Chat with us, powered by LiveChat

 Check Out These Free Courses & Discounts >

Model Teaching
Model Teaching
Model Teaching
Model Teaching

Home  »  Education Articles  » Instructional Improvement

  • Jigsaw Strategies

Jigsaw Strategies: Using the Jigsaw Method for Cooperative Learning in Your Classroom

September 2, 2026|

Think about a lesson where every student in your class is responsible for one piece of the content, and no one will be able to understand the content fully unless they all work together and learn from each other. Consider one student group who have studied the causes of an event, another has studied the key figures responsible for the event, and a third has studied the consequences of that event. When these students regroup, each student becomes the source of information that they then share with their peers. To understand the entire concept for the lesson, every student has to teach one piece, and every student has to listen to the others. This is the foundation of a popular cooperative learning strategy in education: the jigsaw method. Jigsaw strategies break a topic into parts, make each student an expert in one part, and then rely on students to teach one another until the full concept comes together. But, in order for it to be actually effective and promote learning, you must consider a specific structure and planning process when implementing this into your classroom.

Read More
  • School Field Trip Ideas

School Field Trip Ideas: Planning Trips That Reinforce What Your Students Are Learning

August 21, 2026|

Think back to your own childhood as a student in school. Do you recall going on any field trips? Maybe you toured an art museum and can still picture your favorite work. Perhaps you went to a zoo or aquarium and learned about an animal you never knew existed. Maybe you watched a play or a musical performance that sparked a lasting interest in the arts. Field trips give students the chance to experience things they might not otherwise encounter in their daily lives, and they can have a lasting impact on a child's education. Read More.

Read More
  • Operant Conditioning in the Classroom

Skinner’s Theory of Operant Conditioning in the Classroom

August 12, 2026|

You have likely used, or seen, teachers transform and improve behaviors using a simple sticker chart as a rewards system. You might have also seen how a student’s behavior improves after you focus on providing consistent and specific praise. Positive and negative behaviors in your classroom don’t typically come out of nowhere, and much of what your students do is actually shaped by what happens before they do it and whether the behavior is followed by something like a reward, a consequence, or a specific action. One well-studied framework for understanding student behaviors comes from B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, which describes how what comes after the behavior is what makes that behavior more or less likely to happen. In this article, you will learn about operant conditioning and why it can be beneficial to understand in your classroom.

Read More
  • Instructional Teaching Strategies

Instructional Strategies and Teaching Strategies in Your Classroom

July 31, 2026|

Instructional strategies are research-based methods that teachers use to deliver content to students and improve their instructional practice. But it also goes further than that, because by combining classroom management strategies, assessment strategies, and other brain-based and memory-based strategies to support students, they all work together to improve the classroom and increase learning. This article serves as a resource to understand how strong instructional and other teaching strategies translate to student success in your classroom. (Read more)

Read More
  • What is Rigor

What Is Rigor? Understanding Rigor Through Webb’s DOK

July 16, 2026|

As a teacher plans a reading unit for her upcoming class, she decides to increase the rigor of her planned lesson activities. Since the text she chose contains many unfamiliar words, students are tasked with reading a passage, listing the unfamiliar words, and defining them using their dictionaries. She decides that instead of requiring students to choose five words to define, she will require students to define ten words this time. (Read more)

Read More
  • Behavioral Momentum

Using Behavioral Momentum to Improve Student Behaviors

July 1, 2026|

Think about this familiar scene. In a kindergarten classroom, it is time to clean up an art activity and move to the carpet for reading time. You give the instructions for cleaning up, and most of your class starts putting materials away. One student does not; instead, she stays at her table, continuing to color and play with her materials. When you ask her to put her materials away and join the group, she says no and turns away. You repeat the direction more firmly, then walk over to her and ask her to join the group. Many teachers in this situation might continue to restate the expectations and become frustrated if one student is not able to listen. Even when classroom norms and rules are well implemented, some children will not comply for various reasons. Instead of struggling with compliance, teachers can add another approach for those students who need additional help. Called behavioral momentum, a teacher instead asks students to do smaller, easier-to-complete tasks that lead up to the main, more challenging tasks. (Read more)

Read More
  • Model Teaching - Geography Study

Building Geography Knowledge: Retrieval Practice of Countries, Regions, and Geographical Features

June 24, 2026|

Imagine a middle school teacher finishes a unit on East Asia. Students had been working on identifying and locating physical and geographic features on a map, like landforms, bodies of water, and urban centers, as well as identifying the location of countries around the world. In this unit, the teacher described the region’s monsoon climate, and students learned why its rivers support a denser population than in other areas. While students are engaged in the content throughout the unit and analyze a map of the region as they discuss its features, they have a hard time identifying geographic features on their own. For example, when the teacher projects a blank map onto the board and asks students to identify the Yellow Sea or label countries like China, Japan, and North and South Korea, many students are unable to do so, even though they discussed these areas in class extensively. (Read More)

Read More
  • Levels of Processing Theory

The Levels of Processing Theory

May 21, 2026|

Have your students ever come into your classroom, insisting they studied and prepared for an upcoming test, yet they don’t perform nearly as well as you’d expect? While there are several reasons this could occur, one is that your students were not effectively retaining concepts to recall and apply them on an assessment. In this article, you will first learn about the three core processes of memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval, and discover briefly how those processes work together to help support learning and memory. Then, you will be introduced to one of many theories on memory, the Levels of Processing Theory, which describes how the level of processing concepts and ideas can dictate how strong your memory is.

Read More
  • Supporting Reading Struggles

Understanding Students with Reading Struggles

May 5, 2026|

All teachers, not only reading teachers, can benefit from understanding how students may struggle in reading, in order to better support them in the classroom. While the reading teacher is the primary educator focused on teaching students to read, all teachers across all content areas must be mindful of students’ reading difficulties. Reading is essential to comprehension, and all teachers have a responsibility to ensure that students learn to the fullest extent in the classroom. However, some students struggle significantly more with reading than others. This article will provide you with an overview of what to consider as you encounter students in your class who may exhibit reading struggles, either due to a specific disability or due to other reading difficulties.

Read More
  • AI Prompting Teaching

AI Prompts for Differentiated Lesson Plans

April 13, 2026|

Teachers are quickly realizing how much time AI tools can save them. This includes lesson planning, creating student-facing documents, and even helping with direct instruction. AI tools are nowhere close to a solution for all the challenges a teacher may face in the classroom, but they can help in several areas, particularly when it comes to planning and creating plans, lessons, or assessments for their students. Perhaps one of the best ways AI can be leveraged in the classroom is through creating customized and highly differentiated lessons and content for the various student groups all teachers find within their classroom.

Read More

Your Shopping Cart

Name Price
Buying for a team or group? Select quantities on checkout page.

Popular Education Topics

21st Century Learning Assessments Autism Behavior Management Blended Learning Checking For Understanding Classroom Management Collaborative Learning Content Standards Creativity Differentiation ELA English Language Learners Family Communication Feedback Financial Literacy Flipped Classroom Gifted & Talented Grouping Growth Mindset Inquiry-Based Learning Instructional Improvement Leadership Development Lesson Planning Math New Teachers Online Learning Parent Engagement PreK Project-Based Learning Reading Relationship Building Resource Design Salary Advancement Science Social-Emotional Special Education Teacher Burnout Teacher License Renewal Teaching Strategies Technology The Arts Vocabulary Webinars Writing
Review Button 1

Search Our Courses, Blogs, Resources, & Articles