Choosing a teaching and learning strategy is not an easy task. Strategies need to be chosen carefully to contribute effectively to student learning. The following information in this section outlines some strategies that may be used to enhance student learning.

The Backward Design Approach

Experts in curriculum design have created a number of teaching and learning frameworks, also called models. The frameworks have been informed by research and provide guidelines for instructors or course developers in designing or redesigning courses. Whether you are designing a course from scratch or tweaking a current course the process is the same, start with the end in mind. What is it you want the students to know or be able to do when the course is done? This approach is known as The Backward Design Approach, and it has three key components:

1.     Identify the desired results that you want. What do you want the student to know or be able to do by the end of the course? What knowledge, skills or abilities should your students possess?

2.     Determine acceptable evidence, or, how will you know the student has learned? What forms of evidence can you use to assess your students’ learning?

3.     Plan the learning experiences. What activities and instruction will you provide to help students demonstrate their learning.

Universal Design for Learning

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Framework is an effective approach to designing learning experiences that are accessible to all learners.

Here are some examples of how to use UDL guidelines in a course.

1. Engagement: Stimulate interest and motivation for learning.
   Here are some examples:

• Make your first day of class matter. Instead of simply introducing the syllabus, check students’ knowledge of key course policies and deadlines with a quiz game. Use icebreakers to help you and your students begin creating an authentic learning community.
• Incorporate opportunities for students to engage with course concepts and one another. Use various learning activities or use software like PollEverywhere to foster engagement.
• Encourage your students to adopt a growth mindset. Students with a growth mindset recognize that learning something new is difficult, but they also believe that their performance can improve with hard work, smart practice, and feedback.

2.      Representation: Present information and content in different ways.

Some examples include:

• Supplement lectures and readings with multimedia, and make sure the multimedia is accessible to all learners by enabling closed captioning and providing transcripts.
• Be clear about the vocabulary and symbols that are important in your discipline and in the course you’re teaching. Paraphrase jargon in simpler terms. Provide metaphors to draw parallels between an everyday concept and the more complex one you’re teaching. Give students access to both your lecture materials and an alternate explanation of the same concept by another expert in the field.
• Don’t rely on idioms or unnecessary cultural references that may confuse (rather than instruct) English language learners.

3.      Action & Expression: Differentiate the ways that students can express what they know.

Some examples include:

• Provide low-stakes opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning and receive constructive feedback prior to completing high-stakes assignments.
• Set clear expectations and provide examples that meet or exceed those expectations.
• Offer a variety of ways in which your students can demonstrate their learning. For example, give students options to compose in multiple media, such as text, speech, drawing, design, audio, or video.

You can learn more about UDL here and here.

Taxonomies of Learning

Taxonomies of learning are attempts by scholars to characterize different types of learning, much like how scientists use taxonomies to classify different species of organisms. Educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and a number of his colleagues proposed a system of classifying educational objectives that has become ubiquitous.

According to Bloom, there are three domains or basic types of educational objectives:

• Cognitive, involving mental processes such as memory recall and analysis
• Affective, involving interest, attitudes, and values; and
• Psychomotor, involving motor skills.

Bloom and his colleagues focused first on the cognitive domain, outlining six levels of objectives that build upon one another:

1.     Knowledge, or the ability to remember and recall things.

2.     Comprehension, or the ability to understand and interpret things

3.     Application, or the ability to use knowledge and comprehension to solve new problems.

4.     Analysis, or the ability to identify patterns, relationships and structures of things.

5.     Synthesis, or the ability to combine smaller elements of things to create larger things; and

6.     Evaluation, or the ability to make judgments about a thing.

The Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
​Bloom’s taxonomy was revised in 2000 by Lorin Anderson, one of Bloom’s former students, and one of Bloom’s original collaborators, David Krathwohl. One of the significant changes was their placement of “creating” at the top of the pyramid. In Bloom’s original taxonomy, “evaluation” was considered the highest level of cognition, with “synthesis” immediately below it. To reflect changes in teaching and learning scholarship and practice, Anderson and Krathwohl renamed synthesis to “creating” and moved it to the top of the cognitive hierarchy.

In adding the knowledge dimension, Anderson established four different kinds of knowledge:

• Factual knowledge, which are basic elements to a discipline students need to know or solve problems in;
• Conceptual knowledge, which refer to the connections between the basic elements within a larger whole that allow them to function together;
• Procedural knowledge, which relates to the steps in knowing how to perform a task or pursuing a method of inquiry; and
• Metacognitive knowledge, which consists of knowledge about cognition generally in addition to one’s own cognitive processes.

