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44 Powerful Instructional Strategies Examples for Every Classroom

So many ways to help students learn!

Looking for some new ways to teach and learn in your classroom? This roundup of instructional strategies examples includes methods that will appeal to all learners and work for any teacher.

What are instructional strategies?

In the simplest of terms, instructional strategies are the methods teachers use to achieve learning objectives. In other words, pretty much every learning activity you can think of is an example of an instructional strategy. They’re also known as teaching strategies and learning strategies.

The more instructional strategies a teacher has in their tool kit, the more they’re able to reach all of their students. Different types of learners respond better to various strategies, and some topics are best taught with one strategy over another. Usually, teachers use a wide array of strategies across a single lesson. This gives all students a chance to play to their strengths and ensures they have a deeper connection to the material.

There are a lot of different ways of looking at instructional strategies. One of the most common breaks them into five basic types. It’s important to remember that many learning activities fall into more than one of these categories, and teachers rarely use one type of strategy alone. The key is to know when a strategy can be most effective, for the learners or for the learning objective. Here’s a closer look at the five basic types, with instructional strategies examples for each.

Direct Instruction Instructional Strategies Examples

Direct instruction can also be called “teacher-led instruction,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. The teacher provides the information, while the students watch, listen, and learn. Students may participate by answering questions asked by the teacher or practicing a skill under their supervision. This is a very traditional form of teaching, and one that can be highly effective when you need to provide information or teach specific skills.

This method gets a lot of flack these days for being “boring” or “old-fashioned.” It’s true that you don’t want it to be your only instructional strategy, but short lectures are still very effective learning tools. This type of direct instruction is perfect for imparting specific detailed information or teaching a step-by-step process. And lectures don’t have to be boring—just look at the success of TED Talks .

Didactic Questioning

These are often paired with other direct instruction methods like lecturing. The teacher asks questions to determine student understanding of the material. They’re often questions that start with “who,” “what,” “where,” and “when.”

Demonstration

In this direct instruction method, students watch as a teacher demonstrates an action or skill. This might be seeing a teacher solving a math problem step-by-step, or watching them demonstrate proper handwriting on the whiteboard. Usually, this is followed by having students do hands-on practice or activities in a similar manner.

Drill & Practice

If you’ve ever used flash cards to help kids practice math facts or had your whole class chant the spelling of a word out loud, you’ve used drill & practice. It’s another one of those traditional instructional strategies examples. When kids need to memorize specific information or master a step-by-step skill, drill & practice really works.

Indirect Instruction Instructional Strategies Examples

This form of instruction is learner-led and helps develop higher-order thinking skills. Teachers guide and support, but students drive the learning through reading, research, asking questions, formulating ideas and opinions, and more. This method isn’t ideal when you need to teach detailed information or a step-by-step process. Instead, use it to develop critical thinking skills , especially when more than one solution or opinion is valid.

Problem-Solving

In this indirect learning method, students work their way through a problem to find a solution. Along the way, they must develop the knowledge to understand the problem and use creative thinking to solve it. STEM challenges are terrific examples of problem-solving instructional strategies.

Project-Based Learning

When kids participate in true project-based learning, they’re learning through indirect and experiential strategies. As they work to find solutions to a real-world problem, they develop critical thinking skills and learn by research, trial and error, collaboration, and other experiences.

Learn more: What Is Project-Based Learning?

Concept Mapping

Students use concept maps to break down a subject into its main points and draw connections between these points. They brainstorm the big-picture ideas, then draw lines to connect terms, details, and more to help them visualize the topic.

Case Studies

When you think of case studies, law school is probably the first thing that jumps to mind. But this method works at any age, for a variety of topics. This indirect learning method teaches students to use material to draw conclusions, make connections, and advance their existing knowledge.

Reading for Meaning

This is different than learning to read. Instead, it’s when students use texts (print or digital) to learn about a topic. This traditional strategy works best when students already have strong reading comprehension skills. Try our free reading comprehension bundle to give students the ability to get the most out of reading for meaning.

Flipped Classroom

In a flipped classroom, students read texts or watch prerecorded lectures at home. Classroom time is used for deeper learning activities, like discussions, labs, and one-on-one time for teachers and students.

Learn more: What Is a Flipped Classroom?

Experiential Learning Instructional Strategies Examples

In experiential learning, students learn by doing. Rather than following a set of instructions or listening to a lecture, they dive right into an activity or experience. Once again, the teacher is a guide, there to answer questions and gently keep learning on track if necessary. At the end, and often throughout, the learners reflect on their experience, drawing conclusions about the skills and knowledge they’ve gained. Experiential learning values the process over the product.

Science Experiments

This is experiential learning at its best. Hands-on experiments let kids learn to establish expectations, create sound methodology, draw conclusions, and more.

Learn more: Hundreds of science experiment ideas for kids and teens

Field Trips

Heading out into the real world gives kids a chance to learn indirectly, through experiences. They may see concepts they already know put into practice or learn new information or skills from the world around them.

Learn more: The Big List of PreK-12 Field Trip Ideas

Games and Gamification

Teachers have long known that playing games is a fun (and sometimes sneaky) way to get kids to learn. You can use specially designed educational games for any subject. Plus, regular board games often involve a lot of indirect learning about math, reading, critical thinking, and more.

Learn more: Classic Classroom Games and Best Online Educational Games

Service Learning

This is another instructional strategies example that takes students out into the real world. It often involves problem-solving skills and gives kids the opportunity for meaningful social-emotional learning.

Learn more: What Is Service Learning?

Interactive Instruction Instructional Strategies Examples

As you might guess, this strategy is all about interaction between the learners and often the teacher. The focus is on discussion and sharing. Students hear other viewpoints, talk things out, and help each other learn and understand the material. Teachers can be a part of these discussions, or they can oversee smaller groups or pairings and help guide the interactions as needed. Interactive instruction helps students develop interpersonal skills like listening and observation.

Peer Instruction

It’s often said the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. Studies into the so-called “ protégé effect ” seem to prove it too. In order to teach, you first must understand the information yourself. Then, you have to find ways to share it with others—sometimes more than one way. This deepens your connection to the material, and it sticks with you much longer. Try having peers instruct one another in your classroom, and see the magic in action.

Reciprocal Teaching

This method is specifically used in reading instruction, as a cooperative learning strategy. Groups of students take turns acting as the teacher, helping students predict, clarify, question, and summarize. Teachers model the process initially, then observe and guide only as needed.

Some teachers shy away from debate in the classroom, afraid it will become too adversarial. But learning to discuss and defend various points of view is an important life skill. Debates teach students to research their topic, make informed choices, and argue effectively using facts instead of emotion.

Learn more: High School Debate Topics To Challenge Every Student

Class or Small-Group Discussion

Class, small-group, and pair discussions are all excellent interactive instructional strategies examples. As students discuss a topic, they clarify their own thinking and learn from the experiences and opinions of others. Of course, in addition to learning about the topic itself, they’re also developing valuable active listening and collaboration skills.

Learn more: Strategies To Improve Classroom Discussions

Socratic Seminar and Fishbowl

Take your classroom discussions one step further with the fishbowl method. A small group of students sits in the middle of the class. They discuss and debate a topic, while their classmates listen silently and make notes. Eventually, the teacher opens the discussion to the whole class, who offer feedback and present their own assertions and challenges.

Learn more: How I Use Fishbowl Discussions To Engage Every Student

Brainstorming

Rather than having a teacher provide examples to explain a topic or solve a problem, students do the work themselves. Remember the one rule of brainstorming: Every idea is welcome. Ensure everyone gets a chance to participate, and form diverse groups to generate lots of unique ideas.

Role-Playing

Role-playing is sort of like a simulation but less intense. It’s perfect for practicing soft skills and focusing on social-emotional learning . Put a twist on this strategy by having students model bad interactions as well as good ones and then discussing the difference.

Think-Pair-Share

This structured discussion technique is simple: First, students think about a question posed by the teacher. Pair students up, and let them talk about their answer. Finally open it up to whole-class discussion. This helps kids participate in discussions in a low-key way and gives them a chance to “practice” before they talk in front of the whole class.

Learn more: Think-Pair-Share and Fun Alternatives

Independent Learning Instructional Strategies Examples

Also called independent study, this form of learning is almost entirely student-led. Teachers take a backseat role, providing materials, answering questions, and guiding or supervising. It’s an excellent way to allow students to dive deep into topics that really interest them, or to encourage learning at a pace that’s comfortable for each student.

Learning Centers

Foster independent learning strategies with centers just for math, writing, reading, and more. Provide a variety of activities, and let kids choose how they spend their time. They often learn better from activities they enjoy.

Learn more: The Big List of K-2 Literacy Centers

Computer-Based Instruction

Once a rarity, now a daily fact of life, computer-based instruction lets students work independently. They can go at their own pace, repeating sections without feeling like they’re holding up the class. Teach students good computer skills at a young age so you’ll feel comfortable knowing they’re focusing on the work and doing it safely.

Writing an essay encourages kids to clarify and organize their thinking. Written communication has become more important in recent years, so being able to write clearly and concisely is a skill every kid needs. This independent instructional strategy has stood the test of time for good reason.

Learn more: The Big List of Essay Topics for High School

Research Projects

Here’s another oldie-but-goodie! When kids work independently to research and present on a topic, their learning is all up to them. They set the pace, choose a focus, and learn how to plan and meet deadlines. This is often a chance for them to show off their creativity and personality too.

Personal journals give kids a chance to reflect and think critically on topics. Whether responding to teacher prompts or simply recording their daily thoughts and experiences, this independent learning method strengthens writing and intrapersonal skills.

Learn more: The Benefits of Journaling in the Classroom

Play-Based Learning

In play-based learning programs, children learn by exploring their own interests. Teachers identify and help students pursue their interests by asking questions, creating play opportunities, and encouraging students to expand their play.

Learn more: What Is Play-Based Learning?

More Instructional Strategies Examples

Don’t be afraid to try new strategies from time to time—you just might find a new favorite! Here are some of the most common instructional strategies examples.

Simulations

This strategy combines experiential, interactive, and indirect learning all in one. The teacher sets up a simulation of a real-world activity or experience. Students take on roles and participate in the exercise, using existing skills and knowledge or developing new ones along the way. At the end, the class reflects separately and together on what happened and what they learned.

Storytelling

Ever since Aesop’s fables, we’ve been using storytelling as a way to teach. Stories grab students’ attention right from the start and keep them engaged throughout the learning process. Real-life stories and fiction both work equally well, depending on the situation.

Learn more: Teaching as Storytelling

Scaffolding

Scaffolding is defined as breaking learning into bite-sized chunks so students can more easily tackle complex material. It builds on old ideas and connects them to new ones. An educator models or demonstrates how to solve a problem, then steps back and encourages the students to solve the problem independently. Scaffolding teaching gives students the support they need by breaking learning into achievable sizes while they progress toward understanding and independence.

Learn more: What Is Scaffolding in Education?

Spaced Repetition

Often paired with direct or independent instruction, spaced repetition is a method where students are asked to recall certain information or skills at increasingly longer intervals. For instance, the day after discussing the causes of the American Civil War in class, the teacher might return to the topic and ask students to list the causes. The following week, the teacher asks them once again, and then a few weeks after that. Spaced repetition helps make knowledge stick, and it is especially useful when it’s not something students practice each day but will need to know in the long term (such as for a final exam).

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are a way of organizing information visually to help students understand and remember it. A good organizer simplifies complex information and lays it out in a way that makes it easier for a learner to digest. Graphic organizers may include text and images, and they help students make connections in a meaningful way.

