What does it look like when you use teaching strategies in context?

Here’s an example from a practical horticulture training course for adults. The tutor’s learning outcome is to get the students to:

• Estimate and then measure out a raised planting bed in the context of a learning to grow vegetables.

The relevant numeracy, in this case, relates to estimation and measurement in metres and millimetres as well as working out area in m2.

Here are some possibilities for the kinds of teaching strategies that the tutor might use:

• Discuss what participants already know about measuring out a rectangle or other area for building a raised vegetable planting bed.
• Prompt learners to make links to work they did previously with her using a tape measure to measure length in metres and millimetres.
• Question learners about what they needed to know in order to use the tape and actually do the measuring.
• Explain how to use the tape measure, as well as how to develop a personal benchmark for estimating and measuring length, such as your stride or the length of your boot.
• Give feedback on the group’s ideas on the best way to estimate and then measure out the planting bed.
• Model how to work out an area calculation on the whiteboard.

Now let’s put it into action

In your assessment for this part of the course, you have to show that you’ve planned what teaching strategies you intend to use. You should already have an idea of your learning outcomes.

Take some time to brainstorm how you will use any of these strategies across the different activities that you are planning for your project work.

• Discuss…
• Prompt learners to make links to their prior knowledge by…
• Question learners about what they needed to know in order to…
• Explain how to…
• Give feedback on…
• Model how to…

These prompts are the same as the ones in your assessment template. If you want to take notes right now, you can download a worksheet for this.