As we close the year, enjoy a well earned break and begin to prepare for the Spring term, you may want to ask yourself this question: what classroom methods produce maximal impact with low time investment?

As a teacher, you want to aim for the most impact using strategies that take as little time as possible. Perhaps this is the holy grail of pedagogy. This takes some trial and error. Some exploration. You have to experiment, get things wrong and then eventually get them right. Enjoy the journey and learn. Life is busy enough and no teacher wants to waste time with long and laborious methods that don’t produce the impact for their students or themselves. This approach is indicated with the blue scribble.

The trick is to aim for the red scribble in this picture. That’s the sweet spot. Once you hit that, aim to stay there! If not for ever, at least as much as possible.

What has been your most impactful teaching strategies this year, especially during remote and blended learning?