Model How is this Model

Unique?
What are the benefits of
this teaching strategy?
What are the challenges of
this strategy?
What is an appropriate application
for this strategy?
Problem Based
Learning
Open-ended problems
that are carefully
created drive student
work and choices.
-Develops lifelong learning
skills
-With opportunities for
multiple correct answers
emphasizes goal setting/
growth versus achievement.
-Designing rubrics and finding
ways to assess student
learning.
-Students may initially struggle
with open-endedness.
Students work in teams to decide how
to renovate the original Helena
Elementary School.
Service-Learning Students will involve
people from outside of
the classroom in order
to accomplish their task.
-Extremely authentic
-Students create positive
change in their community
-Highly interdisciplinary
-Leadership development for
students
Coordinating schedules with
those involved with the project
outside of the school
community.
Students identify an improvement for
their school community, create a plan
to address it, and carry the plan out.
Performance Task More focused on a set
outcome than other
models.
-Short-term
-Can be created/applied
across all content areas in a
variety of ways.

Being sure that the task and
requirements are
differentiated to challenge all
types of giftedness.
Describing how the results of a
swimming race would differ if timed in
thousandths, hundredths, or tenths of
a second.
Simulation Students are
experiencing a real
world situation in the
classroom.
-Can be implemented in a
variety of ways
-Allows students to make
authentic connections
-Students see and process
change over time.

-Time to effectively and
thoroughly plan. For example,
creating or collecting
resources such as game cards
and manipulatives.
Students investigate how tax
frustrations contributed to the
American Revolution by taking on the
roles of tax collectors, Patriots,
Loyalists, King and simulating how
taxes were collected.
Bruner Students develop a
concept of and practice
the discipline using the
rules, tools, and
dispositions of experts.

-Allows for creativity.
-Authenticity; students feel
like discipline experts.
-Students understand the
complexity and integration of
discipline areas.
-Planning learning
opportunities that effectively
balance and align both the
structure of a discipline and
content-based standards.
Students take on various government
roles in order to create a new country
and practice a government system.
Socratic Seminar Completely discussion
driven. Students
evaluated on
participation and
contributions to
conversation.
-Encourages self-reflection for
students throughout the
process, developing critical
thinking skills.
-Student-driven, provides
ownership of learning.

-Finding a shared text that will
drive the discussion to
maximize student discussion
and learning.
-Managing a diverging
conversation
Students use a shared reading to have
a discussion about how the choices
that characters made demonstrate the
theme. Furthermore, students discuss
how that theme can be applied to
other shared readings and life.

Taba Students compile,
group, label groups,
regroup, and synthesize
lists of words to develop
conceptual
understanding.
-Depth of concept
development.
-Naturally lends itself to
content and vocabulary
integration.
-Evidence-based learning;
students use their
groups/labels to support
generalizations about a
concept.

-Managing pacing of each
group.
-Providing enough time for
students to both group and
regroup to provide
generalizations.
Students develop the concept of
change in relation to matter during
science instruction. Students read an
article and select words that could
change and are any type of matter.
Questioning -There are multiple
questioning
techniques/models
within this model:
Erickson, Blooms,
Costa.
-Can be applied to
portions of lessons or
entire lessons.
-Can be applied to any
learning model.
-Development of higher order
thinking skills.
-Easy to implement.
-Teacher can focus student
learning by developing
questions that target desired
outcomes.

-Could be difficult to obtain
desired student responses
from higher-level questions.
Spend extensive time modeling
answers to higher-level
questions to help students
develop their abilities to
answer higher level questions.
-Write the questions that are going to
be asked before, during, and after a
key learning, identify what level of
Costas Three Levels of Inquiry each
question is, adjust/re-write questions
to be sure that questions a majority of
questions are in levels 2 and 3.
Visual Thinking
Strategies
Open-ended questions
are used to drive
student discussion
about a piece of art in
relation to student
learning.
-Encourages students to
explain multiple
interpretations of a single
piece of art, developing a
concept of perspectives.
-Based on a peer learning
environment providing
students an opportunity to
reflect on both their own
interpretations and the
analysis of peers.
-Finding and aligning art to
curriculum.
-Students may become
frustrated when the teacher
cannot provide a single,
correct interpretation of a
piece of art.
View Edward Savages The Washington
Family and ask the three driving
questions of VTS:
1) Whats going on in this
picture?
2) What makes you say that?
3) What else can you find?