Best Teaching Practices:
Evidence-Based Teaching
Best teaching practices are core to the ideal learning environment.
The best classrooms for learning are ones that use research based teaching methods and strategies to get the best results.
It is an environment that includes culturally responsive teaching to reach ELL/ESOL populations. It is a way of instructing that reaches all students and allows them to grow.
What are these best teaching practices found in an ideal learning environment?
What is Evidence-Based Teaching?Evidence-based teaching (EBT) is a phenomenon that developed in the realm of clinical psychology. The "evidence-based" portion of EBT comes from the fact that different teaching techniques have been thoroughly tested, retested, and approved.
These best teaching practices all point to an ideal learning environment for kids.
Research has shown what works and what doesn't.
Educational researchers have gathered the most effective teaching practices out there in hopes of enhancing student achievement.
Why is Evidence-Based Teaching Important to an Ideal Learning Environment?You probably have noticed that many students feel uninterested in school or unchallenged. As a teacher, you probably want to do something differently, but you could also be afraid you might end up hurting your students by changing your teaching methods.
Evidence-based teaching practices allow students to become more engaged in what they're learning.
This learning centered environment taps into their critical thinking skills.
With EBT students do more thinking about the material and begin to incorporate it into their own lives, thus absorbing more of it and remembering the material far beyond test day.
This is engaging their long-term memory in the executive function.
As well, students tested under EBT conditions, when compared to more traditional methods, such as lecturing, reading, and a control group, have been found to perform significantly better on exams (Teaching and Learning Excellence).
Again, best teaching practices coincide with an ideal learning environment. If you had the chance to use best teaching practices to help your students perform better and have more fun, wouldn't you take it?
Best Teaching Practices for
Learning Centered Environments
1. Practice inter-teaching (Boyce & Hineline, 2002).
With inter-teaching, the instructor creates a preparation sheet that will guide students through a reading assignment. Students are given a few days to complete the guide before class, where they will work in pairs to discuss any assignment-related concerns.
During discussion time, the teacher guides discussion and answers any lingering questions students may have. After the guide is completed, students will then complete a record sheet to evaluate their discussions and note any difficulties they had during the process.
These record sheets will be used by the teacher to prepare the next class's lecture, which will focus on students' main concerns. After this lecture, students will spend the rest of the class period discussing the next preparation guide. (Evidence-Based Best Teaching Practices Guidelines)
2. Have students read silently.
Children reading silently show a 75% recall versus only a 50% recall for students who read aloud. (Choosing Evidence Based Teaching Strategies)
3. Allow peer encouragement.
With Class Wide Peer Tutoring (CWPT), students pair up. Partners take turns tutoring each other on spelling, math, and ask each other questions about a recited passage.
For each correct answer, the tutee receives two points. For incorrect answers, the tutor corrects his or her partner, and the tutee can earn a point by writing the correct answer three times. After some time, the partners switch roles and students end the day by feeling supported and successful. (Class Wide Peer Tutoring Program)
4. Understanding Classroom Management
Best teaching practices also include the effective use of classroom procedures and routines. When students know what is expected of them, both behaviorally and academically, they will perform at a higher quality.
The need for explicit procedures in a classroom is key to best practices.
5. Promote peer bonding.
For EBT to be effective, all students must have an open mind. The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) teaches children healthy conflict resolution skills and prevents violence and prejudice.
To make your classroom conducive to this EBT practice, you will need to teach your students about different forms of cultural diversity and recruit students as peer mediators (Resolving Conflict Creatively Program).
6. Give explicit vocabulary instruction.
Use activities for teaching vocabulary not only in reading and language arts classes, but also in other subjects like science and social studies.
Research shows that using evidence based strategies for teaching vocabulary makes Tier 2 and 3 words more accessible for all students, thereby increasing their comprehension and word usage.
Activities for teaching vocabulary to students helps them make meaning of new words and construct meaning of unfamiliar texts on their own (Improving Adolescent Literacy).
Best teaching practices demand that educators look closely at what works and disregard those methods that do not.
You can create an ideal learning environment for most kids by using Evidence-Based Teaching Practices.
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J. Jacobs is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog.
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