Learn more: Graphic Organizers 101: Why and How To Use Them

Jigsaw combines group learning with peer teaching. Students are assigned to “home groups.” Within that group, each student is given a specialized topic to learn about. They join up with other students who were given the same topic, then research, discuss, and become experts. Finally, students return to their home group and teach the other members about the topic they specialized in.

Multidisciplinary Instruction

As the name implies, this instructional strategy approaches a topic using techniques and aspects from multiple disciplines, helping students explore it more thoroughly from a variety of viewpoints. For instance, to learn more about a solar eclipse, students might explore scientific explanations, research the history of eclipses, read literature related to the topic, and calculate angles, temperatures, and more.

Interdisciplinary Instruction

This instructional strategy takes multidisciplinary instruction a step further, using it to synthesize information and viewpoints from a variety of disciplines to tackle issues and problems. Imagine a group of students who want to come up with ways to improve multicultural relations at their school. They might approach the topic by researching statistical information about the school population, learning more about the various cultures and their history, and talking with students, teachers, and more. Then, they use the information they’ve uncovered to present possible solutions.

Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction means tailoring your teaching so all students, regardless of their ability, can learn the classroom material. Teachers can customize the content, process, product, and learning environment to help all students succeed. There are lots of differentiated instructional strategies to help educators accommodate various learning styles, backgrounds, and more.

Learn more: What Is Differentiated Instruction?

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching is based on the understanding that we learn best when we can connect with the material. For culturally responsive teachers, that means weaving their students’ various experiences, customs, communication styles, and perspectives throughout the learning process.

Learn more: What Is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

Response to Intervention

Response to Intervention, or RTI, is a way to identify and support students who need extra academic or behavioral help to succeed in school. It’s a tiered approach with various “levels” students move through depending on how much support they need.

Learn more: What Is Response to Intervention?

Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning means tailoring your curriculum to what your students are interested in rather than having a set agenda that you can’t veer from—it means letting children’s curiosity take the lead and then guiding that interest to explore, research, and reflect upon their own learning.

Learn more: What Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is key for learners. They must be open to new ideas and processes and believe they can learn anything with enough effort. It sounds simplistic, but when students really embrace the concept, it can be a real game-changer. Teachers can encourage a growth mindset by using instructional strategies that allow students to learn from their mistakes, rather than punishing them for those mistakes.

Learn more: Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset and 25 Growth Mindset Activities

Blended Learning

This strategy combines face-to-face classroom learning with online learning, in a mix of self-paced independent learning and direct instruction. It’s incredibly common in today’s schools, where most students spend at least part of their day completing self-paced lessons and activities via online technology. Students may also complete their online instructional time at home.

Asynchronous (Self-Paced) Learning

This fancy term really just describes strategies that allow each student to work at their own pace using a flexible schedule. This method became a necessity during the days of COVID lockdowns, as families did their best to let multiple children share one device. All students in an asynchronous class setting learn the same material using the same activities, but do so on their own timetable.

Learn more: Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Learning

Essential Questions

Essential questions are the big-picture questions that inspire inquiry and discussion. Teachers give students a list of several essential questions to consider as they begin a unit or topic. As they dive deeper into the information, teachers ask more specific essential questions to help kids make connections to the “essential” points of a text or subject.

Learn more: Questions That Set a Purpose for Reading

How do I choose the right instructional strategies for my classroom?

When it comes to choosing instructional strategies, there are several things to consider:

• Learning objectives: What will students be able to do as a result of this lesson or activity? If you are teaching specific skills or detailed information, a direct approach may be best. When you want students to develop their own methods of understanding, consider experiential learning. To encourage critical thinking skills, try indirect or interactive instruction.
• Assessments : How will you be measuring whether students have met the learning objectives? The strategies you use should prepare them to succeed. For instance, if you’re teaching spelling, direct instruction is often the best method, since drill-and-practice simulates the experience of taking a spelling test.
• Learning styles : What types of learners do you need to accommodate? Most classrooms (and most students) respond best to a mix of instructional strategies. Those who have difficulty speaking in class might not benefit as much from interactive learning, and students who have trouble staying on task might struggle with independent learning.
• Learning environment: Every classroom looks different, and the environment can vary day by day. Perhaps it’s testing week for other grades in your school, so you need to keep things quieter in your classroom. This probably isn’t the time for experiments or lots of loud discussions. Some activities simply aren’t practical indoors, and the weather might not allow you to take learning outside.

Come discuss instructional strategies and ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook !

Plus, check out the things the best instructional coaches do, according to teachers ..

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What Is Project-Based Learning and How Can I Use It With My Students?

There's a difference between regular projects and true-project based learning. Continue Reading

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Increasing Authenticity in the Classroom

Real-life scenarios enhance lessons and shouldn’t require teachers to completely overhaul their practices.

One of the important lessons we have learned from Covid-19 is that the real world permeates the classroom whether we like it or not. Of course, a virus isn’t the only real world that we face on a daily basis. From political strife to global warming, our students and teachers are constantly interfacing with the world outside the classroom and often finding it hard to juxtapose both in class curriculum and outside contexts.

Teachers want to leverage the real world in their classrooms. But how?

Before looking at a few helpful habits, let’s define authenticity . Authenticity may be best defined as a set of experiences in which teachers and students engage in contexts and content that align with real-world experiences, and students have choice in the experiences. As such, authenticity is not a binary concept in the classroom. The question is not whether we have authenticity. The question is, to what degree are we exhibiting authenticity at this time?

Beyond increasing the degree of authenticity in the classroom, we need to find ways to make practices doable for time-starved teachers. One way to consider moving toward authenticity in the classroom is stacking new habits with what teachers are already doing in the classroom. Stacking is the idea that we integrate a new habit with habits we already have in place.

Stacking is focused on embedding a habit before, during, or after something we already do. The following stacking prompts may be helpful:

• Before I do the following, I will...
• After I do the following, I will...
• In between, I will...

To move toward increasing authenticity in our classroom, high-leverage authenticity habits fall within three key areas: contexts, content, and choice. Let’s review each area and evaluate important questions and a few suggested habits.

Context is the degree to which students and teachers are engaging in contemporaneous, real-world situations, opportunities, challenges, and people.

Students are drawn to problems of the present and problems that connect to them in some way. They are buzzing with questions such as what’s happening now, how does that connect to me and the people I care about, and how can I help solve that problem?

Such questions are all powerful motivators for kids. The past and future are used as fuel for students’ contemporaneous drive. The following questions and habits are wonderful ways to promote a greater level of real-world contexts in the classroom.

Key questions and suggested habits:

• How does this task, activity, or lesson connect to my life presently?
• Where does this idea apply right now in the world? Across how many contexts?
• Who is working on these problems presently?
• Who can I engage within these contexts to learn about opportunities and challenges, various perspectives, and potential people and organizations that I may be able to work with over the course of study?

Before starting a new unit, teachers may want to introduce students to a real-world professional or community member impacted by a problem who will task them with working to understand and solve the challenge. This would include interviewing community members and reading about the current situation.

Another habit to consider would be embedding a question on each day’s exit ticket that asks students to brainstorm the number of contexts that apply to what the class is learning. Their responses can then be reviewed the next morning via a think-pair-share.

Content is the degree to which teachers and students are engaging in the academic knowledge and skills that are used in the real world.

Research continues to show that the ability to engage in real-world tasks and apply learning requires core content knowledge within the actual real-world situation. To promote the development of core content as a means of increasing authenticity, teachers should consider the following questions and habits.

• To what extent do the task and context relate to the content area (discipline) I’m learning about?
• To what extent do I need to learn surface and deep knowledge in one or more disciplines to get through the authentic challenges I’m working on?

Before students engage in a problem-based experience, teachers can incorporate a pre-assessment and engage in direct instruction for those students who need it. Or, after a lesson is completed, teachers can have students discuss the similarities and differences between what they have learned in class and the knowledge and skills they would need in different real-world situations.

Choice is the degree to which students and teachers have autonomy within the confines of an authentic context.

Students need a level of defined autonomy in the classroom. Clear boundaries surrounding a set of choices for students potentially include the specific question(s) to work on, the products to create, the choice of group members to work with, and the means for navigating group dynamics and choice of problem-solving strategies. The following questions and habits are helpful to prime such discussions.

• Where do I have an opportunity to express my perspective on the product/presentation/process/work structure (group)?
• To what extent do I have a choice in how I display my work? Where are the boundaries of my choice?

Before students begin creating a product, teachers can have them present their choice to others and receive feedback using a tuning protocol. Another option would be to have students work in groups and reflect on successes and challenges of their individual and collective decision-making using a critical friends protocol.

Authenticity doesn’t require field trips or yearly projects. Authenticity requires daily embedded practices that bring the real world into our classrooms. With a few shifts in our practice, we can bring authenticity into our classrooms and into our students’ daily lives.

• Getting Started
• Introduction
• The Teacher
• The Learner

Foreign Language Teaching Methods: Speaking

Lesson 3: designing communicative tasks.

• What is a Task?
• Design Principles
• Unsuccessful Tasks
• Analyzing Tasks
• Review and Reflect

What Is a Task?

Defining a "task."

Duration: 01:31

This lesson focuses on defining what a task is. And actually there's been a lot written on this in the literature on task-based language teaching. Some people say that a task is not really a language unit at all, that it's really a unit of activity. But how we're going to define a task in this lesson is: a human activity (that is, you are going to be doing something) that is goal-directed (that is, you're doing something to accomplish a particular goal). But the real crux here is it's going to require interaction -- interaction between two people -- partners -- or a small group.

So for example, say you want to hire a job candidate. You have an opening in your company and you need to hire somebody. That's a task. And, if you break it down, the first thing you are going to do you might review some resumes, you might post the job, you go over the resumes that you get from the applicants. You then have to match their qualifications to the actual job. And then as a group you're going to have to have that difficult decision-making process and come to some kind of agreement. So that's a pretty good example of what I mean here by task. There is an activity, you're hiring somebody, and the activity is goal-oriented and it requires interaction among a small group.

A task is (1) a classroom activity or exercise that has (a) an objective attainable only by the interaction among participants, (b) a mechanism for structuring and sequencing interaction, and (c) a focus on meaning exchange; (2) a language learning endeavor that requires learners to comprehend, manipulate, and/or produce the target language as they perform some set of workplans. (Lee 2000:32)

Lee, J. 2000. Tasks and Communicating in Language Classrooms . New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Introduction to Task-Based Learning (TBL)

What is a task and what is the best way to define and describe Task-Based Learning?

Do you think that incorporating meaningful tasks is a good way to motivate your learners?

Written by Sheila Corwin

Teacher Trainer in Florence

Task-Based Learning: what it is?

Task-Based Learning (TBL) is all about your students creating, producing, or designing something in class… it could be anything… anything at all. TBL includes the 21st Century skills of Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking (4C’s) and can also be described as a short interactive assignment that results in a finished product.

The Task part of Task-Based Learning has been (more or less) defined by linguistic scholars as:

• things people do in everyday life (Long, 1985).
• a goal-oriented activity that leads to an outcome or result (Willis, 1996).
• a completed work plan which can be assessed (Ellis, 2003).

What kind of activity is a task?

In 2007, Jane Willis and her husband Dave Willis came up with the following criteria in their book Doing Task-Based Teaching (pp. 12-14) which can be used to discern a task:

• Will the activity engage learners’ interest?
• Is there a primary focus on meaning?
• Is there a goal or an outcome?
• Is success judged in terms of the result?
• Is completion a priority?
• Does the activity relate to real-world activities?

If your answer is yes to all the questions, you can be sure that the classroom activity you have in mind is task-like.

