%20(2).png)
How to make teaching effective
Every time they come to the school, you're at the school — in the classroom — teaching up all the learning targets, but does it matter?
Does your teaching accomplish its learning targets? You're not in class bumping off at the gums for no reason, are you?
School systems consider teaching to be done right, when it's aligned to targeted learning objectives and when student achievement grows. Without those, you're just — proficient.
Here's the thing. Good teaching not only improves student performance, but it also reveals other learning areas that need treatment. So, what makes teaching effective?
Effective teaching makes meaningful experiences
Simplified, teaching is sharing information so that it can be used for something related.
Teaching what you teach, and doing it how you do it, that's all good. However you teach it, you want students to see your instruction as valuable. It has to have meaning to each student.
That's important. Your approach to teaching won't be meaningful if students don't relate what you're teaching to things they value.
What does a student believe about what's being taught? What does that student believe about you? Good judgment in these areas helps you make better instructional choices.
Each student views your teaching with different levels of context. It's like reading a book. Catch the clues and put them together to inspire a desirable learning outcome; a desirable reaction.
Example:
Instruction: Five steps to fix your short story
Context: Julia believes fixing short stories is important; Connor does not
Reaction: Julia believes she can now write better short stories; Connor does not
Learning starts taking shape and getting meaning at the reaction stage.
Effective teaching gets the right reactions, actions
Learning and teaching is a better experience when students actively participate. Julia and Connor take class with you into their own contexts and decide whether or not you're teaching something beneficial. Julia does, and she acts on your instruction.
Instruction: Five steps to fix your short story
Context: Julia believes fixing short stories is important; Connor does not
Reaction: Julia believes she can now write better short stories; Connor does not
Action: Julia starts practicing with the five writing steps; not Connor though
Action shows up in different flavors; and some students go way past what you assign and suggest. Others, not so much.
For Julia your teaching is meaningful and you've stayed true to your learning targets. The next level is a step better.
Effective teaching gets results
Action is good. Action that leads to the right results is better.
Be as consistent as you can every time you're teaching. Student results happen thanks to the whole of actions taken through the school year. Consistently effective teaching gets really impressive results over time.
Another look:
Instruction: Five steps to fix your short story
Context: Julia believes fixing short stories is important
Reaction: Julia believes he can now write better short stories
Action: Julia starts practicing with the five writing steps
Result: Julia has a collection of her own finished stories. She mastered the standards on the big test, too.
Even if you don't know about her every result — Julia is a student well served.
Images by
August de Richelieu via pexels.com
[neat] - Tab and Mind | Is your teaching meaningful?
Meaningful teaching gets the right student reactions and results. To be more effective, relate instruction to what students value.