Chitra Venkatesan, Principal, Indo Scott School, based at Pune, explains how in a classroom, students learn in different ways, and why teachers need to use many teaching strategies. These strategies make lessons easier to understand and more fun. From lectures and visuals to group work and projects, each method helps students learn in their own way. Using different methods also makes learning more inclusive for everyone.
By diverse teaching strategies, we mean the strategies that make the students understand the content and learn with fun. There are many strategies. Lecture-based learning is the one that we use in classrooms to discuss the content. The visual students learn through flashcards or charts, experiential learning is done through field trips, and active learning is about having group discussions to generate ideas with different perspectives. Collaborative learning is when children are involved in inquiry-based learning. We should encourage the students to ask questions because students learn by working on experiments and activities. They use online resources and projects to understand a concept. The differentiated instructions help educators to change the teaching methods to cater to all kinds of learners.
The reason we need a variety of teaching strategies is well explained by the Learning Pyramid. It shows that different methods lead to different levels of knowledge retention — from passive activities like listening and reading, to active ones like discussion, practice, and teaching others. The more actively students engage, the deeper and longer-lasting their learning becomes. Hence, multiple strategies are essential to cater to diverse learners and maximize understanding.”
By teaching others or through collaborative learning, children retain 90% of the content taught in the class. By hands-on activity and demonstration, they retain 75% of the learning. By way of demonstration and audiovisual, because by seeing a flashcard or audio, the retention is up to 20%. By reading content, the retention level is 10% and only 5% is retained through the lecture-based method. Such strategies are needed as different learners will learn using different styles, and these make the students actively participate in their learning. They also promote problem-solving skills and critical thinking to analyse the situation, evaluate, and generate new ideas to solve problems, involving the students in the learning process rather than being passive listeners. Inclusive education for diversified learners will be offered with equal opportunities for all. The children will be treated equally with equal access to all learning materials. The percentage of retention is higher when we use diverse teaching strategies. They promote engagement and equality for children from various backgrounds.
Engaging every student
Differentiated instruction is essential for catering to the diverse needs of learners with varying learning abilities. It helps us to vary our teaching methods and use materials to suit the needs of the students, give equal access to learning content, and engage with learning. We need to assess the students by using a written assessment to know about their strengths, weaknesses, and we have to plan the instructions accordingly, including activities in our plans, and implement them in the classroom. There are a few aspects of differentiated instruction. The first one is content, which is what the students learn in the classroom, and which they may not find easy to learn. Here, we have to break the working level according to the students’ learning capacity. Next comes the process, which is how the students learn. Depending on the learning ability of the students, the tasks can be allotted, such as writing an essay, reading the content, or using technology to create a presentation and access the materials. Then comes a product that talks about how the students demonstrate. Content is delivered in the class.
To assess how well students have understood a concept, flexible methods of expression can be adopted. Students may present their learning through a presentation, essay, video, diagram, or other creative formats. Such flexibility allows them to demonstrate their understanding in ways that suit their strengths and interests.
Equally important is the learning atmosphere. Some students may prefer working individually, while others learn better in pairs or groups. Providing these options not only supports different learning preferences but also helps students develop essential skills such as teamwork, collaboration, and appreciating diverse perspectives. In this way, assessment becomes both a measure of learning and a tool for building life skills.
Implementing strategies
We should know why the strategies should be implemented in the classroom and how to do it. Mapping the curriculum is important, and we must create a detailed lesson plan to meet the educational standards and content requirements. Based on this, we have to make it inclusive, which means we need to have diverse perspectives to be included in the lesson plan, keeping in mind the different learning styles of the learners and the equal opportunities for all of them. Implementing this in the classroom involves several key techniques. First, a positive learning atmosphere must be created by understanding students’ needs and offering continuous reinforcement, so good practices become part of daily learning. Second, flexible grouping should be encouraged—some students may prefer working individually, while others thrive in pairs or groups. Allowing them to choose based on their strengths and needs ensures a more meaningful and personalized learning experience.