Task-Based Learning and Task-Based Language Teaching

TBL is an approach to teaching that was originally used by second or foreign-language teachers. It is an approach that stems from Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) – a language teacher methodology – which emerged in the 1970s.

Language teachers originally adopted Task-Based Learning for a variety of reasons with the most important being the desire to make their classrooms more student-centered, communicative, and collaborative by incorporating more interactive tasks.

Task-Based Learning (TBL) is also known as Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Task-Based Instruction (TBI). Its principal focus is on the completion of meaningful tasks. Such tasks can include creating a poster, producing a newsletter, video, or pamphlet, or designing a map of the school or neighborhood.

The Task Cycle > Task / Plan / Report

The TBL formula includes the following stages:

The teacher introduces the topic and gives students clear instructions and guidelines on what they will be doing during the three-part task cycle (below). This phase will give students a clear understanding of what will be expected of them and include any important knowledge or details they need to know.

This is also a good time to lead into the task by brainstorming or asking questions about the topic. Teachers can also get students ready for the task by presenting an example of the task or introducing a picture, audio, or video which will be useful in completing the task.

Students get ready to do the task. Students are given what they need to complete the task (handouts and written instructions) and are assigned to work in pairs or small groups while the teacher monitors and offers encouragement when necessary. The teacher’s role is typically limited to one of a coach, guide, and facilitator.

Students work on the task in pairs or small groups and prepare to report or present their results or product. They make important decisions about their presentation and assign each person in the group with a part of the task to present, so everyone takes responsibility during the report stage. The group rehearses its presentation. The teacher walks around, helps if needed, and takes notes on anything that needs to be addressed after the presentations.

Report/Present

Students present their findings to the class in the form of a presentation. The rest of the class listens to the reports and writes down feedback which will be given to the presenters after all reports have been heard. The class can also ask questions or provide some quick oral feedback after each presentation. The teacher also gives feedback on the content as well. Students vote on the best presentation, report, or product.

After presenting their completed task, others in the class can offer constructive feedback.

Several ways to do so include:

• Two stars and a wish – two positive things about the presentation and one suggestion,
• The 3, 2, 1, Formula – Three likes, Two suggestions, and One question.
• Finally, feedback can be given based on things like the content of the presentation, use of visuals, eye contact, etc.

How to create your own TBL lesson

Here is a template for creating your own Task-Based Learning lesson or activity:

• Design a ……………………………………
• Create a …………………………………….
• Produce a …………………………………..
• Task: What would you like your students to design, create, or produce?
• Plan: What specific instructions will you give your students for doing this task and what guidelines should they follow during their planning stage?
• Report/Present: What do you want your students to report or present and how much time will you give them to explain or present their ideas?

There are many different TBL interpretations so don’t hesitate to make it your own.

An example of Task-Based Learning Activity

Jane Willis (1996) came up with A Framework for Task-Based Learning that includes coming up with tasks that revolve around a certain topic. This can be very useful for teachers looking for task ideas to engage their students during a lesson.

See the example to follow:

Topic: Travel

• Listing : List three reasons why people love to travel.
• Ordering, Sorting, and Classifying : Put pictures of different travel destinations in order from the most desired to the least desired destination. Sort travel destinations from the northern to the southern hemisphere. Classify destinations by languages people speak.
• Comparing or Matching: Compare different countries. Match people to their country of origin.
• Problem Solving: Think of three low-budget travel destinations.
• Creative Task : Create a travel poster or find out about different countries and become an expert on a country that you would like to travel to in the future.
• Share Personal Experiences : Share stories about past travel destinations. Write a poem about your favorite place and share it with the class.

6 Advantages of Task-Based Learning

• Students are at the center of learning.
• Students are working on something that is personal and relevant to them.
• Students gain practice in collaborating with others and making group decisions.
• Students spend a lot of time communicating.
• Students take on responsibility for engaged learning .
• TBL is enjoyable , motivating, and a great place to start for teachers thinking about incorporating more Project Based Learning at their schools or classrooms.

Task-Based Learning has many interpretations and you, the teacher, can adapt and make anything your own. Although TBL was originally developed with language teachers in mind, the core of every Task-Based Learning lesson, as the name suggests, is the task.

A Task-Based approach offers an alternative for teachers who are interested in creating a more student-centered environment in their classroom. In a task-based class, the lesson is based on the completion of a central task and its presentation.

TBL incorporates all 4C’s and is a great way to get students used to working on Project Based Learning (PBL) because it includes many of the same skills but, in a smaller, more digestible way.

Whereas PBL requires working on a project for an extended period, TBL can be done in one or two lessons and can be a good starting point for teaching students how to communicate, collaborate and work on presentations with others.

• Willis D. and J. Willis (2007) Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Willis J. (1996) A Framework for Task-based Learning. Harlow: Longman Pearson Education

5 thoughts on “ Introduction to Task-Based Learning (TBL) ”

Hello, I do not use project-based learning techniques with my lessons. However, I have successfully used other methods and techniques.

Hi Mehmet, TBL or Task Based Learning is a very small PBL and can be a good place to start for teachers who are interested in incorporating more communication, collaboration, creativity, and collaboration between students in their classrooms.

Yes, I think that collaborative method and game-based learning develop students’ creativity. Of course, we can say that these also contribute to many more mental development of children.

Thanks to Sheila i met in’Florence in January 2018, I use Willis´s model to set up TBL in class…it does work very well.

Now I am a teacher trainer and I teach them how to set up this pedagogical method in class.

So glad you’ve found this approach useful to you in both your own classroom and in your training of other teachers. By the way, I have very fond memories of you in my teacher training classroom, Chantal. =)

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Defining Pedagogic Tasks: Issues and Challenges

Cite this chapter.

• Virginia Samuda 2 &
• Martin Bygate 2  

Part of the book series: Research and Practice in Applied Linguistics ((RPAL))

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At the beginning of this book, we proposed a set of general elements to describe what we broadly mean by ‘task’. We did so to provide an initial point of reference for talking about issues relating to the use of tasks in general education and human sciences research. As we further narrow the focus in our consideration of tasks as a pedagogic tool for second language learning, we revisit the construct of ‘task’ and attempt a more precise definition than the general elements we offered in Chapter 1. To this end, we:

Invite consideration of why a more precise definition might be desirable.

Explore some of the ways that task have been defined in the literature.

Highlight issues and challenges involved in arriving at an adequate task definition.

Offer a working definition of our own.

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Samuda, V., Bygate, M. (2008). Defining Pedagogic Tasks: Issues and Challenges. In: Tasks in Second Language Learning. Research and Practice in Applied Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596429_6

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How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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Teaching Students About Sharon White: An Inspirational Educator

Teaching students about the coaching legends of the steelers: a lesson in dedication, leadership, and success, teaching students about the tim donaghy scandal – learning from history, teaching students about kevin costner’s age: a unique approach to understanding hollywood’s history, teaching students about sonny landham: a journey through the life of a hollywood icon, teaching students about the summer olympics, teaching students about princess margaret’s death: an educational approach, teaching students about michael cole: an insightful approach to understanding a renowned journalist, college minor: everything you need to know, 14 fascinating teacher interview questions for principals, 21 ways to teach students to complete classroom tasks.

Are you looking for ways to teach students to complete classroom tasks? If so, keep reading.

1. Teach the learner time management skills. Get the learner to make a daily plan and follow it. Urge the learner to avoid becoming distracted by activities, impulses, and moods.

2. Talk regularly with the learner to help them follow instructions for the tasks.

3. Tell the learner, when they do not finish a task correctly, what they are doing wrong, what they are supposed to be doing, and why.

4. Get the learner to ask for help when they need it.

5. Get the learner to schedule their own time for tasks (e.g., 20 minutes for each of 3 tasks, 15 minutes for each of 4 tasks, etc.) to pace themselves.

6. Urge the learner to manage their everyday lives as if they were self-employed. This should increase their motivation to finish tasks successfully.

7. Support the learner in performing their classwork . As the learner shows success, slowly decrease the assistance, and require the learner to independently assume more responsibility.

8. Talk regularly with the learner to continue involvement with class tasks (e.g., ask the learner questions, ask the learner’s opinion, stand near the learner, seat the learner near the teacher’s desk, etc.).

9. Give simple, concrete, clearly stated instructions in written or oral form.

10. Show the task in the most attractive and exciting manner possible.

11. Get the learner to finish tasks in a private space (e.g., table, “office,” quiet study area, etc.) to lessen the anxiety of public failure.

12. Repeat instructions to increase the likelihood of the learner’s comprehension.

13. Manage tasks by dividing them into small segments . Establish deadlines and reward the learner after finishing each segment of the task.

14. Do not require the learner to learn more information than they are capable of learning at any time.

15. Make sure that the learner is paying attention to the teacher when instructions are given (e.g., making eye contact, hands free of writing learning materials, looking at task, etc.).

16. Inform the learner when it is time to do classwork.

17. Take into account the learner’s capacity and ability level and experience before assigning tasks to him/her.

18. Give the learner high-quality content to finish the task (e.g., pencil with eraser, paper, dictionary, handwriting sample, etc.). Make sure that the learner has only the appropriate content on their desk.

19. Finish the first few steps of a task with the learner to serve as a model and start the learner on the task.

20. Assess the clarity and quality of directions, explanations, and instructions given to the learner.

21. Consider using an education app to help the student sharpen their organizational skills. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend .

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Learning Tasks: Turning a Dry Subject into an Engaging Experience

H ow do you teach a dry subject effectively, particularly in the workplace? In what ways can you engage your students when your content has a high level of abstraction? What strategies are most effective to bring “learning to task”?

In the next pages, I provide some practical tips and advice about the design and use of learning tasks — experiential, hands-on activities — based on my 15 years of experience as an adult educator and leaning heavily on the contributions of Jane Vella in this field. In Taking Learning to Task: Creative Strategies for Teaching Adults (Jossey-Bass, 2000), Vella describes “a different approach, where teaching and learning are integrated and where the learning task is the overall design.” These learning tasks introduce learners to the intricacies of applying what they have learned to their daily work. Despite some disadvantages (they can take a little longer than lectures and can be messier to handle), I believe that learning tasks are an effective way to teach for results. This article will discuss:

Use the learning tasks ideas outlined in this article to design workplace training sessions that foster collaborative learning and “unlearning.”

1. What “mind shift” is necessary to be able to teach with learning tasks;

2. What is a learning task;

3. What are the four types of learning tasks that, properly sequenced, can generate engagement and fun, no matter what the content you teach;

4. How to debrief a learning task to maximize its learning potential for your students.

So-called “domain knowledge” (concepts, facts, and procedures), while often necessary, seems largely insufficient to empower people to solve problems at work.

Why Learning Tasks

I am biased! My personal way to train in the workplace emphasizes results through group work, learners’ autonomy, and a new role for the trainer as a facilitator of learning rather than a conveyer of content. My biases bring me to see collaboration/diversity and hands-on experiences/action as necessary conditions for learning to take place.

These biases come from my direct observation. So-called “domain knowledge” (concepts, facts, and procedures), while often necessary, seems largely insufficient to empower people to solve problems at work. Adult learners generally are not interested in formal knowledge — the “knowing about” the entire background behind what they are learning. Rather, they are focused on “knowing how,”, “knowing when,” and “knowing if in order to improve their own ability to solve problems, often with limited time and incomplete information, in the context of their day-to-day tasks. The result of this focus is the creation of new meanings, new connections, and new expertise with the qualities of immediate returns, clear transferability, and evident usefulness. Learning tasks support this kind of integration.

In addition, I have noticed that by using learning tasks, aside from helping trainees acquire the necessary skills on the subject at hand, we build a true organizational ability to learn through action and reflection. This kind of learning involves the creation of knowledge rather than the consumption of data. Learning tasks thus nurture students’ capacity for actively integrating new concepts into their existing work practice on a given subject.

