Instructional Models vs. Strategies vs. Techniques: What's the Difference and How Do We Use Them Together?

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

Better conversations about instruction happen when we all use the same language. Too often in education, we use the same words to mean different things and different words to mean the same thing. Today, then, let's define some key terms for deciding what and how to teach based on your standards.

Let's first talk about the Instructional Model. Instructional Models are overarching approaches to teaching that involve a series of steps in a particular order that are designed to have students think and apply their knowledge in certain ways. For instance, a lesson using the Direct Instruction model is vastly different from a lesson using the Inquiry model, as you can see below:



You can read more about various types of instructional models (including the pros an cons of each) here. How do you decide which type of instructional model to use? Well, it really depends on the standard and how deep you want to go with it. For instance, if you're working on a standard that calls for students to design an experiment, then you probably need to use Inquiry Learning. But if your current standard is on memorizing multiplication facts, then Direct Instruction may be the way to go.



Once you've chosen your Instructional Model, next you're going to look at your Instructional Strategies. Instructional Strategies are categories of evidence-based actions that help students learn and be successful in multiple disciplines and real-life situations. Some of the most commonly considered "high yield" instructional strategies come from the work of Robert Marzano in his seminal book The Art and Science of Teaching. He includes strategies such as Learning Goals, Advance Cues and Organizers, Summarizing & Note Taking, Nonlinguistic Representations, Questioning, and Cooperative Learning.

Most of these strategies are not only good for learning in the classroom, but they're also useful in real-life. For instance, when I go to apply for a car loan, I probably need to have some questions developed (how long will it take me to pay off? how much of my monthly paycheck will it take?). I set goals for myself all the time in the real world (I WILL exercise at least three times this week), and most workplaces using a high degree of cooperative work these days.

You can see that these strategies, while not quite as broad as instructional models, are still more like categories of activities that actual activities themselves. For instance, you might decide that you want to use Note Taking in an upcoming lesson, but that doesn't necessarily describe the actual method you will use to have students take notes.


For that, you need Instructional Techniques. Instructional Techniques are the specific instructional activities that teachers use to engage students. For instance, you might decide to use Cornell Notes or Interactive Notebooks to engage your students in Note Taking. Or maybe you're going to use a Venn Diagram to help students organize information.

Can you mix and match Instructional Models, Strategies, and Techniques?

Yes! There's no one right or wrong way to put together a lesson. Some Instructional Models, Strategies, and Techniques DO tend to organically line up together (for instance, the Inquiry Model is often used with the Generating and Testing Hypotheses Strategy, which is often used with Graphic Organizers for collecting results.

Similarly, Direct Instruction often aligns well with Note Taking, which aligns well with something like Cornell Notes.


How do you use standards to choose an Instructional Models, Strategies, and Techniques?

Let's say that you're working with this Virginia Grade 8 English Standard: The student will find, evaluate, select, and synthesize appropriate resources to produce a research product. The Essential Knowledge, Skills, and Processes go on to describe how students should use primary sources, secondary sources, take notes, and evaluate credibility in creating their product.

So, which instructional methods would work best with this? You could choose Inquiry learning--the major purpose of Inquiry learning, after all, is to have students learn how to ask and answer questions. But you might also choose Project-Based Learning, because students are ultimately creating products. You might even use something slightly more esoteric like Jurisprudential Inquiry, in which students are assigned sides of a controversial issue and must find research to back up their assigned stances to convince a panel to agree with them over the other groups. 

Let's say that you decide to go bold and try out Jurisprudential Inquiry. Now that you've chosen an instructional model, you'll want to look at strategies. Without a doubt, you're going to want to use some kind of Graphic Organizer to help students take notes and organize their arguments. But what kind? Well, part of the Jurisprudential Inquiry process is using analogies to present the case for a particular side, so maybe you decide to use the Bridge Map (a type of Thinking Map) as your Instructional Technique on the day that you have students work on analogies in their groups.

The more instructional models, strategies, and techniques that you know, the more you'll be able to vary your classroom and choose intentionally choose purposeful activities that engage your students in meaningful work.