High Impact Teaching Strategies

Using the HITS

This resource offers teachers and school leaders an opportunity to embed and share the use of successful instructional practices by providing:

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  a common language to use in planning, monitoring and reflecting on classroom practice
  
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  a developmental continuum to measure proficiency across ten high-impact teaching strategies, and
  
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  initial resources to guide a practice improvement journey.
  

The HITS will have the strongest impact on student learning when used as part of an ongoing improvement cycle embedded in professional learning communities.
Effective teams use the improvement cycle to:

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  diagnose a classroom need
  
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  investigate a problem of practice
  
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  identify one or more of the HITS as a possible intervention
  
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  unpack, discuss and model the strategies
  
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  collectively review them as part of observation rounds.
  

Providing feedback

This resource is the result of the generous collaboration of numerous teachers from across Victoria. Their input and feedback was essential in tailoring the HITS to meet teachers’ needs. The Department welcomes questions, comments and feedback on the HITS. Your engagement and contribution will contribute to the ongoing development and improvement of our resources, including future versions of this publication. To contact the Department with regards to HITS, contact: [e-mail]
The review and evaluation phase of the improvement cycle is critical to using the HITS for maximum impact on student learning. While the strategies are reliable, their effectiveness in any particular school context can only be determined by applying a HITS to an individual or group of students and measuring its impact on student learning.
Mastery of the HITS requires you to draw on both your deep curriculum knowledge and your skills in assessment for, as and of learning. Applying the HITS effectively relies on tapping into your expertise to develop and implement rich, authentic learning tasks. Importantly, adept application of the HITS will stimulate your students to take agency for, and reflect on, their own learning.
The continuum of practice included with each HITS will support you to reflect on your practice, assess proficiency levels and set improvement goals, which can be linked to the performance and development cycle. The broader FISO continua for the ‘Evidence Based High Impact Teaching Strategies’ dimension will also assist leaders and teachers to maintain a whole of practice focus.
Deliberate practice and feedback on HITS in a trusted and collaborative environment will help you to develop new skills and extend existing ones, impacting both teacher and student learning over time.