Building Blocks for Creating Expertise

Learning tasks are not just fun games and activities that supplement lectures or exercises to practice the content. They are a different way to teach altogether, where the tasks themselves are the whole shebang. According to Vella, “A learning task is a way to structure dialogue. It is an open question put to members of a small group who have been given all the resources they need to respond.” She also says, “A learning task is a way of ensuring engagement of learners with the new content.”

Learning tasks are based on the assumption that new expertise is built through experiences. They expose learners to situations where they can safely practice the content they are learning and collaboratively nurture their own ability to solve problems with their new skills. The work of designing learning tasks is turning content elements into problem-solving experiences set to resemble the learners’ work context. Three key moments make up a learning task: instructions, task, and debrief.

1. The Instructions (5 percent of the total time for the lesson) are given by the trainers to present the activity, demonstrate its basic components, and provide guidance on how to perform it (see “Learning Task Instructions”). So, for example, for a task I assign in my “Emotional Intelligence of Team Results” workshop, I say to students:

• Introduction, Goal, and Reason: “Have you ever thought about what the one thing is that gets you going? Self-awareness is a key skill to build your emotional intelligence. In the next task, we are focusing on your self-knowledge, which the ancients Greeks considered the source of all wisdom. By doing this, we are gaining the clarity required to start building your emotional IQ.”
• Instructions 1: “I invite you to read the poem on page 23 and individually write in your learning journals the responses to the three questions that you find there. I will then ask you to share your thoughts with a person you have never worked with before.”
• Instructions 2:, “Again, Step 1: Read the poem on page 23. Step 2: Write down your answers to the three questions in your learning journals. Step 3: When I ring the bell, please turn to a person you normally do not work with and share your answers. You have 15 minutes for this task.”
• Question:, “Any questions?”

LEARNING TASK INSTRUCTIONS

• INTRODUCTION, GOAL, REASON
• INSTRUCTIONS 1 (what to do, how much time, what happened in the end, and so on)
• INSTRUCTIONS 2 (repeat)

There is an art in giving good, specific, clear instructions. Instructors present the activity and the materials and check people’s understanding of how to proceed. They clearly state why they selected the activity and what they hope it will accomplish. It is imperative to provide clear goals for the exercise (for example, “We are doing this task for these reasons . . .”), because the smallest omission or lack of clarity will make people practice the wrong way, will thwart their chances of success, and will undermine their learning. Trainers also need to state what the reward is for the activity, that is, what positive outcome will come from doing it right.

2. The Task is the actual exercise (55 percent of the total time for the lesson). Participants work on solving a problem to practice the content to be learned. The task always comes with written resources and materials. For instance, in the previous example, I ask people to go to page 23 to read a poem. The task is about reading, reflecting, and sharing as a way to experientially build self-awareness.

3. The Debrief is the review/ debriefing phase (40 percent of the total time of the lesson). The instructors facilitate a conversation after the activity has taken place that outlines key questions to drive the group’s learning. For instance, in the same example, we can ask students if they liked the poem or not, whether the exercise came easy or not, if it holds some meaning, what they discovered in conversations, and so on. I can share my observations (, “I notice a kind of relief in the room, am I right?”) or my experience (, “I selected this poem because . . .”). The reflection is the critical “harvesting” moment of the learning; below, we will look at strategies that can help maximize its effectiveness.

Four Kinds of Tasks

Jane Vella talks about four kinds of learning tasks and how they should be sequenced to build an effective learning experience:

1. We start with an INDUCTIVE learning task. With this kind of task, we “invite learners to qualify where they are at present in terms of the content, where they begin their study, and what the present conception of the topic includes.” An inductive learning task can be used as a warm-up, but it is never an icebreaker. My inductive learning tasks start the work of learning and demonstrate that I care about how the learners’ backgrounds and knowledge inform their work in the class. By showing this interest right from the start — in the crucial first three minutes that shape people’s perceptions of the entire program — I establish a level of respect for them and for the rich experience they bring.

For example, in a class on effective time management, I opened the session by having participants fill out a form that included the following questions: “What do you hope to learn from this class? What are your time wasters? What situations do you hope to improve with more effective time management skills?” In a customer service workshop, I asked the trainees: “Tell me about your experience with bad customer service.” In an online train-the-trainer course, I requested that attendees send in advance the name of an instructor who made a difference in their lives and why. This step creates a climate that is conducive to learning.

2. We create opportunities for learners to experience the content with an INPUT learning task , in which they meet the new materials hands-on. For example, I once taught a class on federal records management (talk about a dry subject!). Rather than present records management definitions and concepts with a PowerPoint slideshow, I broke the group into teams and gave each team a set of cards with 20 key concepts in federal records management. I encouraged them to sort the ones they were familiar with from the ones that they didn’t know. I told them that in 15 minutes, we would hear the “provisional definition” of the concepts and asked them to pass the cards with concepts they were not familiar with to the other tables. We invited the agency’s Records Management Officer to provide guidance. We only needed his expertise for five key concepts, as the groups pooled their knowledge and managed to come up with the correct definitions for most of the terms on their own.

3. With an IMPLEMENTATION learning task, we invite participants to do something with the new content. This kind of task solicits the learners’ participation, asking them to “wear” the learning and run with it for their own purposes, from their own perspectives. For learners, it is a great chance to bring the content into their own lives; for trainers, it is an opportunity to verify that students have really absorbed the material.

In my “Dialogue as Facilitative Leadership” workshop, I ask trainees to write their own list of possible questions to ask someone with whom they disagree. The questions are based on the concept of open versus closed; the challenge is to ask open questions in response to aggressive statements like “No way” or “This is totally wrong!” The simulation that follows requires trainees to respond to interruptions and defensive statements only with the questions they have designed. In a class about supervisory skills, I created five brief stories that illustrated dilemmas for the main characters similar to the ones the learners were facing in supervising their own staffs. Each case finished with key questions; participants then chose either A or B as a course of action.

4. With an INTEGRATION learning task , we move into the actual use of the skill in the workplace. In a class about a new performance system, for example, I encouraged learners to write the three things they learned in the class, their own plan with dates for implementing it, and the factors they anticipated could derail their efforts, including the potential for routine to take over and cause them to return to their set ways. The conversation about implementation also raised the idea of “enablers,” such as 30- and 60-day follow- ups by web conference and plans for involving the learners’ supervisors in defining and ensuring the ongoing use of the class content.

The Learning Task Debrief

“There was a person constantly talking and disrupting the class. Unfortunately, that person was the instructor.”

Task-based learning is grounded in the assumption that the quality of the learning process depends largely on the quality of the questions we as trainers ask during the dialogue that follows the action. According to World Café founders Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, learning questions “enable us to challenge our underlying assumptions in constructive ways. With a simple and consistent focus on questions that matter, casual conversations are transformed into collective inquiry.” Indeed, learning takes place even after the task has been executed, through a dialogue in which powerful questions unleash the team’s ability to reflect.

The rule is simple. After performing any learning task, always involve students in a learning dialogue, because it is only through conversation that the experience is distilled in usable learning.

The dialogue that follows a learning task allows people to “talk the learning out,” to express it, to verbalize it, to give it words, to reflect on it. Here we make learning visible through several iterations in order to produce an output, an actual shareable product. No matter how imperfect or partial this product is, it is nevertheless “owned” and serves as a basis for further learning.

For example, in a class on systems thinking, I introduce causal loop diagrams through a learning dialogue. Without explaining the concepts of reinforcing and balancing loops, I distribute a document called “Peter Russell’s Credit Report,” explaining that this fictional gentleman’s poor credit rating can be traced back to the interplay of two variables: the amount of debt and the number of credit-card transactions. I draw a reinforcing loop of those two variables and explain that this is another way to describe his situation. I then distribute other sample artifacts that illustrate similar situations and ask them to read them at their tables (for example, “Jenny’s Diet” is about the interplay of variables in weight-loss decisions; “Mark Is Always Late!” focuses on the interplay between people’s perceptions of others and reality, and so on). After students have read the stories, I ask them to jot down the variables they see in action, identifying the loops similar to the one I have written on the wall. The focus is on getting them to verbalize their understanding in order to introduce the new ideas “balancing loop” and “reinforcing loop.”

For each kind of task (inductive, input, implementation, or integration), I have identified four partial sets of questions (see “Questions for Prompting Learning Dialogues” on p. 5). You can use these questions in the dialogue that debriefs the learning tasks to ensure a rich and productive conversation around the task experience.

• After an INDUCTIVE learning task (one that starts the training session and evokes previous learning), the trainers’ focus is on listening and clarifying, while probing the rich experience participants bring to the class. The instructor ensures that trainees fully participate in the activity and prepare them for plunging into the content. By conducting a learning dialogue right after an inductive learning activity, trainers establish a safe space for everyone to speak. The conversation also gives people a chance to articulate what they already know about the content and review their experience with it.
• After an INPUT learning task (one that presents new content), trainees ask a lot of questions. In this phase, instructors clarify the concepts presented as new content and invite participants to describe what happened during the activity, to explain the content or their thinking about it, and to extract meaning and knowledge from the experience. Depending on the content or context of the task, much of the dialogue after these input activities involves clarifying the input and ensuring understanding. Instructors focus on articulating the content, making sure that people participate, and tolerating a few mistakes.
• After an IMPLEMENTATION learning task (one that centers on applying what participants have learned in their own context), the dialogue meets the content in its most challenging aspect: application. This conversation normally raises a lot of questions, comments, opinions, and disagreements, allowing for multiple perspectives to emerge. In my experience, after an implementation task, you can expect a learning dialogue to go anywhere most likely to disputing the key learning ideas and assumptions. For example, in our class “The Virtual Trainer,” which is about teaching using web-conferencing technologies, when we ask participants to structure a lesson plan that makes for effective online engagement, the conversation often goes back to the benefits of doing face-to-face sessions and to the importance of understanding the audience’s needs in order to select the right training media. By allowing trainees to express these different perspectives, which normally enrich the perspective of everyone involved, we honor the freedom of the learning process. In these situations, instructors need to use their emotional intelligence, negotiation skills, and conflict management abilities to ensure that group members give fair consideration to the concepts being taught and that they do their share of work or analysis.
• After an INTEGRATION learning task (one that brings the learning into the trainees’ work life), the dialogue normally addresses the future. In this phase, the conversation should clearly identify two or three specific actions that students can implement immediately, individually or as a group, as a follow-up after the class.The rule is simple. After performing any learning task, always involve students in a learning dialogue, because it is only through conversation that the experience is distilled in usable learning.

QUESTIONS FOR PROMPTING LEARNING DIALOGUES

After inductive learning tasks:.

To get learners ready to learn by evoking past experience, hopes, and expectations

• What was the theme of your past experience in one word?
• What is your attitude on the subject based on your past experience?
• What behaviors have worked/have not worked for you in the past in this area?
• What do you hope to learn about this subject that you know is important?
• What do you know about this subject that you know is true?
• What would you like to explore about the subject?
• What will you need to forget in order to learn this?
• Why are you excited/not excited about being here?
• Where will you be using what you learn about the subject?
• What do you hope to change as a result of your learning?

After Input Learning Tasks

To get learners to describe or interpret what happened during the activity

• How was it? (easy or difficult, etc.)
• What happened during the activity? I noticed . . .
• Who was really into it? How did you like this part?