Finally, an adaptive learning environment can be established by integrating technology, providing varied workstations, encouraging role play, and engaging students in diverse activities. These strategies make learning dynamic, inclusive, and better aligned with students’ individual learning styles.
At this time, it is important to make them feel valued and have, sense of belongingness in the classroom. We can understand their thought process, experiences, and empathise with them. They should be treated with respect. All these make the classroom a wonderful place to learn. We can follow different engaging methods, such as in a chemistry class where learning the formula is tough, we need to follow gamification to make it simple. We can make the students disguise themselves as a particular element; each of them has to learn the properties and demonstrate them for the class. We can also follow puzzles, a crossword game, which will reduce the difficulty in learning. It will also improve retention. Making them do a project and present it to the classroom will make the students understand the concept better, more interactive, and engaging.
As we know from the learning pyramid, about 90% of the knowledge is retained by the learners through peer teaching only. The group work, discussions, and peer tutoring help and support the learner to have a better understanding, interaction, and retention. They continue to have fruitful discussions, share knowledge, understand various perspectives, and support each other while learning. There should be a collaborative atmosphere with all students learning together, supporting, sharing knowledge, and achieving better retention.
We need technology in the classrooms for enhanced learning. Though it cannot replace the teacher, with all the different resources for learning and teaching, the learning levels improve a lot for both teachers and students. Many educational and interactive learning apps are available for students and teachers nowadays. Online resources are available in plenty to get a deeper knowledge of a concept taught in the classroom. The collaboration helps in improving communication and teamwork, team-building skills, etc. Most of the educational apps are free of cost, from which we can access lots of support materials and resources to support teaching and delivery in the classroom.
Measuring learning effectiveness
To know if the strategies have been implemented effectively, we need to have assessments, formative and summative. A genuine feedback comparing their learning and understanding, must be given to work towards improving their learning. Formative assessments are mostly informal to check the students’ understanding of a completed topic. Summative assessment is a structured assessment, with a comprehensive evaluation that includes all levels of thinking skills assessing the students’ knowledge, retention, and application of concepts. It is usually done after a specific period, such as a term or after three months. The students are evaluated based on the scores and their status by way of feedback. The feedback can be given in the form of a bar graph to compare the progress with the earlier summative exams to know where they are lagging, their strengths, and weaknesses. They can work on the weakness and improve further. The teachers can also get an insight into their teaching and modify the lesson plans if needed. They will know the challenges while doing so, to change the teaching methods according to the grades or scores of the students. They will know how to keep the students engaged and achieve in their curriculum.
For this, they have to monitor the students after the assessments and feedback. They should know if the student is attentive, participating in the class, interested in the class activities, and if not, they have to talk to them and find out their problems in being involved in the class. The teachers can support them after talking to them and help them bring out their strengths. The academic performance helps the teachers assess how effective teaching methodologies have been in the classroom, how to implement them better, and how to make the content easy for the students to understand.
Balancing benefits and barriers
The long-term benefits include improving critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability, which can be applied in various situations in life. The teachers have to identify the gaps in teaching, reduce them, and make learning more effective to promote global citizenship. Appreciation of cultures, understanding the social responsibilities, and global interconnectedness can be achieved by following the strategies. Diversity in strategies is important to improve learning outcomes, equal opportunities for all children. The educators have to keep updating themselves by exploring the methods, taking professional development, collaborating with colleagues, attending training, and workshops. They can also share the best practices with their colleagues. When they share their experiences, they also understand others’ perspectives, get to know about new teaching strategies others are following, so that they can also follow them for a better presentation in the classroom. The peer-to-peer teaching, mentors, and coordinators help in fostering professional development, a continuous one that supports the entire teaching community.
Some of the challenges educators face are restricted time, limited resources, and convincing the other colleagues who may not welcome any change in teaching strategies. These challenges can be addressed by making use of free resources, introducing the changes slowly so that the students and colleagues get adapted to the changes, and then it becomes easy to continue with the changes.
Contact details
Chitra Venkatesan
Principal, Indo Scots Global School
Pune, Maharashtra
Mob: 8412019209
Email: cvenk19791@gmail.com