Effective Teaching Techniques
Effective Teaching Techniques are instructional strategies informed by cognitive science on how students learn, with several dynamic practices that contribute to the overall positive impact of skilled instruction on learners.
Professor John Hattie performed a meta-analysis of nearly 1,200 research studies on education.
From this, Professor Hattie developed the Barometer of Influences to measure the effect size of learning influences on student achievement. He combines the suggested impacts of various interventions to arrive at an effect size.
The average effect size is 0.4, which is considered the standard rate of progress from one year of schooling. The maximum effect size is around 1.6. This rate accelerates students who are behind and advances all students at a faster rate than standard progress.
- Clear and Direct Information: Each lesson presents information explicitly, reducing content misunderstandings.
- Interlinked Learning Schemas: Content forms a comprehensive framework, supporting learning continuity across primary school years.
- Defined Learning Goals: Lessons include specific objectives, clarifying the expected outcomes for students.
- Incremental Information Build-up: New content builds on previous lessons, fostering skill development over time.
- Gradually Complex Skills: Skills evolve from simple to complex, ensuring initial success and ongoing challenges.
Each lesson has:
- information presented explicitly and unambiguously to mitigate students’ misunderstanding of the content
- content presented through interlinked schemas that form a comprehensive learning framework across primary school years
- limited new information that builds on skills from the past lesson and reoccurs throughout subsequent lessons
- skills that are initially acquired easily so students experience initial success but later get increasingly complex so students are continually challenged
- skill development set out in sequenced learning progressions that build on students’ previously acquired learning – students master each set of skills before progressing to new tasks, and past information is regularly recalled to inform new learning
- regular checkpoints to check that students have mastered the content before they learn new information, which is determined by students demonstrating around 90 per cent accuracy
- adjustments and strategies for teachers to address gaps in learning before retesting students and moving on
- built-in pedagogical scaffolding for student engagement strategies to keep engagement high.
Access a Toolkit of Teaching Techniques Posters
Enhance Classroom Practice with Practice Cards
Practice Cards provide instant professional development, offering concise and actionable insights for teachers to enhance their classroom methods.
Each card aligns with research-based teaching methods that boost student achievement.
You can view them online, download them on your personal devices or print them.
Each card features:
- visual demonstrations of teachers applying the
specific practice - explanation of the practice’s benefits and implementation guidelines
- detailed instructions for practical application
- suggestions for mastering the practice
- guidance on further training and information.
Access a Toolkit of Teaching Techniques Practice Cards