To get learners to verbalize content or thinking

• Can you summarize . . . ? How would you describe . . . ?
• What happened as you did . . . ?
• I noticed you took this action. Why did you decide to do it?
• How would you describe the problem you were dealing with?
• How close do you think you have come to achieving what you wanted to achieve?
• How successful do you think you were?
• How do you see your role in this activity?
• How does this part relate to you?
• Why were there differences between what happened during the activity and your expectations?
• What actions will you take as a result of . . . ?
• What will you do differently next time?

After Implementation Learning Tasks

• How was it? (easy, difficult, etc.)
• What do you need to consider when using this approach?
• What can you do right now to ensure you apply this tool?
• How are your current skills/information/knowledge/attitude giving you the results you want?
• What data make you say that this approach is difficult to use in real life?
• What would you need to see to agree with this idea?
• What is needed for you to change your mind?

After Integration Learning Tasks

• What do you think will simplify the application process for you?
• What obstacles might you encounter as you apply this approach?
• What problems do you anticipate?
• What could be a quick victory in doing this work?
• How can we support you in implementing this learning?
• Who do you need to enlist to make sure this really happens?
• What specific actions can you take to have a greater chance of success?
• How will you know if you have succeeded?

In conclusion, when we design a class using learning tasks, our lesson plan looks like an accordion. The basic sequence “Instructions–Task–Debrief is the building block of the program; as such, it is repeated several times. First, we position an “Instructions–Inductive Task–Debrief block, then an “Instructions–Input Task–Debrief.” An “Instructions–Implementation Task–Debrief follows, and we close with “Instructions–Integration Task– Debrief.” Organized and assembled in various fashions, those elements create powerful learning programs.

A Learning Community

“Learning cannot be designed. Ultimately it belongs to the realm of experience and practice . . . It slips through the cracks; it creates its own cracks. Learning happens, design or no design.”

We know that telling is the least effective way to teach. In these pages, I have provided an alternative practice through the use of learning tasks. Our basic assumption is that trainers don’t need to spoon-feed concepts to trainees. Trainers should become experts in finding great, creative, new ways to have people learn something, rather than being experts in what people learn. Yes, the trainer needs to know about the content. But that’s not enough.

By shifting focus from conveying content to creating a learning experience, the job of a trainer becomes:

• Setting up learning tasks that allow trainees to experience the content first-hand;
• Giving clear instructions about the tasks to be performed;
• Being a resource during the actual tasks as well as sitting back and letting trainees do the work;
• Facilitating learning conversations by debriefing the task through the use of great questions.

Trainers who use a task-centered approach play yet another role they support the creation of a community of learners.

Trainers who use a task-centered approach play yet another role — they support the creation of a community of learners. A key element is building a sense of openness and trust in the group. A well-executed debrief after a learning task is essentially an exercise in community building.

When trainers see knowledge as book knowledge — facts and trivia — and individuals as lonely learners mandated to absorb something, then they don’t perceive the need for dedicating time to building a learning community. With this mindset, it is not surprising that community-building work is often ignored and dropped in favor of more “meaningful” activities. But the fact is that learning communities are the very engine that makes learning turn into change for organizations. Without it, the organizations we work with can’t reap the full benefits of new approaches.

Training adults by using learning tasks embraces the action/reflection paradigm, develops real-world learning as situated expertise, and builds communities of learners. Besides, by spreading the joy of learning, training professionals can have a profound, positive impact on organizational change. And, isn’t that what our work is all about?

• Start turning your own materials from “things learners need to know” into “things learners need to do” by using the examples provided in the article.
• Create mini-scripts for giving instructions on your learning tasks so you can provide learners with unequivocal understanding of what they are supposed to do.
• Select a few of the questions provided for designing your own learning dialogues.
• Give up control in your classes and enjoy the ride.
• Take the content of this article and come up with your own ideas.

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What Is Performance Assessment?

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Project-based learning is nothing new. More than 100 years ago, progressive educator William Heard Kilpatrick published “The Project Method,” a monograph that took the first stab at defining alternatives to direct instruction. Predictably, the document sparked a squabble over definitions and methods—between Kilpatrick and his friend and colleague John Dewey.

Not much has changed. Today, despite major advances in ways to measure learning, we still don’t have common definitions for project-based learning or performance assessment.

Sometimes, for example, performance assessment is framed as the opposite of the dreaded year-end, state-required multiple-choice tests used to report on schools’ progress. But in fact, many performance assessments are standardized and can—and do—produce valid and reliable results.

Experts also emphasize the “authentic” nature of performance assessment and project-based learning, although “authentic” doesn’t always mean lifelike: A good performance assessment can use simulations, as long as they are faithful to real-world situations. (An example: In science class, technology can simulate plant growth or land erosion, processes that take too long for a hands-on experiment.)

In the absence of agreed-upon definitions for this evolving field, Education Week reporters developed a glossary based on interviews with teachers, assessment experts, and policy analysts. They’ve organized the terms here generally from less specific to more specific. These terms aren’t mutually exclusive. (A performance assessment, for instance, may be one element of a competency-based education program.)

Proficiency-based or competency-based learning: These terms are interchangeable. They refer to the practice of allowing students to progress in their learning as they master a set of standards or competencies. Students can advance at different rates. Typically, there is an attempt to build students’ ownership and understanding of their learning goals and often a focus on “personalizing” students’ learning based on their needs and interests.

Project-based learning: Students learn through an extended project, which may have a number of checkpoints or assessments along the way. Key features are inquiry, exploration, the extended duration of the project, and iteration (requiring students to revise and reflect, for example). A subset of project-based learning is problem-based learning, which focuses on a specific challenge for which students must find a solution.

Standards-based grading: This refers to the practice of giving students nuanced and detailed descriptions of their performance against specific criteria or standards, not on a bell curve. It can stand alone or exist alongside traditional letter grading.

Performance assessment: This assessment measures how well students apply their knowledge, skills, and abilities to authentic problems. The key feature is that it requires the student to produce something, such as a report, experiment, or performance, which is scored against specific criteria.

Portfolio: This assessment consists of a body of student work collected over an extended period, from a few weeks to a year or more. This work can be produced in response to a test prompt or assignment but is often simply drawn from everyday classroom tasks. Frequently, portfolios also contain an element of student reflection.

Exhibition: A type of performance assessment that requires a public presentation, as in the sciences or performing arts. Other fields can also require an exhibition component. Students might be required, for instance, to justify their position in an oral presentation or debate.

Performance task: A piece of work students are asked to do to show how well they apply their knowledge, skills, or abilities—from writing an essay to diagnosing and fixing a broken circuit. A performance assessment typically consists of several performance tasks. Performance tasks also may be included in traditional multiple-choice tests.

With thanks to: Paul Leather, director for state and local partnerships at the Center for Innovation in Education; Mark Barnes, founder of Times 10 Publications; Peter Ross, principal at Education First; Scott Marion, executive director at the Center for Assessment; Sean P. “Jack” Buckley, president, Imbellus; Starr Sackstein, an educator and opinion blogger at edweek.org; and Steve Ferrara, senior adviser at Measured Progress.

Have we missed any terms that confuse you? Why not write and tell us?

A version of this article appeared in the February 06, 2019 edition of Education Week as Performance Assessment: A Guide to the Vocabulary

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8 Task-based Language Teaching Activities to Simulate Key Situations

Do you like to solve problems? Complete a puzzle?

Miss the days when you’d dump a big pile of Legos on the floor, figure out which pieces go with which and put them all together?

Do you see language learning as a riddle, an enigma, a challenge that you have to find a way to unravel and put back together again in order to make it useful and meaningful ?

Do your students ?

If so, you should try task-based teaching activities in your language classroom!

Why Use Task-based Teaching?

What is task-based teaching, what are the steps for a successful task-based teaching activity, 8 favorite task-based activities, 1. road trip, 2. the business mixer, 3. first day of class, 4. the farewell party, 5. department of tourism, 6. scavenger hunt, 7. the interview, 8. show and tell.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

In task-based teaching, the center of the learning process moves to the students themselves and allows them to come to the realization that language is a tool to tackle and (re)solve real-world problems.

The process of task-based learning itself teaches important skills. Students learn:

• How to ask questions
• How to negotiate meaning
• How to interact in and work within groups. Within this group work, they are able to observe different approaches to problem-solving as well as to learn how others think and make decisions.

These are all skills that our students will need in order to be successful in the real world, regardless of which language(s) they use there.

In addition, task-based teaching provides students with the linguistic components they will need to accomplish these real-world tasks. These include:

• How to introduce themselves
• How to talk about themselves, their families, their interests, their likes and dislikes, their needs, etc. in the right socio-cultural context.

By moving the focus away from mechanical drills—although such drills do still have their place even today in language teaching, especially when teaching highly inflected languages—task-based teaching focuses on communication and interaction, using appropriate language at the correct time.

Task-based language teaching is a student-centered approach to second language instruction. It is an offshoot of the communicative approach , wherein activities focus on having students use authentic target language in order to complete meaningful tasks, i.e. situations they might encounter in the real world and other project-based assignments.

These projects could include visiting the doctor, making a phone call, conducting an interview in order to find answers to specific questions or gathering information to make a poster or advertisement.

In task-based teaching the focus is not on grammar, but rather on helping students develop linguistic strategies for completing the assigned tasks within the constraints of what they know of the target language. Because the emphasis is on spontaneous, creative language use, whether spoken or written, rather than on absolute accuracy, assessment is based on task outcome.

Before even stepping into the classroom and using a task-based activity, it is important to have a firm objective in mind: Why are you using this activity?

What steps do you need to take there in order for your students to succeed?

1. Start with a pre-task activity. This stage starts with the instructor explaining to her students what will be expected in the task cycle and post-task review stages. This is very much in line with the PPP ( p resentation, p ractice, p erformance) approach to instructional design.

• In a lower-level class , it will likely include an introduction or review of key vocabulary or grammatical concepts the students will need to accomplish the assigned task.
• In a higher-level class , where the grammar and vocabulary have already been introduced, the students might be asked to brainstorm as to what language and linguistic features they would expect to need in order to complete the task successfully.

2. Follow the actual task cycle.

In this stage, the students complete the task either in pairs or small groups. The instructor is generally reduced to the role of observer, stepping in only when the students seem to be going too far astray from the assignment at hand.

3. Classroom work ends with the post-task review.

This is where the students present their work in some fashion. They might:

• Report their findings to the class as a whole.
• Perform a dialog or skit.
• Share their written story or video or poster with their classmates.

Depending on your goals and the time available, you can ask your students to perform some type of peer assessment at this point. This also assures you that your students pay attention to the presentations of their classmates!

4. Give a relevant homework assignment.

Unless the activity is the culmination of a unit, chapter or class, you will likely need to come up with an appropriate homework assignment and a logical follow-up to the activity just completed in class. This too can take a number of forms. Your students could:

• Write an essay based on their in-class work.
• Write a reflective piece, a self-critique about what they accomplished and learned.
• Write an assessment of the others in their group, of the other groups or of the project as a useful learning mechanism.
• Turn in their own version of the project, as they would have done it if they could have worked independently, explaining why they would have done things differently had they had the opportunity.

With some theoretical background and those practical steps in mind, let’s look at some task-based activities you might want to use in your language classroom.

For this task-based language teaching activity, you should have enough maps for each group in your class.

• At the beginning of the class, you should ask each group what information they need from you in order to plan the perfect trip. This might include the number of days you wish to travel, your budget and what you like to do while on the road or in your free time.
• Once your students have this information, set them loose with their maps and give them time to plan!
• When they are done, have them present their trip to the entire class. Students can decide to include pictures or authentic videos to showcase their trip , such as those found on FluentU.

FluentU allows students to watch a curated library of authentic English videos, that are paired with interactive dual-language subtitles that they can click on if they don’t know a word and want to see a context-specific definition.

Your class, as a whole, can now vote on which trip you are going to take!

