INSTRUCTIONAL BEST PRACTICES IN TEACHING

Collegial Collaborators Sign your name on the top of your paper. Avoid people seated at your table. Find a different partner for 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00 & 12:00 Trade signatures. Sit down as soon as you have all signatures. You have 2 minutes 14 seconds.

OBJECTIVES By the end of this session you will … CONTENT: IDENTIFY the components of Best Practices in Teaching PARTICIPATE in activities that illustrate these components LANGUAGE: DISCUSS ways to implement Instructional Best Practices in your classroom through collegial collaboration.

How We Teach Makes A Difference! All these activities are useful in helping students develop, organize, strengthen, and expand their knowledge structures.

High performance is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, careful planning, and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. Adapted from Willa A. Foster

BEST TEACHING PRACTICES Activating prior knowledge to make connections Framing the learning for all students Presenting smaller amounts of material at any time (10:2 Theory) Guiding student practice as students worked problems Providing for student processing of the new material (10:2 Theory) during and after lesson Checking the understanding of all students Preventing students from developing misconceptions J.W. Lloyd, E.J. Kameanui, and D. Chard (Eds.) (1997) Issues in educating students with disabilities.

ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE Raises students’ mental Velcro Engages students cognitively Identifies current knowledge Empowers the learner: “I already know something…” Allows adaptation of lesson plan Applies the SIOP connection

Activating Prior Knowledge to Make Connections Example: Word Splash How might you use a Word Splash in your classroom? Find your 4:00 collaborator and share.

Word Splash Applications Prior to a unit or lesson Prior to viewing a film and pausing the film periodically for students to discuss/revise predictions Prior to having a guest speaker Creating a picture splash: What do these pictures have to do with the Civil War? As a summarizing strategy, students read and then create their own word splash of what they consider to be the key terms or ideas of the passage

ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE WHY? The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly. David Ausubel, Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View

SIT IN TABLE GROUPS OF 4

Activating Prior Knowledge At your tables, number off 1, 2, 3, & 4 Discuss why activating students’ prior knowledge is so important. Share a strategy you’ve used since our last meeting to activate prior knowledge. Be prepared to share out.

Framing the Learning for All Students Let the students know verbally: What they will be learning using kid friendly objectives Why they are learning it How they will learn it How they will know they know it How you will know they know it

Pyramid of Learning 10 % READING 20% HEARING 30% SEEING 40% DISCUSS WITH OTHERS 70% 90% TALK/WRITE OR DO/APPLY

Presenting Smaller Amounts of Material At Any Time 10-2 Theory (10 minutes of instruction w/2 minutes to process) 37-90 Theory (for every 37 minutes of instruction, people need to get up and move for at least 90 seconds) Create lots of starts and stops Research shows that people remember the first 3-5 minutes of what they hear and the last 3-5 minutes of what they hear.

Presenting Smaller Amounts of Material At Any Time Example: Think, Pair, Share Think: How might you use “chunking” of material in your classroom? Turn to your neighbor and share. Be ready to share out to whole group.

Guiding Student Practice Practice makes permanent not perfect Don’t allow students to practice incorrectly Learning Sequence I do (teacher models) We do (whole class practice w/teacher) Y’all do (small group or partner practice while teacher monitors) You do (independent practice)

Providing for Student Processing of the New Material “Slowing down is a way of speeding up” Madeline Hunter 10-2 Theory (again) Wait Time Summarizing

Providing for Student Processing of New Material- pg. 106 Example: A,B,C to X,Y,Z Letter off A,B,C, etc. Write one thing you’ve learned so far or had reinforced in this session beginning with your letter of the alphabet Be ready to share How might you use this in your classroom? Turn to your table groups and share.

Checking the Understanding of All Students What it isn’t…. Are there any questions? Are you all with me? Am I going too fast? This is an adverb, isn’t it? Who can tell me?

Checking for Understanding of All Students What it is: Think-pair-share Whip around Craft sticks Slate/white boards Learning partners Pair-share-squared Quick-writes Tickets to leave Paired Verbal fluency (30-20-10)

Checking the Understanding of All Students Example: Quick-Write On a piece of paper, please take 2 minutes to answer the following questions. Of the 6 Best Practices we’ve examined so far, which do you feel you consistently implement in your classroom? Which do you need to be more intentional about implementing in the future? How might you use a quick-write in your classroom?

Preventing Student Misconceptions Students do not come to school as blank slates What they think they know greatly impacts their learning Anticipate confusion Use specific strategies to bring forth misconceptions Get all voices heard (SIOP)

Preventing Student Misconceptions Example: Anticipation Guide Before Reading After Reading Earthquake experts are called meteorologists. 2. Most earthquakes happen along a fault. 3. California has 5-10 earthquakes each year. How might you use this in your classroom? Find your 8:00 collaborator and share.

FINAL PROCESSING ALWAYS END YOUR DAILY LESSON WITH A FINAL PROCESSING ACTIVITY cements the day’s lesson for the students provides immediate assessment to inform next day’s instruction

Paired-Verbal Fluency Find a partner at your table-label yourselves 1 & 2 At the signal, #1 begins telling everything he/she knows about Best Practices in Instruction #2 listens carefully but says nothing At the signal, switch: #2 talks and #1 listens, trying not to repeat anything #1 said At the signal, switch again.

FINAL COUNTDOWN Some idea you really connected with Two strategies you can use immediately Three of the Best Practices in Instruction