If teaching were easy, everybody would do it. OK, maybe not, but there would be a lot more
teachers who stay in the education field and not leave after a short time. In
fact, there is new federal data that says 17 percent
of new public school teachers leave their jobs after four years. As I read this, it forces me to wonder, how
many of these teachers were employing the best instructional practices during
their time in the classroom? Were they
using practices that made their time in the classroom a more enjoyable
experience? These two questions can
determine if a teacher is going to be successful or not.
Let’s take a look at some of the best instructional
practices to use that will help teachers and students. While many of these practices are based on
John Hattie’s work Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning,
there are some fundamental methods that should be used daily in every
classroom.
Learning Targets That Come to Life
Create learning targets that mean something instead of just
posting learning targets. As my friend
and peer Mike Acomb would say, “Make your learning targets come to life for the
kids!” Learning targets need to be
addressed during a lesson and embedded in the lesson. Students shouldn’t have to memorize learning targets. They learn the targets through the lesson
itself. Let your targets act like a GPS
for your students to guide them in the right direction.
Student-Led Learning
Empower your students.
Let them lead their learning.
Teachers need to facilitate class, not teach class. There will be struggles in the beginning as
students and parents aren’t always comfortable with this type of learning
environment (remember, we didn’t learn this way in school either). Continue the journey. Our students deserve it. We are all lifelong learners. Let’s teach our students at the earliest age
possible the benefits of exploration, research, collaboration, and hard work.
Feedback
Our students need to know where they stand on a daily
basis. “Excellent”, “Great job!”, “88%”, or 8/10 are not examples of
feedback. Feedback is information given
to a student that fosters growth. It
can’t happen weeks after the assessment or lesson. It needs to be as instantaneous as
possible. Utilize tools such as
Plickers, Nearpod, Google Forms, Padlet, and TodaysMeet to get instant
feedback that can be used in school. Give
our students feedback they can use to get better.
Don’t forget about students giving feedback to educators. Students should be able to give educators
feedback on a daily basis to let the teachers and administration know where
they stand. Are we giving our students
the most effective learning environment possible? Let the students tell us. RemindHQ is a great tool to use to do
this. Educators can allow students to
text back using this texting application.
Formative Assessments
Formative assessments are practice. Plain and simple.
Let students practice before their
assessments. Don’t punish them while
they practice. Let them explore and
figure out what they need to know.
Homework and quizzes are practice.
Create a culture of practice in your building and classroom. Let students prepare without worrying about
failing.
Engagement
When it comes to engagement, there is a simple question to
ask, “Would you want to be in your class?”
Don’t base your class on what has been done in the past in education;
make your classroom something new. Use
different resources to make your class engaging. Allow students voice and choice. Make your classroom something your students
have never seen before. You have a
better chance of engaging students that way than sticking with traditional teaching
practices.
Alternative Assessments
Why do we still assess the same way we always have? Why
can’t we allow students to show what they know in different ways? Great questions without great explanations to
support them. Allow students to try
something different. Your classroom and building
culture will improve. Let’s look at
different ways to assess: allow students to make videos, allow them to complete
projects, allow them to present, or ask students how they can show what they
know. Taking tests each week doesn’t
create lifelong learners, it creates memorizers.
Making Blended Learning Just “Learning”
The term “blended learning” needs to go away. Blended learning should be a part of
learning. As building leaders and
teachers, we need to embed learning in the culture of our school. We do this by using a wide variety of
resources to produce student growth. We
need to professionally develop our students and staff to effectively use the
resources each day. Finally,
personalizing your learning environment allows students to use the resources in
which they learn the best.
Personalized Learning
As discussed earlier, allow students a voice and
choice. The teacher isn’t always the
smartest person in the room in today’s classroom. Limit the amount of direct instruction and
develop new ways to deliver content to students. Become a learner yourself and find ways to
connect, collaborate, build confidence and create to positively affect your
teaching.
Relationships
A positive classroom environment is invaluable. Positive educator and student relationships outweigh
content knowledge. Content knowledge can
always be learned and mastered.
Relationships are built on respect and trust. Develop great relationships with students and
you have foundation for best instructional practices.
Compassion
Our students lead different lives than we did. Whether that is for the best or not, it is a reality. As educators, we need to respect that. We need to identify our students’ live and
work with our students. We aren’t in the
business of teaching our students life lessons; we are in the business of
educating students for life. Compassion
isn’t a sign of weakness; it is a sign of respect towards our students.
Using the best instructional practices in school is a lot of
work. If we take the time to become
better educators and use the best instructional practices we can, the workload
will lessen. Student will be more
productive and maybe, just maybe, more teachers will remain in the business of
educating students. As educators we need
to become more knowledgeable in the best instructional practices to make our
jobs easier and more rewarding. Its time
for a change, let move our practices from better to best.
Great point about blended learning, Bobby. It should now be part of "the way we do things in education." There are many who see that technology/social media/student devices are for what happens outside of school. As long as educators have this mentality, kids will also see technology as a social tool and not as a learning tool. Learning is social - let's let the tech support it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great post!
Jennifer
Hey there,
ReplyDeleteNice blog
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