What about homework? Depending on the level of the students, there are a couple of options:

• If it is a lower-level class , they could write a short postcard home, telling some key points of one day of the trip.
• If it is a more advanced level class , they could write two or three days’ journal entries , similar to a postcard, but more detailed and, of course, using more language skills.

If you have a class of college students or professionals, they will have to assessment Why not help prepare them for this by doing a simulation activity in the target language?

For this activity, you will need to prepare in advance a number of cards that will tell students:

• The name of their company
• The product they sell or represent
• Some basic information about the company they work for
• What they are looking for. You should be sure that each card has at least one match for point (4). You do not want to set your students up for failure.

Before starting, you should ensure that all students know what a mixer or networking activity is and what it entails.

For the activity itself:

• Students will walk around the room introducing themselves and engaging in some small talk, before discussing what it is they do and what they are looking for in a business deal or partner.
• They should move from person to person until they have found the perfect match! If they find their match before everyone else, they can continue to engage in small talk with others until everyone has found their match.
• At the end of the activity, they should return to their perfect pair, and each can explain why it is that they are the match for that person.

For homework, as in real life, your students can follow up with a brief handwritten note or short email message thanking their partner for their time and reiterating their interest in working together.

How do you spend the first day of class?

The odds are pretty good that your students are in your class in order to learn how to speak and that they will want as many opportunities to speak as they can find. This task can help with that!

• Start that first day of class with a game of 20 Questions , but with some modifications. Namely, instead of using the game to guess the identity of a famous person, ask your students, first in groups and then as a whole, to come up with 20 questions.
• Once you have agreed on a list of questions, send your students back into their groups to put these questions into a logical order. Come back together again and agree upon an order.
• At this point, each student should pair up with another student, preferably one from a different group. They should ask each other the questions, making note of the answers.
• After your students have done this, they should then take their schedules and compare them with that of another student or students whom they might find interesting to converse with.
• The final step in this exercise is for the students to determine whether they have compatible schedules or not, and, if so, agree upon a time to meet for weekly or twice-monthly conversation.

For this particular activity, you don’t need a specific homework assignment because the follow-up activity will be the actual conversations in which the students engage.

Everyone sees friends move away at some point in their life. Maybe when that happened to you, you planned a farewell party for them. Why not turn this into a task-based activity for your classroom?

Before class, you will need to make a shopping list and a separate stack of cards. On them will be the foods and drinks that appear on that list. Each student will get a list and a card .

The lists could be in the first language or in the target language, depending on what type of class you are teaching. The cards should be in the target language.

• The first task for your students is to go around and identify, in the target language, who is bringing what to the party.
• Once you have been assured that everyone has done this step correctly, you can divide the class into small groups and start the second stage: planning the actual party!
• For this task, you will need to assign your students a number of questions to resolve: They will need to decide when is the best time for the party, what they will do at the party, what food to bring, etc. At the end, each group will present its party plan and everyone will decide who has planned the best party.

What about homework? One idea is for each student to take on the role of the friend who is leaving and, the day after the party and before leaving town, write a thank you note to his or her fellow students, thanking them for the party.

Many students who are studying a second language are doing so because they are either living in the country where that language is spoken or they want to visit that country . We can make a task-based activity that will prepare them for the latter!

• Ask your students to brainstorm what they remember seeing either in print or on TV when a travel destination is advertised. What stuck out in their minds? What made them want to go there? If they went there, what did they do while they were there?
• Now have them think of a place in a country where the target language is spoken that they might like to visit. What is it about that place that draws them to it? What do they think of when they think of that place?
• Now you can create small groups. Each small group should decide where they would like to travel, if that has not already been determined, and what they would use in a poster campaign to advertise that locale based on what they know about the place.
• The students will then design their own poster campaigns, complete with words and images, which they will then bring to the next class and present to their classmates as part of a tourism initiative.
• As with other activities here, the students can vote on the best poster campaign.

Homework? Have your students write a letter to their parents asking for permission to go to the winning locale over Spring Break, being sure to explain why they want to go there, what they will do there and how, of course, being there will help their language to improve!

Think of the Scavenger Hunt as one big task composed of many smaller tasks.

For example, you can divide the class into two or three groups and instruct them to find “Golden Keys” (or any object of your choice) around campus. Each key opens a box that contains a mini-task. The group that completes all tasks first will be declared the winner and given an awesome bounty or reward of your choice.

Unlike previous examples of tasks that require days of practice and longer periods of preparation, the tasks involved here can be completed on the spot. For example, you can give tasks like:

• Arrange the written numbers from smallest to largest.
• Identify the person described in a paragraph of the target language.
• Bring a red, round object or a brown, square one.
• Bring an object that matches the adjective.
• Translate three sentences correctly.

This task should be done in pairs. One student will serve as the host or interviewer, the other will be the celebrity guest.

This can be done impromptu for advanced classes, but for beginners, you can give a day or two of prep where the students rehearse their Q&A. You can add spice to the task by giving key questions that the host should ask the guest. Questions like:

• Who do you like in class?
• Which Hollywood actor do you think you look like?
• If a genie grants you three wishes, what will be your first wish?

This task should be done individually and in front of the class. It will require some days of practice.

Ask students to share something personal about themselves. Popular choices would be:

• “My Typical Day”
• “My Ideal Mate”
• “My Hobbies”
• “My Pet Peeves”
• “The Biggest Regret of My Life”
• “The Happiest Day of My Life”
• “The Real Reason I Want to Learn German/Italian/French/Spanish”
• “Three Things You Don’t Know About Me”

The speech should be done in the target language, of course.

I hope you enjoyed these task-based foreign language activities and find them useful in your teaching!

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The Time Teachers Spend Teaching: What We Know about Time on Task and How to Boost It

Recommended.

Even when students are in school, they often miss opportunities to learn due to a lack of teacher time on task (i.e., the time teachers spend actively engaged in teaching). We have clear evidence that boosting the quality of pedagogy can boost student learning outcomes, but we also have evidence that boosting teacher time on task—even in the absence of improved pedagogy—can boost student learning outcomes. Here is a round-up of what we know about the link between time on task and student learning outcomes, how much time on task is lost in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and ideas on how to boost time on task.

How closely linked are teacher time on task and learning outcomes?

Studies of the relationship between time on task and learning tend to take one of two approaches. Either they examine the association between total hours of instruction and student test scores, or they examine interventions that boost instructional time. In the former case, multiple studies find a positive association between hours of instruction and student test scores. For example, comparing performance of the same student across two subjects with different amounts of instructional time (using the TIMSS data ) suggests that “ an additional hour of instruction time [per week] leads to an increase of 0.03 standard deviations in students’ test scores.” Studies using other data find similar results. A recurring pattern in these studies is a weaker relationship in middle-income countries or when students have less qualified teachers. (Few low-income countries participate in these particular international assessments and so are outside the sample, but extrapolating the principle that weaker instruction means fewer gains from increased time on task would suggest that the relationship might be even weaker in the lowest income environments.)

Still, there is evidence from middle-income countries that increasing instructional time (and, assuming that the proportion of time that teachers spend teaching does not change, that means an increase in time on task) does increase learning outcomes. This largely comes from evidence on lengthening school days. In Brazil, increasing instructional hours in math and language by 50 percent and 20 percent boosted test scores by roughly 0.2 standard deviations in each subject. A similar expansion of the school day in Mexico boosted both math and language test scores, with impacts growing over time–to between 0.11 and 0.14 standard deviations after five years.

That study also importantly shows that when studies of extending the school day don’t adjust for the fact that some children switch schools in order to access longer school days—e.g., children with resources to move or children whose families are highly motivated by education—they likely overestimate the impact of lengthening the school day. In Mexico, a failure to control would result in overestimating impact on math scores by 20 percent and on language scores by 60 percent.

There is variation in the impact of extending the school day across settings, but almost all studies of lengthening the school day find significant, positive impacts; and a recent review shows evidence that suggests that extending school hours is one of the interventions least subject to diminishing effects as the programs are scaled. Many of these interventions do not improve the quality of instruction; they just add time.

So simply giving children more instructional time often appears to boost their learning outcomes (at least a bit!), but that impact seems to be moderated by teacher quality. 

How much time on task is lost in low- and middle-income countries?

Lost teacher time on task can be broken down into three principal sources: teacher absences from school, teachers absences from the classroom conditional on being in school, and lost teaching time conditional on being in the classroom. Self-reported data from teachers across many countries suggest significant losses on all three fronts (Figure 1). Unannounced site visits to schools suggest even higher rates of teacher absence from the school and from the classroom than self-reported data: for example, teacher absences from school in Togo were reported to be 23 percent from site visits versus under 5 percent in self-reported data. (The measures of absence across the two studies aren’t exactly the same, but the differences are still suggestive.) Classroom observations demonstrate significant losses in classroom time even when teachers are present: across six countries in Latin America , as much as 20 percent of time alloted for teaching is lost, the equivalent of one less day of instruction per week. In Senegal , only 40 percent of teachers' time are spent on teaching, another 40 percent on classroom management, and the remaining 20 percent is time off-task.

The short answer is that a lot of time on task is lost, and it is lost on all fronts. The combination can be pretty striking: in Ghana , head teachers reported that pupils received 3.7 hours of reading instruction every week. But when researchers observed classes, it looked more like 2.4 hours. When you factor in both student and teacher absences, the time dropped even further to less than two hours a week, or about 23 minutes a day. This loss throughout the process points to the possibility that the best margin on which to tackle this challenge may be whichever margin offers the most scalable, cost-effective policy levers.

Figure 1: Even self-reports of teacher absences show significant time lost

Source: Data are from the papers in the Time to Teach series that covers Côte d’Ivoire ( Conto, 2021 ), Ghana ( Akseer & Játiva, 2021 ), Liberia ( Peirolo & Játiva, 2021 ), Guinea-Bissau ( Nugroho, 2021 ), South Sudan ( Târlea et al., 2021 ), Zanzibar ( Han Yue et al., 2021 ), Eastern and Southern Africa ( Karamperidou et al., 2020 ), and West and Central Africa ( Játiva et al., 2022 ). Note: The Time to Teach series reports survey results from teachers in several Sub-Saharan African countries that capture teacher absenteeism across four dimensions: (i) absence from school; (ii) absence of punctuality (late arrival and/or early departure from school); (iii) absence from the classroom (while in school); (iv) absence from teaching (i.e., reduced time on task while in the classroom).

What tools do education systems have to boost time on task?

First, education systems may lengthen the school day. Lengthening the school day, as discussed above, tends to boost student learning outcomes. But while this is a relatively straightforward intervention, it is also an expensive one . However, it may be more cost-effective than it appears at first glance: longer school days mean households are more able to work and some studies show that longer school days reduced crime and adolescent pregnancy, so the economic and social gains may offset some of the expenditures.

Second, education systems can seek to reduce teacher absences. Teacher absences reflect systemic failures : teachers often report absences due to administrative and political tasks. Even when absences reflect attendance to personal needs, any apparent excess of those reflects a failure in workforce management. If you simply ask teachers how often they’re absent, many report official school business (Figure 2). And yes, one should take the reasons people give for their absences with several grains of salt. But qualitative studies corroborate this result.

Figure 2: While teachers most commonly report health problems as the reason for absence, official school business is the second or third most common reason in most countries

Source: Data are from the papers in the Time to Teach series that covers Côte d’Ivoire ( Conto, 2021 ), Ghana ( Akseer & Játiva, 2021 ), Liberia ( Peirolo & Játiva, 2021 ), Guinea-Bissau ( Nugroho, 2021 ), South Sudan ( Târlea et al., 2021 ), Zanzibar ( Han Yue et al., 2021 ), Eastern and Southern Africa ( Karamperidou et al., 2020 ), and West and Central Africa ( Játiva et al., 2022 ). Note: The Time to Teach series reports survey results from teachers in several Sub-Saharan African countries that capture teacher absenteeism and their reasons for the absenteeism. Each respondent can choose multiple reasons for absenteeism.

