where the art of teaching meets the science of learning
Instructional Practices
The experiences that cause students to learn.
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Instructional practices are the means by which students achieve learning outcomes. When designing a course or lesson begin by determining the learning outcomes (the changes you want to see in your students) and then ask, “What experiences will cause these changes in my students?”
The importance of alignment
If you do not choose instructional practices that align with learning outcomes, you will create the wrong type of learning. For example, imagine you have a course with the learning outcome “Students will think critically about world geography.” What experience would help students practice thinking critically? If you choose only to lecture, students will not have the opportunity to practice thinking critically and improve through feedback. While they may learn to remember geographical features, this misalignment means they will not learn to think critically, your stated goal for the course.
Aligning instructional practices to learning objectives
First, determine what cognitive processes are present in your learning outcome using Bloom’s Taxonomy of Knowledge (see Using Blooms to Create Variety).
Next, use the chart below that aligns Bloom’s Taxonomy with instructional practices and offers examples of specific activities. These examples are by no means exhaustive but offer ideas on how to apply the practices in your own course and discipline.
Once you have chosen instructional practices that align with your learning outcomes, refer to the following:
- Teaching Moves to Achieve Learning Outcomes
Strategies for achieving learning outcomes within teaching practices. - Best Instructional Practices for Online, Face to Face, and Blended Courses
Tips for how to best use different instructional practices in a variety of contexts.
| Learning Outcome | Instructional Practice | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Remember | Retrieve, recognize and recall relevant knowledge from long-term memory. |
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| Understand | Retrieve, recognize and recall relevant knowledge from long-term memory. |
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| Apply | Carry out or use a procedure by executing or implementing. |
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| Analyze | Break material into constituent parts, determine how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing and attributing. |
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| Evaluate | Make judgements based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing. |
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| Create | Put elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning or producing. |
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Literature
- Nilson, L. B. (2016). Teaching at its best: a research-based resource for college instructors (4th ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass