Sunday, February 05, 2012

Effective Teachers... what it means...

What defines an effective classroom?
What behaviours do we observe in such a classroom?

Some thoughts... 
How students behave?
  • Students are able to demonstrate their understanding through various means...
How teachers behave?

Effective teachers are ones who
  • possess strong subject mastery
    • which enables the teachers to see identify what the essence of the subject discipline, pitching the delivery at a level that learners are able to understand and make connections, hence making pathways for learners to move beyond the defined parameters (baseline) or to deepen their understanding.
  • sound pedagogy
    • adopt approaches and strategies to develop and level up students' cognitive intellectual abilities. 
    • Questioning is one of the key 'avenues' - several means include Paul's Wheel, Bloom's Taxonomy, Socratic Questioning. 
    • Curriculum Differentiation is another approach.
Distilling... 3 key elements that are effective ingredients...
  • Students demonstrated understanding of the intended learning outcomes; hence teachers have to design activities to bring out the understanding - in terms of the content, knowledge, skills, competencies
  • There exists clear alignment/ coherence in the learning activities and learning outcomes
  • Inquiry - to provide opportunities to learners to ask and find out more
Intellectual Standards
Some useful links...
  • http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/universal-intellectual-standards.cfm

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