5 Effective Teaching Strategies for Engaging with Students, According to a Former Teacher

Think about your favorite teacher from when you were a kid or even an adult: What made them so special? Maybe their lessons were always fun, or you excelled at their assignments because their teaching strategies were so seamless. Maybe they remembered little details about you that others didn’t, or took the time to tutor you when you were struggling.

All the qualities that make for beloved teachers don’t happen without a plan. The best teachers are not only well-trained and passionate about what they do, but meticulous in how they pursue it. They know that by mastering the right teaching methods and strategies, they can change a student’s life forever—and go down in history like the teachers we still cherish today.

“A classroom management plan is really the most vital thing that teachers can do,” says Kirsten Horton, an administrator at a pre-K–12 private school and former kindergarten teacher. “That’s because you can’t truly reach and teach your kids if you can’t get your classroom under control.”

It also gives students the physical and psychological safety they need to grow and succeed. “When kids feel safe and see that the teacher has everything under control, they can just stop worrying about what everybody else is doing and really focus on their own learning,” she says.

So, if you’re a teacher, how can you effectively run your classroom? Horton shares a list of teaching strategies she’s seen work wonders—for any age group—in her 12 years in education.

Find the right place to put your teaching skills—apply now to these amazing teacher jobs on The Muse »

1. Planning backwards

Planning backwards functions exactly as it sounds: You define the end goal you’re hoping to achieve with your students (or one particular student), then work backwards to figure out how you’ll reach it. “That makes it also a little bit less overwhelming when you’re thinking about what to teach day to day,” Horton says.

For example, maybe you’re prepping your classroom for an end-of-year assessment. Knowing what that test will entail and the score your students need to hit, you’ll be well-equipped to outline your lesson plan for each week or month, keeping in mind the level your students are starting at and the gaps in their knowledge or the school’s curriculum.

2. Think time

“Think time” is about giving students the time and space to solve a problem, answer a question, or speak up without feeling pressured, rushed, or cut off.

“As adults, we’re able to advocate for our own ‘think time’ by telling people, ‘Don’t tell me the answer. Hold on, let me get to it.’” Horton says. “But kids don’t always feel that authority, and they don’t always have the ability to advocate for themselves.”

Putting this teaching strategy into practice could be as simple as counting several seconds before prompting a student to respond or giving a hint. Of course, many classrooms might face bouts of interjection—when this happens, Horton says, it can also become a valuable lesson for everyone involved.

“If I ask one kid a question and somebody else throws out the answer, I’m like, ‘Thank you so much, but it’s not your turn,’” she says. “‘This is so-and-so’s opportunity to learn, and when you take their turn, you’re actually interrupting their learning. So let’s all give each other think time.’”

“When kids learn that that’s the way the classroom operates, then that’s how they’ll respond, too,” she says. “They start to respect one another’s learning more.”

3. Threshold

Threshold, a teaching method conceived by educational resource Teach Like a Champion, involves meeting your students at the door each day—the goal being to check in on their mood, mindset, and physical status before learning commences.

Some teachers ask each student how they’re doing when they walk in first thing in the morning, while others make it fun with a fist bump, handshake, or hug (if appropriate). No matter your approach, Horton says, be sure to maintain eye contact and make it a moment of personal connection.

4. Tying lessons to life or art

Horton has seen a lot of success in relating her lesson plans to movies, shows, and real-life figures and trends, such as teaching kindergarteners about gravity through an episode of the animated kids show “Bluey.” Her husband, too, has applied this teaching strategy, approaching poetry with middle schoolers by tying common themes to those popularized in rap.

“It just really helped them understand because it tied those learning experiences in with something that they were already familiar with,” she says.

5. Balancing questions

Some students are naturally louder and more visible than others, which is why Horton has always been keen to even out participation amongst classmates.

“Something I always love to do is to take a question from a boy and then say, ‘I’m only going to hear from a girl this time,’” she says. “And then your girls are kind of forced to have the opportunity to stretch and reach and not be overpowered or dominated by the boys that are in their class,”

Of course, calling out certain students may promote more anxiety than confidence, which is why she’s quick to note this teaching strategy only works if you’re acutely aware of your students’ needs and behavior.

“If you know your students well enough and you notice that somebody hasn’t spoken the whole class period, sometimes they’re just not aggressive enough necessarily to put up their hands,” she says. In those instances, she’s seen her students develop and provide great responses they otherwise wouldn’t have shared had she not reached out.

Teaching strategies you might want to avoid

Teaching strategies to avoid, Horton suggests, include lecturing without any input from students. “Regardless of age, people should be up and about moving and being participants in their own learning,” she says.

She’s also against clip charts and other methods that publicly shame bad behavior in younger students. “Once the child believes that they’re a bad kid, then they’re going to act into the behaviors that they see falling in line with that,” she says. “So if they lose hope in themselves and don’t believe that you see the best in them, then they’re going to show you what they think you expect to see from them.”

“We as adults don’t like to be called out in the middle of a meeting—we would like to have a private conversation with our boss about what we need to improve. And kids deserve that same respect,” she says.