According to Jack Richard (2008) there are five strategies to implement the Contextual Teaching and Learning approach are called as REACT they are: Relating, Experiencing, Applying, Cooperating, and Transferring.
Relating
Learning in the context of life experience, or relating, is the kind of contextual learning that typically occurs with very young children. With adult learners, however, providing this meaningful context for learning becomes more difficult. The curriculum that attempts to place learning in the context of life experiences must, first, call the student’s attention to everyday sights, events, and conditions. It must then relate those everyday situations to new information to be absorbed or a problem to be solved.
Experiencing
Experiencing—learning in the context of exploration, discovery, and invention—is the heart of contextual learning. However motivated or tuned-in students may become as a result of other instructional strategies such as video, narrative, or text-based activities, these remain relatively passive forms of learning. And learning appears to "take" far more quickly when students are able to manipulate equipment and materials and to do other forms of active research.
Applying
Applying concepts and information in a useful context often projects students into an imagined future (a possible career) or into an unfamiliar location (a workplace). This happens most commonly through text, video, labs, and activities.
Cooperating
Cooperating—learning in the context of sharing, responding, and communicating with other learners—is a primary instructional strategy in contextual teaching. The experience of cooperating not only helps the majority of students learn the material; it also is consistent with the real-world focus of contextual teaching. Employers espouse that employees who can communicate effectively, who share information freely, and who can work comfortably in a team setting are highly valued in the workplace. We have ample reason, therefore, to encourage students to develop these cooperative skills while they are still in the classroom.
The laboratory, one of the primary instructional methods in contextual courses, is essentially cooperative. Typically, students work with partners to do the laboratory exercises; in some cases, they work in groups of three or four. Completing the lab successfully requires delegation, observation, suggestion, and discussion. In many labs, the quality of the data collected by the team as a whole is dependent on the individual performance of each member of the team. Students also must cooperate to complete small-group activities. Partnering can be a particularly effective strategy for encouraging students to cooperate.
Transferring
Learning in the context of existing knowledge, or transferring, uses and builds upon what the student has already learned. Such an approach is similar to relating, in that it calls upon the familiar. Students develop confidence in their problem-solving abilities if we make a point of building new learning experiences on what they already know. More detail Click Here.
Teaching strategy used in CTL includes:
Problem-based
CTL can begin with a simulated or real problem. Students use critical thinking skills and a systemic approach to inquiry to address the problem or issue. Students may also draw upon multiple content areas to solve these problems. Worthwhile problems that are relevant to students’ families, school experiences, workplaces, and communities hold greater personal meaning for students.
Using multiple contexts
Theories of situated cognition suggest that knowledge cannot be separated from the physical and social context in which it develops. How and where a person acquires and creates knowledge is therefore very important. CTL experiences are enriched when students learn skills in multiple contexts (i.e. school, community, workplace, family).
Drawing upon student diversity
On the whole, our student population is becoming more diverse, and with increased diversity comes differences in values, social mores, and perspectives. These differences can be the impetus for learning and can add complexity to the CTL experience. Team collaboration and group learning activities respect students’ diverse histories, broaden perspectives, and build inter-personal skills.
Supporting self-regulated learning
Ultimately, students must become lifelong learners. Lifelong learners are able to seek out, analyze, and use information with little to no supervision. To do so, students must become more aware how they process information, employ problem-solving strategies, and use background knowledge. CTL experiences should allow for trial and error; provide time and structure for reflection; and provide adequate support to assist students to move from dependent to independent learning.
Using interdependent learning groups
Students will be influenced by and will contribute to the knowledge and beliefs of others. Learning groups, or learning communities, are established in workplaces and schools in an effort to share knowledge, focus on goals, and allow all to teach and learn from each other. When learning communities are established in schools, educators act as coaches, facilitators, and mentors.
Employing authentic assessments
CTL is intended to build knowledge and skills in meaningful ways by engaging students in real life, or "authentic" contexts. Assessment of learning should align with the methods and purposes of instruction. Authentic assessments show (among other things) that learning has occurred; are blended into the teaching/learning process; and provide students with opportunities and direction for improvement. Authentic assessment is used to monitor student progress and inform teaching practices. (Wisconsin-Madison, University of, 2000)
The varying strategies for implementing contextual teaching and learning according to (Berns, 2001) include:
a. Problem Based Learning - Problem Based Learning is an approach using the problem in real words as a context of students in learning to think critically, and skill to solve the problem and also getting knowledge and essential concept from the learning subject. Problem Based Learning is designed to help teacher by giving the information as many as possible to the students. Three purposes in this case are: thinking and solving problem skill, modeling of parents’ role and autonomic and self supporting students.
b. Cooperative in Learning - Cooperative learning is designed to create the interaction so that the learning source is not only teacher and book, but it can be students or somebody else. There are some characteristics in cooperative learning; they are positive dependent, face to face, individual accountability, and individual relationship skill.
c. Authentic Learning - Authentic learning is the learning which gives introduction of the students to learn meaning context. The students can improve the intelligent and can solve the problems which are important in real of context life; because the students always get difficulties to apply the skill that they have got from school in real daily life because the context of the school is higher than the context of real life. The teacher helps the students to learn how to solve the problems by giving the duties which have the real of context life with conducting the skills in the real of context life. Then to solve these problems, the students have to identify the problem, try to solve it, analysis, and report the findings by themselves. Moreover, the students can apply the skill academic such as: collecting information, accounting, writing, and reading in real of context life.
d. Project/Duty–Based Learning - Project-Based Learning is an approach in comprehension teaching where the learning environment designed in order to the students can observe the authentic problems. This approach is done to introduce individual work in constructive his learning and apply in real product. This learning has four principle, they are:
- Making meaningful, clear and challenging task.
- Hetero-gamete the task
- Giving attention to the difficult one
- Monitoring students’ achievement
e. Work-Based Learning - Work- Based Learning is a learning approach, to enable students use the work context to study the learning based school and how the application of it used in the work place. So, based on this case, the work place and all activities have to suitable with the lesson subject for the students’ needed.
f. Service Learning - This approach needs the using of learning methodology combined with the public service with the structure based school to reflect the service. In this case, the approach is emphasizing te service experience and the learning academic. This learning strategy is based on that every life activity is stimulated by the service ability. In the modern industry, the key word which is used in a good service. Because of it, the students have been trained to give a good service for others.