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PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING PRACTICE

“…educating involves a passion to know that should engage us in a loving search for knowledge.”

(Friere, 1998, p. 4)

Five core principles provide the foundation of this framework for effective teaching practices.  First and foremost, effective teaching practice begins with the thoughtful and intentional design of learning that engages students intellectually and academically. The second principle addresses the worthiness and nature of the work that students are asked to undertake, and suggests it needs to be relevant, meaningful, and authentic—in other words, worthy of their time and attention. A third core principle is the implementation of assessment practices that focus on improving learning and guiding teaching.  A fourth principle is the need for teachers to foster a variety of interdependent relationships within their classrooms that promote and create a strong culture around learning. Finally, being a reflective practitioner, and making practice public is the fifth core principle—simply put, teachers improve their practice in the company of their peers. Surrounding these five core principles and infused into each of them is the effective use of the technologies of our time for both teaching and learning.

1. Teachers are designers of learning.  This means that teachers must go beyond developing techniques to implement curriculum outcomes.  Rather teachers must deeply understand how to design learning environments that intellectually engage every student. 

2. Teachers design work for students that is worth their time and attention.  Work that is worthy of students’ time and attention is personally meaningful to the student and deeply connected to the world in which they live. 

3. Teachers’ use of assessment is directed towards improving student learning and guiding teaching decisions.  This means that teachers employ comprehensive assessment practices, with a strong emphasis on assessment for learning that is clearly focused on improving student learning and guiding teaching decisions and actions.

4. Teachers build strong relationships with and between students through intellectually engaging work.  Attention is paid to promoting the kind of intellectual camaraderie and dispositions towards learning that foster a mindset directed towards continuous learning and building community.

5. Teachers are actively engaged in ongoing professional learning.  Teachers improve their practice in the company of peers and others who have a vested interest in improving teacher and student performance.  Teachers understand that teaching is a scholarship, which improves through practice informed by research and evidence.

Principle 1 - Teachers are designers of learning

The research literature is clear, effective teachers present learning opportunities that are thoughtfully and intentionally designed to engage students both academically and intellectually.  Designing learning that invites students to engage intellectually awakens the human spirit’s own desire to know. Intellectual engagement refers to an absorbing, creatively energizing focus requiring contemplation, interpretation, understanding, meaning-making and critique. The result is a deep, personal commitment on the part of learners to explore and investigate ideas, issues, problems or questions for a sustained period of time.

Most teachers can name curriculum outcomes from the relevant programs of study, but they often have a harder time linking these outcomes to the larger disciplinary concepts required to make meaningful connections to the disciplines, students’ lives and the world.  For some teachers the unit of study comprises a collection of activities and lessons rather than significant engagement with a topic of importance. 

The Learning Sciences have identified three principles that are particularly important when designing for learning: (i) start with students’ prior knowledge, (ii) organize and use knowledge conceptually, and (iii) build assessment into the fabric of the study.  These principles along with the need to make meaningful connections to the students’ lives and the world require teachers to enter an iterative cycle of defining, creating, assessing and redesigning that is essential in creating effective teaching and learning environments in which students inquire into questions, issues and problems; build knowledge; and develop deep understanding.

 

Principle 2 - Work students are asked to undertake is worth their time and attention.

The most effective learning has been shown to take place when learners have reached what Csikszentmihalyi (1990, in OECD, 2007) calls the ‘flow’ state. This state of intrinsic motivation that Friesen (2007) calls intellectual engagement, is one in which the learner is so focused that time itself seems to disappear. It’s at this point the brain begins to make connections and see patterns in the information, which results in a “powerful illumination which comes from understanding” (OECD 2007, p. 72). This state of sudden epiphany is described as “the most intense pleasure the brain can experience in a learning context” (ibid., p. 73) and naturally, is an experience that is intensely motivating as students experience the pleasure inherent in deep learning.

To develop competence in an area of inquiry or study, students must: (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge; (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework; and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. This has implications for the kinds of work that students are asked to undertake.

Effective teachers thoughtfully and reflectively design work for and with students that requires and instills depth in thinking, intellectual rigour, and that involves students in substantive conversation.  In addition to being disciplinary and interdisciplinary based, the work teachers design for students is personally meaningful and connects them to each other and to the world outside of school.   

Principle 3 - Assessment practices improve student learning and guide teaching

Effective teachers intentionally design assessment into their pedagogical practice to enable students to think deeply about their own learning, provide a road map to their next steps and enable students to become self-directed in their learning.  It is a type of “assessment for learning,” in which students co-create assessment criteria with teachers.

In a 21^st century learning environment, assessment should make up a large part of the school day, not in the form of separate tests, but as a seamless part of the learning process. The awareness of learning and ability of learners to direct it is of increasing importance in the context of encouraging lifelong learning.

        

Students need clear targets and models of what constitutes quality work in order to improve achievement. The criteria for evaluating any learning achievements must be made transparent to pupils to enable them to have a clear overview both of the aims of their work and of what it means to complete it successfully. Pupils can only achieve a learning goal if they understand that goal and can determine what specifically they need to do to reach it.