How might education systems reduce such absences? A systematic review identified nine interventions. They include the use of cameras to monitor and reward teacher attendance in India or using parents to monitor teacher attendance three times a day in Peru, both of which interventions boosted teacher attendance and student learning outcomes, but neither of which was implemented at any sort of scale. In an effort to understand how this type of intervention might work at scale, researchers tested the use of video dramatizations depicting the problem of teacher absences and how parents could mobilize to address it. In the field, seeing these videos did boost parents’ willingness to take action, but the study did not gather evidence on either teacher absences or student performances, limiting how confident we can be of the approach. Guerrero et al.’s review finds little impact of less direct approaches of boosting teacher attendance—e.g., general efforts to boost community involvement in schools or teacher incentives for student performance.

A third area is whether better teaching tools (such as detailed teacher guides) or better teacher support (such as coaching) boost time on task. This could work either through reducing absences (either because teaching becomes easier or because coaching acts as informal monitoring) or through increased time on task conditional on being in the classroom (again, because teaching is easier with good tools). A superficial examination of evaluations of “structured pedagogy” interventions (i.e., usually a combination of student books, detailed teacher guides, with some training and coaching) shows mixed evidence on this front. One study in Nigeria found that a structured pedagogy intervention boosted teacher attendance. This area merits further exploration.

Other possible tools include school management and leadership interventions to help teachers use their time as effectively as possible, or more adjunct staff to handle non-teaching tasks. We have much more to learn; but we do have some tools to boost time on task with evidence behind them, even as we continue to grow the evidence base.

CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise. CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.

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Adapted high-quality curriculum to help special education students succeed in the classroom

Task Boxes – What They Are and Why We Love Them

December 9, 2023

Task boxes are one of the strategies and tools we use to enhance learning for students with diverse needs. If you haven’t used task boxes before, or if you need a refresher, here’s our run down of the who, what, why, where, when, and “WOW!” of these fabulous tools.

What are Task Boxes?

Task boxes are a fantastic resource for educators in a special education classroom. They consist of individual activities or tasks that offer structured learning opportunities for students to develop and practice specific skills. These boxes typically contain various materials like puzzles, flashcards, matching games, and manipulatives tailored to suit students’ individualized needs and abilities.

Types of Task Box

Task boxes are carefully curated to meet the individual needs and goals of students with diverse abilities. Depending on the resources and technology available, they can be physical, digital, or a combination of both. 

Physical task boxes

Physical task boxes can be created using storage containers with clearly labeled compartments. Materials can range from manipulatives, flashcards, puzzles, or any other sensory or tactile resources appropriate for the targeted skill areas.

Digital task box apps and websites

Technology can greatly enhance task box activities in special education classrooms. There are numerous digital apps and websites that offer customizable and interactive task box options. These include platforms like Boom Learning, Task Box Fill, or Seesaw, which allow for engaging virtual activities and progress tracking.

Picture-based schedules and visual supports

Visual schedules are an essential part of special education classrooms. Using visual supports like picture schedules or visual task cards within the task boxes can provide clear step-by-step instructions for students to follow independently.

Why are Task Boxes Important in a Special Education Classroom?

Promoting Independence and Autonomy

One of the primary goals of special education is to foster independence and self-reliance. 

Task boxes promote independence and autonomy among students with special needs. By engaging in these self-directed activities, students can independently work through tasks at their own pace and with minimal guidance from teachers, support staff, or parents.

This promotes confidence, decision-making skills, and a sense of accomplishment as students complete tasks successfully. In addition, this autonomy boosts confidence and empowers students to take ownership of their learning journey.

Visual supports

Visual supports are essential for many students with special needs, as they enhance comprehension and facilitate communication. Task boxes can be designed with visual aids, such as picture schedules, visual step-by-step instructions, or symbol-supported activities. These visual prompts help students understand tasks, follow directions, and complete activities effectively.

Targeted Skill Development

Task boxes are designed to target specific skills that students need to develop. These can range from fine motor and gross motor skills to cognitive, communication, and social skills. By practicing these skills repeatedly in a structured and engaging manner, students can strengthen their abilities and work towards achieving their individual goals.

Differentiated Instruction

In our special education classrooms, students have diverse abilities and learning styles. Task boxes offer a way to deliver instruction in a differentiated manner, catering to the unique needs of each student. We can create task boxes that are tailored to meet the individualized goals and objectives of our students, and this ensures meaningful and relevant learning opportunities.

Engagement and Motivation

Task boxes are designed to be visually appealing and engaging for students. With colorful materials, interactive elements, and hands-on activities, these boxes capture students’ attention and maintain their interest throughout the learning process. This enhanced engagement leads to increased motivation, active participation, and a positive attitude towards learning.

Progress Monitoring and Data Collection

Task boxes serve as valuable tools for progress monitoring and data collection in a special education classroom. Teachers can observe and document students’ performance, noting areas of strength and areas that require additional support. This data helps in making informed instructional decisions, modifying or adapting tasks to better meet students’ needs, and tracking progress over time.

Generalization of Skills

Task boxes provide opportunities for students to generalize skills learned in the classroom to real-life situations. For example, a task box activity that involves sorting objects by color can be extended to sorting items in a grocery store or organizing items at home. This promotes the transfer of skills and helps students apply what they have learned in meaningful contexts.

How to Successfully Implement Task Boxes

Identify Individual Goals and Objectives

Before implementing task boxes, it is crucial to identify each student’s goals and objectives. By aligning task box activities with specific learning targets, teachers can ensure that students are engaging in meaningful and purposeful practice.

Create an Organized System

Establish a well-organized system for storing and accessing task boxes. Label each box with clear instructions and expectations, ensuring that students can easily understand and navigate through the activities independently.

Introduce and Model

Take the time to introduce each task box activity to students, providing clear instructions and modeling the expected behaviors. This initial guidance and support will help students understand the purpose of each task and how to engage with the materials effectively.

Implement a Rotation System

Implement a rotation system where task boxes are regularly changed or updated. Such a system will help to avoid monotony and provide variety. This, in turn, keeps students engaged and interested, preventing boredom or disengagement.

Monitor and Provide Feedback

Regularly monitor students’ progress as they engage with task boxes. Provide feedback and positive reinforcement to acknowledge their efforts and achievements. This helps to build students’ self-confidence and motivation.

The Last Word

Task boxes play a vital role in our special education classrooms, offering a range of benefits for students with diverse needs. From promoting independence and autonomy to targeting specific skills, these structured learning opportunities enhance engagement, facilitate progress monitoring, and support differentiated instruction.

By effectively implementing task boxes, we can create an inclusive and empowering environment that fosters our students’ overall development and growth.

About Patricia Barnes

Anonymous says

December 10, 2023 at 6:15 pm

I love task boxes and use many of yours! Another great thing about them is when I have an adult up in your room & I am supposed to utilize them in some way, if they aren’t great with the students, I always have a pile of in progress task boxes for them to work on!

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Building the Next Generation of Teachers Through Apprenticeship

Registered Apprenticeship is an effective "earn and learn" model with a long history of establishing career pathways in growing industries by providing structured, paid, on-the-job learning experiences with a mentor combined with job-related technical instruction that leads to a nationally recognized credential. To learn more about Registered Apprenticeships, visit www.apprenticeship.gov .

Building on the Biden administration’s Good Jobs Initiative, we’re expanding Registered Apprenticeships for educators and investing in quality teacher preparation programs. These efforts started with a joint effort, leadership, and call to action from our departments through a Dear Colleague Letter for education and workforce leaders to address educator shortages, and investments to support developing, expanding and scaling high-quality and affordable pathways into teaching. This call to action aims to ensure teachers have access to increased pay and better working conditions across the early childhood, K-12 and higher education workforce.  

The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has continued to partner with the Department of Education to make significant investments to develop and scale teacher apprenticeship programs, including: 

We also recently announced the availability of nearly $200 million to support Registered Apprenticeship expansion, prioritizing projects that support the Investing in America agenda by increasing access to Registered Apprenticeships in high-demand sectors and occupations, including K-12 teacher occupations. Strategies to use Registered Apprenticeship to train a next generation of teachers continue to expand, with 37 states and territories now providing K-12 teacher apprenticeship programs, up from just two states in 2022. Today, over 100 K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs have been registered and over 3,000 K-12 teacher apprentices have been trained. That’s a lot of progress made in just two years! And this administration is committed to ensuring that progress continues. 

To support raising awareness around K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeships, ETA industry intermediary partner RTI International published a Profile in Educator Registered Apprenticeship Programs report, which explores different program design models, varying target populations, modernized onramps to successful teacher pathways, innovative funding models, and opportunities for degree attainment. 

The report is the first in a series, which ETA will release in partnership with RTI to explore various strategies to expand the use of Registered Apprenticeship to train America’s educators. K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs will continue to play a key role in increasing pathways to rewarding careers in the education sector, filling vacant positions with high-quality, well-trained teachers, and a focus on diversifying the workforce.  For additional information on any of these programs, please visit Apprenticeship.gov.

• Employment and Training Administration (ETA)
• apprenticeship
• Education Department
• Registered Apprenticeship

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Advancing social justice, promoting decent work ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations

Education, skills and lifelong learning are the paths to social and economic development and employability. Teachers and education workers are at the heart of education and training systems. Secure employment and decent working conditions for teachers are essential strategies to ensure quality education personnel and to address global teacher shortages. The ILO promotes quality teaching through two related Recommendations concerning teaching personnel, as well as the  Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel  . It also promotes follow-up to the Recommendations of  the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession .

United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession

Standards and tools

• Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel (1966 and 1997)
• ILO Policy Guidelines on the promotion of decent work for early childhood education personnel (2014)
• Handbook of good human resource practices in the teaching profession (2012)

National labour legislation (NATLEX database)

• National legislation dealing with teachers

Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel (CEART)

ILO/GIZ Projects

• Teaching and the teaching profession in a digital world: COVID-19 and beyond
• Digitalization, the future of work and the teaching profession

15 November 2023

10 Years of the ILO Policy Guidelines on ECE personnel

Geneva, 17-21 May 2021

Technical meeting on the future of work in the education sector

Geneva, 18-20 September 2018

Global Dialogue Forum on Employment Terms and Conditions in Tertiary Education

All publications

Transforming the teaching profession

Recommendations and summary of deliberations of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession (2024)

10 Years of the ILO Policy Guidelines on Early Childhood Education Personnel

Teaching and the teaching profession in a digital world – Bosnia and Herzegovina

Quick links

• Skills for Trade and Economic Diversification (STED)
• School-to-work transition survey
• Skills and Employability Branch
• Skills for Employment Global Public-Private Knowledge Sharing Platform
• International Programme on the Elimanation of Child Labour (IPEC)
• Occupational safety and health in the education and research sector

Contact information

The Sectoral Policies Department (SECTOR)

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Education, Workforce and Community Investment Task Force FY25 Appropriations Priorities

• Advocacy Communications
• NGA Letters

The Honorable Patty Murray Chair Senate Committee on Appropriations Capitol Building S-146A Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Susan Collins Vice Chair Senate Committee on Appropriations Capitol Building S-128 Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Tom Cole Chair House Committee on Appropriations Capitol Building H-307 Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Rosa DeLauro Ranking Member House Committee on Appropriations 1036 Longworth House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chair Murray, Chair Cole, Vice Chair Collins, and Ranking Member DeLauro:

As Co-Chairs of the National Governor Association’s Education, Workforce and Community Investment Task Force, we welcome the opportunity to provide you with our priorities as your respective committees continue to craft and consider the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) appropriations bills.