By including the last type of knowledge, metacognition, the authors underscore the importance of students’ awareness of their own thought processes, a point at which both cognitive and social constructivist models of learning converge.

If you’d like to know more about the revision of Bloom’s taxonomy read, “Beyond Taxonomy Revised: Understanding the New Version of Bloom’s Taxonomy” by Leslie Owen Wilson.. You can also read “A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy” by David R. Krathwohl for a more detailed explanation.

Different Ways of Learning

Active vs Passive Learning

Active learning requires students to think, discuss, challenge and analyze information. Passive learning requires students to absorb, assimilate, consider and translate information. Active learning encourages conversation and debate, while passive learning encourages active listening and paying attention to detail. Some examples of passive learning include lectures and presentation heavy classes where students listen, take notes and ask questions when they require assistance. Pre-recorded videos for students to watch at their own pace and make notes are also some examples of passive learning.

Active learning is an approach to instruction that involves actively engaging students with the course material through discussions, problem solving, case studies, role plays and other methods. Active learning approaches place a greater degree of responsibility on the learner than passive approaches, but instructor guidance is still crucial in the active learning classroom. Active learning activities may range in length from a couple of minutes to whole class sessions or may take place over multiple class sessions.

Active learning activities help promote higher order thinking skills such as application of knowledge, analysis, and synthesis. Active learning activities engage students in deep rather than surface learning and enable students to apply and transfer knowledge better.

Cooperative learning is an instructional method in which students work in small groups to accomplish a common learning goal with the guidance of the teacher. It is like Collaborative Learning since students form groups and put collective efforts into a project, assignment, or work assigned to them.

In Problem Based Learning students learn the material by working in groups to solve an open-ended problem. This problem is what drives the motivation and the learning. It is similar to Team-based learning as it also focuses on a structured form of small-group learning.

^{Further Reading:}

^{Davidson, N., Major, C. H., & Michaelsen, L. K. (2014). Small-group learning in higher education—cooperative, collaborative, problem-based, and team-based learning: An introduction by the guest editors. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4), 1-6.}

Aligning Assessment and Learning Outcomes

First, what are learning outcomes? Learning outcomes are statements of the knowledge, skills and abilities students should have and or be able to do when they complete a learning experience or sequence of learning experiences. It is important to align assessment with learning outcomes.

To students, assessment is the main component of a course because it sends a message about what is important and where their time should be focused. Clearly defining your assessment and its relationship to your student learning outcomes is very helpful in ensuring students understand not just how the assessment fits into their learning but how all the practices and content you engage with assists them in achieving success in the course.

Building clear alignment between your outcomes, assessment, and practice (as well as clearly communicating this alignment to students) can build mutual clarity on the learning journey and lessen students’ anxiety and questions. The role of assessment is to measure student attainment of the necessary skills and learning, so being able to demonstrate this connection in class and through the syllabus is very helpful in situating why you have made the assessment choices you have.

Understanding Student Learning Progression

Building alignment between assessment and learning outcomes also allows you to develop and communicate the pathway for students’ learning progression. It enables you to explain what knowledge and skills were expected on entry to the course and the knowledge and skills that will be developed throughout the course. As students move through a program, the sophistication and difficulty of the assessment choices you make should be increased as you deepen your expectation of student learning and engagement with the material.

Beginning your outcome planning at the program level when considering assessment is helpful in making this progression clearer and more seamless as students’ progress through the program. Courses do not exist in isolation and considering your course’s outcomes and assessment from a programmatic perspective is very beneficial in ensuring that students’ progress appropriately through the program and achieve the skills and knowledge that are necessary in the appropriate sequence.

Being Able to Validate Attainment

Building alignment between assessment and outcomes is driven by strategically connecting the two components of course design and allows you to communicate and validate your assessment and its role in student learning attainment. Having this clarity of what you are trying to achieve with your students and connecting this clearly with your mechanisms for measurement through assessment, allows you to be definitive in what constitutes attainment and how it is displayed and measured through assessment. Having this clarity allows you to be able to communicate this to your students and demonstrate to them what level of performance or knowledge acquisition is essential to be successful in the course and program.

Building Effective Assessment of Learning Processes

Lessons, course activities, assessment, and instruction should be planned in a way that allows students to successfully complete assessments and to make connections, gather, organize, interact with, and practice learning outcomes. In your course development process, take each of your assessments one at a time and consider the content knowledge as well as the skill development that each would require for successful completion.

Your choice of teaching strategies most likely depends on where you are in your career and your previous experiences as a learner. As a new teacher, start with what you are comfortable with and work from there to expand your knowledge and skills about teaching.  Talk to other teachers in your department to see what strategies work well for your discipline,