The Assessment Reform Group (2006) has identified seven characteristics of assessment that promote learning. These are: a) assessment is embedded in the design of the teaching and learning; b) students know the learning goals; c) students recognize the standards they are aiming for; d) pupils are involved in self-assessment; e) feedback provided enables students to take their next steps; f) teachers hold the belief that every student can improve; and g) assessment involves both teacher and pupils reviewing and reflecting on the assessment data. Black and Wiliam (1998) observed that as effective teachers worked to improve learning through assessment they adhered to the following:

·    the provision of effective feedback to pupils;

·    the active involvement of pupils in their own learning;

·    adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment;

·   a recognition of the profound influence assessment has on the motivation and self-esteem of pupils, both of which are crucial influences on learning;

·   the need for pupils to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve. (pp. 4-5)

Wiliam et al. (2004) further state that effective teachers deliberately and directly teach the habits and skills of collaboration in peer-assessment, as peer discussion can help self-assessment by helping pupils to see their own work more objectively – through the eyes of their peers. In order for students to guide their own work and to become more self-regulated learners, effective teachers encourage them to keep the aims of their work in mind and to examine their progress towards meeting these aims through the lens of the assessment framework that they have collaboratively designed.

Principle 4 – Strong relationships exist as students are deeply connected to others through the work they do together.

“Education is about relationships. They are the key to learning success. We, as educators, must know and respect our students and help them know and respect one another as fellow learners” (Fried, 2001, p. 49). Effective teachers establish a series of interdependent relationships that promote and create a strong culture of learning. These mediated relationships include pedagogical (teacher to student); peer to peer (student to student); student to community outside of school; and student to subject discipline. In the context of these relationships, over time and in a learning environment that supports risk-taking and fosters a level of trust, students’ confidence in themselves as learners grows. The caring that lives in these interdependent relationships, about the subject or discipline, about the students, and about the learning of the community as a whole, fosters further risk taking and learning. Such a system “develops people’s ability to connect with one another, work together across their differences, and add value to each other” (Gilbert, 2005, p. 68). This means that diversity in a student population becomes something to be welcomed, appreciated, and explored.

Social cognitive neuroscience has demonstrated that positive social interaction around learning directly influences the brain’s ability to function optimally in the context of that learning.  Conversely, emotional states induced by negative emotions such as stress or fear have been shown to block learning and memory (OECD, 2007).

The importance of relationships of various sorts cannot be overlooked in a discussion of effective teaching practice. In the end, consideration of relationships is critical in educating students not only for employability skills but also in building social cohesion and producing minds that thirst to build knowledge throughout the course of their lives. As Clifford (2004) elegantly states,

in a knowledge-building space, all ideas are regarded as constantly improvable

through others’ ability to pose theories, build on contributions, ask questions,

posit different theories, offer evidence from contrary perspectives, challenge interpretations. In order to learn to their full potential, individuals must develop

and contribute ideas that are both shared and extended by others. (p. 7)

Principle 5 - Teachers improve their practice in the company of their peers

For far too long, teachers have worked in isolated classrooms with only brief interludes in the staffroom to discuss professional learning. Research is clear, however, that teachers improve their practice and hence, their effectiveness, in the company of their peers.

           

McKinsey & Company (2007) looked at top-performing school systems globally, and their findings support the notion that teachers improve their practice in the company of their peers:

The top-performing school systems recognize… which interventions are

effective in achieving [improved learning] – coaching classroom practice,

moving teacher training to the classroom, developing stronger school leaders,

and enabling teachers to learn from each others – and have found ways to

deliver these interventions throughout the school system. (p. 26)

The report emphasizes the importance of enabling teachers to learn from each other:

In a number of top systems, particularly those in Japan and Finland, teachers work together, plan their lessons jointly, observe each others’ lessons, and help each other improve. These systems create a culture in their schools in which collaborative planning, reflection on instruction, and peer coaching are the norm and constant features of school life. This enables teachers to develop continuously. (p. 28)

A number of researchers stress the importance of teachers having the familiarity with one another’s work that comes with frequent conversations of a professional nature centered on the work, access to each other’s classrooms, and collaborative planning time. It is also very clear that as self-reflective as a teacher may be, receiving constructive feedback from one’s peers is imperative in order to improve teaching.  

Technology can play a pivotal role in transforming the conventional, insular work environment that teachers have experienced. Teachers are beginning to avail themselves of opportunities in networked professional learning communities to share resources and expertise, discuss pedagogical approaches, reflect on practice and provide support for their colleagues as part of the community experience. Using networked communities of inquiry as an integral component, educators can work in a collaborative, collegial space to question and investigate ideas and engage in pedagogical conversation around their own work and practice. Within networked classrooms, where teachers and students alike have access to computers and the Internet, the classroom is no longer an isolated workplace (Clifford et al., 2004).

Adapted from  “Effective Teaching Practices A Framework” by  Sharon Friesen

Galileo Educational Network© Canadian Education Association. 2008. Reproduced with permission