The NGA utilizes a task force structure to ensure a more streamlined, Governor-driven approach to formulate and execute on federal policy matters that are priorities to Governors. The three task forces — Education, Workforce and Community Investment; Public Health and Disaster Response; and Economic Development and Revitalization — work in a bipartisan fashion to coordinate NGA’s work on federal policy issues.

The Education, Workforce and Community Investment Task Force has jurisdiction over issues in the areas of Labor and Workforce Development, Career and Technical Skills, PreK-12 Education, Postsecondary Education, Criminal Justice, Housing, and Agriculture. Congress has been an instrumental partner for states and territories in funding efforts to address academic recovery, support workforce development and job creation, and revitalize communities that were impacted by the pandemic.  Therefore, as you look toward Fiscal Year 2025’s appropriations process, NGA requests that you prioritize the following funding efforts in support of:

• All programs under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – Governors strongly encourage continued support for ESEA Title I Grants to States and IDEA Part B Grants to States. With COVID relief funding set to wind down, Governors are focused on sustaining K-12 investments, supporting efforts to recruit and retain educators, and addressing the academic and mental health needs of students and staff. It is important that Congress also continue investing in programs such as, but not limited to, the Student Support and Academic Enrichment State Grants, 21 st Century Community Learning Centers, the Literacy Education Grant program, Impact Aid, and the Supporting Effective Educator Development program.
• School Based Mental Health Services Professional Grants and the School Based Mental Health Services Grants – With continued mental health challenges for students and staff, investing in the School Based Mental Health Services Professional Grants and the School Based Mental Health Services Grants remains a top priority for Governors. These programs help provide the critical mental health infrastructure in schools and Governors urge Congress to continue its strong support for these two grant programs.
• State grants under the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act – Governors are utilizing Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) funding to expand dual and concurrent enrollment offerings, bolster talent pipelines, and establish work-based learning pathways, among other key CTE initiatives. These investments help schools address academic recovery, improve achievement rates, and increase high school completion rates, while also fostering innovation within schools and offering students hands-on learning experiences in real-world environments. It is important for Perkins funding to remain strong to ensure our youth are adequately prepared for success in the 21st-century economy.
• Pell Grants – Governors are prioritizing innovative postsecondary affordability pathways for students in their states or territories, and welcome Congress’ continued support for the Pell Grant program to compliment these efforts. The Pell Grant is the greatest tool at Congress’ disposal to increase postsecondary affordability for students with the greatest financial need, and Governors urge continued support for Pell Grant funding.
• State Longitudinal Data Systems & Workforce Data Quality Initiative – Governors value the federal support states and territories have received to establish and build out early childhood, K-12, postsecondary education and workforce longitudinal data systems. These data systems are essential tools to help identify and implement effective investments in education and workforce programs; however, greater support is needed to further enhance and modernize data systems to maximize their value.
• All programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) – With historically tight labor markets, Governors are relying on their public workforce system to collaborate with employers and fill crucial job vacancies. WIOA State Plans, which were submitted by Governors earlier this year for the 2024-2027 planning cycle, included, among other key initiatives, descriptions about how states and territories plan to use WIOA funding to maximize infrastructure, chip fabrication and energy investments made by Congress in 2021 and 2022. Investing in WIOA at a level that accounts for inflation will ensure that states and territories can carry out their state plans, having the necessary resources to train workers, address labor shortages, boost labor force participation, and promote access to economic opportunities. Governors also urge appropriators to consider granting greater funding flexibility across WIOA Title I programs to empower states and territories to pursue innovative reforms to their workforce systems.
• Funding for Apprenticeships – Governors are turning to apprenticeships to address labor shortages in both the trades and in sectors that historically have not utilized the apprenticeship model, such as technology, education and health care. With college costs continuing to rise, apprenticeships offer great value, opening debt-free pathways to family-sustaining jobs for a more diverse workforce. Congress should maintain its support for these investments as Governors seek to increase the number of apprentices in their states and territories, and spur innovation across industry sectors.
• State and Territorial Unemployment Insurance System Investment – Governors support continued investments to support state and territorial unemployment insurance systems. Such investments are critical to ensure states and territories have the resources necessary to combat unemployment fraud of all types, respond quickly to changing economic circumstances and safeguard taxpayer dollars.
• Funding for Agriculture Programs – Governors see firsthand the value of a robust agricultural economy and the important role Congress plays by investing in American agriculture and supporting our nation’s farmers and ranchers. Governors support funding for critical U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiatives such as expanding commercial agricultural export markets through the Market Access Program, the Agricultural Research Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, monitoring and preventing invasive pests, species and diseases, forest management, water sustainability, and implementing conservation programs through the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
• Support for Rural America – Governors recognize the importance of USDA Rural Development and request continued support for programs administered by the Rural Utilities Service, the Rural Housing Service, and the Rural Business-Cooperative Service in the pursuit of partnering with rural communities seeking to obtain federal resources. The partnerships supported by these programs help foster sustainable growth and enhance the quality of life in rural areas across the nation.
• Funding for Affordable Housing Assistance – With the current state of the housing market, Governors are stepping up their efforts to establish and maintain affordable housing through zoning reform, enhanced financing and dedicated funding as they seek to make it more affordable to live and work in their states and territories. Governors support continued investment in the HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME), Housing Choice Vouchers, Homeless Assistance Grants, and the Housing for the Elderly and Housing for Persons with Disabilities programs, as these programs help ensure affordable housing is available in every state and territory and for those who are most at-risk.
• Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program – Governors continue to support the critically important annual formula grants to states and local governments for a wide range of community and economic development purposes. CDBG grants expand affordable housing opportunities, create jobs, and stabilize neighborhoods across the country. Specifically, funding distributed through the States and Small Cities program, ensures that housing, public facilities, and economic development projects benefit persons of low and moderate income. As such, Governors request that Congress continue to provide consistent appropriations for the Community Development Block Grant Program.
• Grants to State, Territorial and Local Law Enforcement – Governors strongly support investments made to state and local law enforcement agencies. Funding for the programs within the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office provide states and territories with valuable resources to support a range of activities necessary to keep communities safe, including the hiring and training of law enforcement and efforts to prevent school and community violence. Governors also support funding for the Violence Against Women Act prevention and prosecution programs, the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants and the Project Safe Neighborhoods program.

On behalf of all Governors, we thank you for your continued support of these top NGA priorities for Fiscal Year 2025, and for focusing on funding our nation’s critical needs.

Governor Brad Little, Idaho Co-Chair, Education, Workforce, and Community Investment Task Force National Governors Association

Governor Albert Bryan, U.S. Virgin Islands Co-Chair, Education, Workforce, and Community Investment Task Force National Governors Association

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Managing Your ISC2 CPE Credits and Activities

Becoming a cybersecurity professional requires a dedication to life-long learning, as threats, vulnerabilities and best practices are constantly evolving. Maintaining your ISC2 certification – from CC to CISSP – requires earning continuing professional education (CPE) credits.

Depending on which certification you hold – or if you’re an Associate of ISC2 – the number of CPE credits you need to earn will vary. For associates, the requirement is 15 credits per year. For all certifications, CPE activities must be completed during your three-year certification cycle. ISC2 provides annual recommendations in our Certification Maintenance Handbook , to maintain a healthy balance between your professional development, day job and your personal life.

Earning CPE credits

The general rule of CPE credits is that 1 hour of activity = 1 credit. If you’re participating in an activity through ISC2 directly – like attending Security Congress , taking a Skill-Builder or doing a JTA survey – your activity will be submitted on your behalf to your CPE Portal. Depending on the activity, the CPE credit will be awarded between one week and one month after you complete the activity. You can log into your ISC2 member account and visit https://cpe.isc2.org to check your CPE progress. We’ve also published a video on how to access the CPE portal that you can view to follow along with the steps. As a reminder, CPE credits are only submitted on your behalf if you are in your cycle, or within your 90-day grace period. If you’ve let your certification, or associate status, lapse, CPE activity will not upload automatically. You will need to provide that information manually, but any activity from within your cycle – as well as the 90-day grace period – is valid for CPE credit, even if your account is in suspension.

Using the ISC2 CPE portal

For activities not submitted on your behalf by ISC2, you’ll need to use the CPE Portal to upload them. The first step when submitting CPE activities is to select which type of credit you are applying for. There are two types of CPE credits: Group A and Group B.

Group A relates to the domains of your certification and can include reading a whitepaper on AI security or watching a webinar on zero trust. You’ll be required to provide supporting documentation of your activity and summarize your learning. Watch our quick video on how to submit Group A CPE credits.

When submitting Group A activity, you’ll select the relevant domain of your certification. You can select more than one domain from more than one certification, if applicable. If you don’t select a domain for your Group A activity, the entry will remain in the draft status, as this is a required field.

Group B activities are those that are not related to the technical domains of your certification, but rather activities that grow your general professional skills. This can include a toastmaster's course or reading a book on leadership tactics. See how to submit Group B CPE credits . If you hold the CC, or are an Associate of ISC2, you do not need to earn Group B CPE credits.

Still have questions about your ISC2 CPE requirements?

If you have questions about a particular activity you’ve participated in, we’ve put together a quick CPE FAQ video that answers the most common questions ISC2 members have. You can also join us for the next ISC2 Guide to Membership webinar, or check out a recently held webinar on-demand. We host these webinars every month to guide those new to ISC2 – or close to joining – on how to navigate their member account, find out about ways to engage with their community, events to attend, and so much more. Even if you’re a tenured ISC2 member, we recommend these webinars for a refresh on membership. And yes, you can earn a Group B CPE credit for watching!

Check out these helpful CPE resources

• Read more: Top 10 CPE Credit Tips to Maintain Your Certification
• Watch webinars, earn CPE credits: Start the Year Strong – Watch the Top-Rated Webinars from 2023
• Read more:  Maximize Your ISC2 Membership – Attend Guide to Membership Webinar
• Questions about your account? You can reach out to the ISC2 team directly for help at https://www.isc2.org/contact-us

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Delaware Student of the Week is a future educator within Middletown High

And then there was another student to spotlight.

Delaware Online/The News Journal is running a new initiative to recognize achievements of high school students across the state through reader voting. This "Delaware Student of the Week" honor looks to highlight academic excellence, extracurricular activities, volunteerism, perseverance and more attributes that make up the lives of so many young scholars.

School principals and other educators sent in nominations — while readers, like you, handled the rest. So in this round, who is our Delaware Student of the Week?

That's Kennedi Hutchinson, of Middletown High , claiming just over 49% of the vote this week.

This senior is used to being a leader. Not only in the Teacher Academy Pathway — but leading several student groups, like the Black Student Union and the Best Buddies program. That list continues, as her nominator said she's also a peer tutor, cheerleader and Special Olympics volunteer.

And, this daughter of an educator hopes to become a future teacher herself. Hutchinson is well on her way, looking toward graduation with completed observations at Brick Mill Early Childhood Center as part of her capstone project, according to her nominator.

Other students honored this week were Mariah Maddox, Woodbridge High; Erika Ayala-Rivera, William Penn High; and Abigail "Abby" Ehemann, of St. Mark's High.

Readers: Come back for our next biweekly poll. Educators: There's still time to make additional submissions.

ICYMI: Brandywine students redesign classic board games for players of any ability: Education roundup

[ Editor's note: This is a budding initiative. Did we miss your institution on our email list? Have a comment? Let us know:  [email protected] ]