How to move away from lecture-based instruction

Q: “What are a few easy instructional moves I can make to encourage more student engagement? My administrators have been insisting that I move to fewer lecture-based classes. Please help.”

A: I can hear your frustration with your administrator’s request, and I can understand why it might feel like a small, calculated attack. “Use fewer lectures to teach” often lands like: “What you’re doing is wrong.” I can guarantee your leader isn’t suggesting that you have to give up lecturing completely, as short, direct instruction is often necessary to support student learning. You just need a handful of repeatable, low-prep routines and strategies that: make thinking visible, increase student talk, and give you quick feedback so you can adjust in real time. I understand this challenge deeply as I have worked with instructional teams and individual teachers for years now to create learner-centered spaces that develop impactful partnerships between students and teachers to enhance learning cultures.

Below are easy instructional moves you can try tomorrow—no fancy materials, no huge planning burden.

Keep your mini-lesson—then “stop and make them do something”

It’s important to remember that our students need to be engaged with activity to take new learning and make it stick. A simple rule is that mini-lessons or direct instruction should take no more than 7–10 minutes of teacher talk without a student task (write, discuss, decide, solve, rank, annotate). This offers you an opportunity to ensure they are with you, check for understanding and keep engagement high.

An easy strategy to try here is a Think–Ink–Pair–Share. This is Think–Pair–Share with one crucial upgrade: everyone writes first, so more students participate and answers improve.

• Think: Ask a strong question.
• Ink: 60–90 seconds silent writing.
• Pair: 60–90 seconds partner talk.
• Share: Call on a few students or groups. If students are reticent, consider asking them to share about their partner’s contribution.

Edutopia has a clear example of “Think, Ink, Pair, Share” and why the writing step boosts effortful thinking and participation.

Make participation safer: “Everyone answers, not just the fastest”

When students are learning new skills and content, sometimes they lack the confidence to participate loudly. A lot of “low engagement” is actually high risk: students don’t want to be wrong publicly. Build routines where everyone responds but not everyone has to perform. Mini whiteboards (or paper “show me”) are a great solution for this. Ask a question → give wait time → students write → “3, 2, 1—show.”

This makes thinking visible fast and keeps you from only teaching to the three kids who always raise their hands. For a quick look at how whiteboards increase participation and provide rapid checks for understanding. You can do the same thing without whiteboards as well by using half-sheets of paper, index cards, or notebook “hold it up.”

Ask better questions by changing who answers

If you only take volunteers, you’ll mostly hear from volunteers. One engagement move is to shift to “everyone prepares; anyone may be asked.” Once there is safety in the classroom, it is possible to create an environment where students understand that they can be called on at any time. This isn’t to catch them doing something wrong, but rather to demonstrate that they know or to support normalizing making mistakes and sharing ideas. You can try the warm cold call by asking the question, giving appropriate wait time (5–10 seconds) and/or quick write and then call on a student—with support:

• “What did you and your partner say?”
• “Start us off with one idea.”
• “Read your first sentence.”

Please remember that cold calling works best when students trust you and the routine is predictable. It’s not “gotcha,” it’s “we all think here.”

Replace “Any questions?” with quick checks that tell you something

Just this week, I was doing learning walks in a district, listening to a teacher at the beginning of the lesson activating prior knowledge. After he ran through a list of parts that would show up in the packet he gave out, he said, “any questions?” I didn’t need to be a regular in the classroom to know that the students weren’t going to say anything. We have all been guilty of doing things like that in the classroom; unfortunately, it is not an adequate check for understanding. Something you can do instead at the end of a lesson is use exit tickets. You can do this by offering one to three prompts:

• “Answer today’s essential question in two to three sentences.”
• “What’s one misconception someone might have?”
• “Rate your confidence 1–5 and explain why.”

Add structure to student talk so it doesn’t turn into “chat time”

When we hear admins say they want to see “more discussion” in classrooms, it isn’t always as simple as prompting students to talk to each other, especially if it isn’t something they are used to doing. We must scaffold this process to ensure that they know how to use this time effectively and understand our expectations. You can try a Turn-and-talk with roles + sentence starters

• Partner A speaks first; Partner B summarizes.
• Swap roles.
• Use a starter: “I think ___ because ___.” / “I agree/disagree because ___.”

What it looks like in action

As you start making choices about how to structure your lessons to ensure that students are highly cognitively engaged and they are doing more of the heavy lifting than the teacher, try using a structure like this:

• Mini-lesson (7-10 minutes): one key idea.
• Think–Ink–Pair–Share (five minutes): one strong prompt.
• Practice (10 minutes): independent or pairs.
• Mini whiteboard/paper “show me” check (three minutes): confirm understanding.
• Exit ticket (two minutes): collect + sort into “got it / almost / not yet.”

This will look (and feel) like less lecture immediately—without you losing control of pacing. Remember, when you start shifting the way you do instruction in your classes, it may be messy and that is OK. Transitions may take time, so give yourself and the students grace as you explore these new strategies and paradigms.

Depending on the relationship you have with your leaders, invite them to see what you are working on so they can see you have taken their feedback to heart. Opening this dialogue as you continue to bring more learner-led opportunities into the space, will only help you, the students and even colleagues as time goes on. Giving up control in the classroom can be daunting, but I promise it is worth it.

What might you try first if you struggle to give up lecture or if you have already made the shift, where did you start? We’d love to know.

If you have an issue that you would like me to address, please email me at ssackstein@educatorsrising.org or complete this form. You will be kept anonymous.