Notes
Chapter 11: Teacher Effectiveness
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Does teaching come as a gift or a learned skill?
o Most of us fall in the middle
Core set of skills that compromise teaching
Are Teachers Born or Made?
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Most teaching is based on tried and true methods
o What we think will work and what actually works
Academic Learning Time
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Students who spend more time pursuing academic content achieve more
A Place Called School by John Goodland: some schools devote approximately 65% of
time to instruction, whereas others devote almost 90%
Allocated time: the time a teacher schedules for a subject
o The more allocated time for a subject, the higher student achievement in that
subject is likely to be
Engaged time: the part of allocated time in which students are actively involved with
academic subject matter
o When there is more engaged time within allocated time, student achievement
increases
Academic learning time: engaged time with a high success rate
o A high success rate is positively related to student achievement
Classroom Management
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Classroom management strategies:
o Group alerting: by asking questions first and then naming the student to respond:
kept students on their toes
o Withitness: teachers who are aware of student behavior in all parts of the room at
all times
o Overlapping: ability to attend to interruptions or behavior problems while
continuing the lesson
o Least intervention: use the simplest intervention that will work for the situation
o Fragmentation: transition from one lesson to the next smoothly and effectively,
avoiding a “bumpy” transition
Classroom managers set up their classrooms following certain classroom management
principles:
o Teaching eye to eye: teachers should be able to see all students at all times
o Teaching materials and supplies should be readily available: students should have
direct access to supplies
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o High-traffic areas should be free of congestion: student desks away from
distractions
o Procedures and routines should be actively taught in the same way that academic
content is taught: initial planning for classroom management; once rules are
established, they allow teachers and all students more time for academic learning
Strategies to help assuage student anger and rage:
o Choice: teachers can provide appropriate options to give a student a sense of some
control and freedom
o Responsibility: rechanneling student energy and interest into constructive
activities and responsibilities
o Voice: listen to your students! It is one of the most respectful skills a teacher can
model
The Pedagogical Cycle
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Arno Bellack: verbal exchanges between teachers and students
o Four moves in the pedagogical cycle:
 Structure: teacher provides the information, provides direction and
introduces the topics
 Question: the teacher asks a question
 Respond: the student answers the question or tries to
 React: the teacher reacts to the student’s answer and provides feedback
Clarity and Academic Structure
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Effective academic structure: students need a clear understanding of what they are
expected to do
o Sets the stage for learning and occurs mainly at the beginning of the lesson
An effective academic structure usually consists of:
o Objectives: let the students know the objectives
o Review: help students review prior learning before presenting new information
o Motivation: create an “anticipatory set” that motivates students to attend to the
lesson
o Transition: provide connections to help students integrate old and new
information
o Clarification: break down a large body of information
o Scaffolding: step-by-step practice and well-crafted questions support and
encourage student understanding
o Examples: give several examples and illustrations to explain main points and
ideas
o Directions: give directions distinctly and slowly
o Enthusiasm: Demonstrate personal enthusiasm for the academic content
o Closure: close the lesson with a brief review or summary
Questioning
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Good questioning is at the core of good teaching.
o Questioning is key in guiding learning
o All students should have equal access to classroom questions and academic
interaction
The type of question needs to be meaningful
o Difference between factual, lower-order questions and thought-provoking, higherorder questions
Bloom’s Taxonomy: proceeds from the lowest level of questions (knowledge) to the
highest level of questions (evaluation)
o Lower-order questions: can be answered through memory and recall
 Students either know the answer or don’t
o Higher-order questions: demands more thought and usually more time before
students reach a response
 Evaluations, comparisons, causal relationships, problem solving,
divergent, open-ended thinking
 Shown to produce higher student achievement
o When to ask different types of questions:
 Ask lower-order when students are:
 Being introduced to new information
 Working on drill and practice
 Reviewing previously learned information
 Ask higher-order when students are:
 Working on problem solving skills
 Involved in a creative or affective discussion
 Asked to make judgments about quality, aesthetics or ethics
 Challenged to manipulate already established information in more
sophisticated ways
Wait time: slowing down classroom discussions for answering questions
o Studies show teachers wait only one second for a student to respond to a question
Reaction or Productive Feedback
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How teachers respond to students’ answers is as important as the question itself
Four types of reactions:
o Praise: positive comments about student work
o Acceptance: acknowledgement that the work is acceptable. Not as strong as
praise.
 An overused response
o Remediation: comments that encourage a more accurate student response or
encourage students to think more clearly, creatively, or logically
o Criticism: clear statement that an answer is inaccurate or a behavior is
inappropriate
 Range from harsh criticism to mild comments
Variety in Process and Content
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Variety can enhance teaching effectiveness and student achievement
When the teacher fails to provide sufficient variety, lessons become monotonous and
students become off task
o Student interest can be maintained by moving from one activity to another during
a single lesson
Models for Effective Instruction
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It is a challenge to know what model of instruction to choose for particular lessons
Direct Teaching
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Direct Teaching emphasizes the importance of a structured lesson in which presentation
of new information is followed by student practice and teacher feedback
Six principles of direct teaching:
o Daily review
o New material
o Guided practice
o Specific feedback
o Independent practice
o Weekly and monthly reviews
Cooperative Learning
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Cooperative Learning students work on activities in small, heterogeneous groups
o Groups should be heterogeneous and small
o Grading is often done as a group-each group member receives the same grade
Mastery Learning
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Mastery Learning committed to the idea that “given the right tools, all children can
learn”
Individualized reward structure
Behavioral objective: identify a specific skill or academic task to be mastered
o If they master the skill the move on and accelerate through
Problem-Based Learning
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Focus on authentic (real-life) problems that often go beyond traditional subject areas
Problem-based learning: anchored in the real world
Effective and Reflective Teaching
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Teaching is hard!
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Innovative, engaged and reflective teaching is the path to effective teaching
Ideas to consider:
o Less is more: to goal is to teach in depth
 Deep teaching: teachers work to organize their content around a limited
set of key principles and powerful ideas and then engage students in
discussing these concepts
 Emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking
o Differentiated instruction: organizing instructional activities not around content
standards but in response to individual differences
 Standards-based curriculum tells us what curriculum to teach not how to
teach
o Learning community: social nature of learning and of the classroom
 The teacher is the guide and empowers students
 When learning communities work well, students and teachers get to know
each other well and they can develop shared academic goals
 Can be encouraged through different types of scheduling:
 Looping: schools “promote” teachers along with their studentsteachers get to know their students for another year and get to
know them more in depth and develop more meaningful
relationships with them
 Block scheduling: increases student-teacher contact by increasing
the length of class periods
Reflective teaching: teachers need to be constantly asking themselves questions
o Engender self-scrutiny