with no immediate grade pressure helps motivate them to be creative and take intellectual risks.