Effective Teaching

ELED 3050

Journal Topic One

• Chapter One, page 14– Portfolio Activity

What is an effective teacher?

The Un-Natural Part of Teaching

• Five Ways that Teaching Behavior is Un-Natural

1. Helping Others

2. Completing Thoughts of Others

3. Be Yourself

4. Ignoring Errors

5. Liking and Disliking People

Key Behaviors

Lesson Clarity: logical step-by-step order; clear and audible delivery.

Instructional Variety: variability in materials, questioning, feedback, and teaching strategies.

Task Orientation: content orientation instead of process orientation.

Student Engagement: limit distractions, keep students working on content.

Opportunities for Success: a high percentage of time spent on tasks that provide moderate to high levels of success.

Some Helping Behaviors

1. Use student ideas and contributions during the lesson.

2. Structure the lesson with advance organizers as well as mental and activity strategies.

3. Use both content (direct) and process (indirect) questions.

4. Probe and elicit clarification, solicit additional information (check for understanding).

5. Be involved in your teaching – show interest, using gestures, eye contact, etc. to

communicate a nurturing relationship to the learner.

Questioning: Direct and Indirect

Direct: The question requires no interpretation or alternative meanings.

Lower-order: The question requires the recall only of readily available facts.

Convergent: Different data sources lead to the same answer.

Closed: The question has no possible alternative answers or interpretations.

Fact: The question requires only the recall of pieces of well-accepted knowledge.

Questioning: Direct and Indirect

Indirect: The question has various interpretations and alternative meanings.

Higher-order: The question requires more complex mental processes than simple recall of facts.

Divergent: Different data sources will lead to different correct answers.

Open: A single correct answer is not expected or even possible.

Concept: The question requires the processes of abstraction, generalization, and inference.

Constructivism

Constructivism is a philosophy of learning that explains how people come to understand or know. It assumes that learning

is an active process in which learners internally construct knowledge from interactions with their physical and social

environment.

Three attributes of constructivism are:

1. Cognitive conflict or confusion is the stimulus for learning.2. Knowledge evolves through negotiation, which makes

collaborative groups important for testing and expanding understanding.

3. Understanding comes from one’s interactions with the environment.

Professional Teaching Standards

The National Board for Professional teaching Standards (NBPTS) proposes five propositions essential to effective

teaching.

The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards are written as ten principles, explaining what a beginning teacher should know

and be able to do.