Instructional
Practices:
How do you typically
instruct your students? other learners (e.g. teachers)? Have your instructional
practices changed over the years? Why or why not? And if so, in what ways?
My usual instructional
strategies include direct teaching, questioning, paraphrasing, indicating
understanding with a thumbs up or thumbs down, think-pair-share, and peer
interaction for particular lessons and units. I normally ask one or two
students to repeat back to me what they are supposed to do to check their
understanding. I use a lot of repetition
when I am introducing the task, noting the highlights of the assignment. I am cognitive of the fact that adolescents
have a need to move after several minutes of seat-work, and incorporate some
type of movement or shake-up of the lesson to maintain interest and engagement
within our class time. I try to access the students’ prior knowledge
through questioning such as, “Have you ever?” or “What would you do
if?” I stimulate pre-task interest by asking a burning question
orally or writing one on the Smartboard to get the students thinking about
different ways to answer the question without being too specific and to leave a
little mystery, and yet make the question relevant enough to the learning.
The burning question is more broad than the prior knowledge questioning
and lends itself well to a focus throughout the assignment. During a novel study, for example, about a
biography of someone who created a world-changing organization, I would ask, “Have
you ever had an idea so great you thought it could change the world?” to
access prior knowledge, while asking as a burning question, “How does a hero
affect change in a generation?”
With teachers, I would
instruct more by paraphrasing during sharing of information and then asking
questions about their thoughts or opinions. If I was doing a Professional
Development session, however, I would be more formal and start with a burning
question to tie into the learning as well. I believe there is always
value added when a person’s critical thinking is aroused which fuels a need for
an answer. I endeavour to light the
spark of curiosity with an instructional strategy, no matter the age group.
As I look back over my
years of teaching, I would say that my instructional practices have changed
only slightly; they have remained within a range that hasn’t swayed too much.
I attribute that to excellent training in university, which I have
heavily relied on since my first year of teaching. Because of many types of instructional
strategies practice since then, relevant to the middle-school genre, I have
felt quite confident throughout my career to use the mainstays of
peer-interaction, group work, and questioning consistently. The slight
variation would be the specific type of activities, for example jigsaw being
one I hadn’t used for a long time, but the overall general instructional
strategies have remained constant.
What research do you
use to support your instructional practices? What evidence do you have that
indicates that your instructional practices help students achieve and be
successful?
The need for social
interaction and physical movement in adolescents researched by the works of
Nancy Kolodziej, Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Thomas Many
have supported my instructional practices. Whether advocating
professional learning communities (DuFour et al, 2006), or Learning Station
Models (Kolodziej, 2010), the theme is ultimately about socialization and
physical movement during the middle-school years for student success.
This understanding about adolescents is crucial to support them in their
learning journey. The evidence that I
have witnessed in junior high is a much more engaged student body in general
when they are working cooperatively and collaboratively. Students who
excel in one area are able to showcase their talents more effectively when the
work is divided up into a group and they agree on how to split up the tasks. Many students perform better in a group and
their marks reflect this. I see more
consistent on-task behavior when peers are able to interact with one another
towards a shared goal.
What work do we have
to do as instructional leaders in this area to ensure that students are
receiving the best instructional practices in our buildings/districts?
As an instructional
leader, my best practices include keeping current with research. This is
largely accomplished through professional reading, my Master’s program in the
course study and peer exchange of ideas, and ongoing professional development
at my school. The students themselves are also a very good indicator of
whether or not they are receiving quality instructional practices. If they exhibit deeper understanding and learning
from the lesson or unit we’ve just covered, then success has been accomplished.
