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goals of the instruction, not by miscellaneous content coverage

Teaching by Jere Brophy pressures or test items.
- This is about a set of principles of effective teaching that have - A curriculum is not an end in itself; it is a means of helping
emerged from research in classrooms. It talks of curriculum, students to learn what is considered essential for preparing them to
instruction and assessment, as well as classroom organization and fulfil adult roles in society and realize their potential as
management practices that support effective instruction. individuals.

1. A Supportive Classroom Climate 4. Establishing Learning Orientations

- Students learn best within cohesive and caring communities. - Teachers can prepare students for learning by providing an initial
- Students optimizes their learning opportunities if they can structure to clarify intended outcomes and cue desired learning
participate and support to the leaning community that they are in. strategies.
- What a teacher should be: a cheerful disposition, friendliness, - The beginning of the class should contain the following:
emotional maturity, sincerity, and caring about students as communicating the purpose of the learning, connecting it to prior
individuals as well as learners. knowledge, cueing the kinds of student responses that the activity
- Teachers should provide an environment where they treat requires, and stimulate students motivation.
mistakes as natural parts of the learning process and where they - Other ways to help students learn with a sense of purpose and
are encouraged to work collaboratively and help one another. direction include calling attention to the activitys goals,
overviewing main ideas or major steps to be elaborated, pre - tests
2. Opportunity to Learn that sensitize students to main points to learn, and pre - questions
- Students learn more when most of the available time is allocated that stimulate their thinking about the topic.
to curriculum-related activities and the classroom management
system emphasizes maintaining their engagement in those 5. Coherent Content
activities. - To facilitate meaningful learning and retention, content is
- Effective teachers allocate most of the available time to explained clearly and developed with emphasis on its structure and
activities designed to accomplish instructional goals. connections.
- teachers who approach management as a process of establishing - networks of connected knowledge structured around powerful
an effective learning environment tend to be more successful than ideas can be learned with understanding and retained in forms that
teachers who emphasize their roles as disciplinarians. make them accessible for application.
- Opportunity to learn is sometimes defined as the degree of - Whether in textbooks or in teacher-led instruction, information
overlap between what is taught and what is tested. is easier to learn to the extent that it is coherentthe sequence of
ideas or events makes sense and the relationships among them are
3. Curricular Alignment apparent.
- All components of the curriculum are aligned to create a cohesive - In order to effectively do it teachers need to:
programme for accomplishing instructional purposes and goals. (i) retreat from breadth of coverage - most important content in
- Teaching should be a goal-oriented curriculum development, in greater depth;
which curricular planning is guided by the overall purposes and (ii) represent this important content as networks of connected
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information structured around powerful ideas; them to engage in learning activities productively.
(iii) develop the content with a focus on explaining these important - Assignment is one way.
ideas and the connections among them; and - Activities that will strengthen the gained knowledge or skill.
(iv) follow up with authentic learning activities and assessment - The teacher should provide assistance if needed like answering
measures that provide students with opportunities to develop and inquiries about the assignment or activities or having a re-teaching
display learning that reflects the intended outcomes of the or tutoring sessions of needed.
instruction.
9. Strategy Teaching
6. Thoughtful Discourse - The teacher models and instructs students in learning and self-
- Questions are planned to engage students in sustained discourse regulation strategies.
structured around powerful ideas. - This requires comprehensive instruction that includes attention to
- They use questions to stimulate students to process and reflect propositional knowledge (what to do), procedural knowledge
on content, recognize relationships among and implications of its (how to do it) and conditional knowledge (when and why to do
key ideas, think critically about it, and use it in problem solving, it).
decision making or other higher-order applications. - A teacher can model and instruct through rehearsal, elaboration,
- The questions should be addressed to the class as a whole. organization, comprehension monitoring, and affect monitoring.
- Teacher should ask them to explain and elaborate their answers.
10. Co-operative Learning
7. Practice and Application Activities - Students often benefit from working in pairs or small groups to
- Students need sufficient opportunities to practise and apply what construct understandings or help one another master skills.
they are learning, and to receive improvement-oriented feedback. - Co-operative learning promotes affective and social benefits
- Three main ways in which teachers help their students to learn. such as increased student interest in and valuing of subject matter,
First, they present information, explain concepts and model skills. and increases in positive attitudes and social interactions among
Second, they ask questions and lead their students in discussion students who differ in gender, race, ethnicity, achievement levels
and other forms of discourse surrounding the content. and other characteristics.
Third, they engage students in activities or assignments that - Co-operative learning methods are most likely to enhance
provide them with opportunities to practise or apply what they are learning outcomes if they combine group goals with individual
learning. accountability.
- Practice is one of the most important yet least appreciated aspects
of learning in classrooms. 11. Goal-Oriented Assessment
- Practice must involve opportunities not only to apply skills but - The teacher uses a variety of formal and informal assessment
also to receive timely feedback which are informative rather than methods to monitor progress towards learning goals.
evaluative. - Effective teachers routinely monitor their students progress using
both formal tests or performance evaluations and informal
8. Scaffolding Studentstask Engagement assessments of students contributions to lessons and work on
- The teacher provides whatever assistance students need to enable assignments.
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- Effective teachers use assessment for evaluating students 12. Achievement Expectations
progress in learning and for planning curriculum improvements, - The teacher establishes and follows through on appropriate
not just for generating grades. expectations for learning outcomes.
- In general, assessment should be treated as an ongoing and - Teachers should form and project expectations that are as
integral part of each instructional unit. positive as they can be while still remaining realistic.
- Teachers should expect all their students to progress sufficiently
to enable them to perform satisfactorily at the next level.