THE THREE PILLARS OF SUCCESSFUL TEACHING

picture from laurenfarme

As teachers, we often try to make changes in the way we run our classrooms in order to improve student achievement. In May, just before school lets out for the summer, I make a list of things about my classroom that I would like to improve. I then try to brainstorm ideas about how to get these improvements to happen when school starts up again in August. For a decade I would make these lists and, typically, try to address problems with relatively minor changes in direct instruction or the way I calculated student grades. I would tinker with late-penalties for missing work, extra-credit opportunities, pop quizzes to keep kids on their toes, and big test-review packets. In the end, the changes I made rarely did a great deal of good.

It wasn't until I started to look at some of the truly foundational principles of my teaching that I discovered ways to make truly important changes. Instead of tinkering at the margins, I began to replace some of the bedrock foundations of my system of teaching. To this day I still make constant adjustments to the way I do things, but I try to always keep three non-negotiable principles in mind whenever I design curriculum plan lessons, compose activities, and write tests.

I. STUDENTS LEARN BEST WHEN GIVEN A CONCISE, CLEARLY COMMUNICATED LIST OF SPECIFIC LEARNING GOALS.

II. ASSESSMENT SHOULD BE USED AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE ONGOING LEARNING PROCESS RATHER THAN AS A CUMULATIVE EVENT AT THE END OF THE LEARNING PROCESS.

III. THE RESULTS OF ASSESSMENT SHOULD HAVE AN IMMEDIATE AND POSITIVE IMPACT ON A STUDENT'S EXPERIENCE IN THE CLASSROOM.

These are simple ideas and you might think that most teachers already follow them. Unfortunately, the tried-and-true methods of grading, writing tests, and planning units are often at odds with these principles. Accepting these three ideas means taking a hard look at every single thing you do in your classroom, many of which are typically taken for granted. For example, I used to assume that students knew what would be on my exams. After all, I had been teaching the material for weeks. If they had been paying attention, they should know what was going to be on the test! Once I sat down and truly looked at the way I communicated with my students, however, I realized that I never actually gave them a consistent set of goals for any given unit. I simply let the unit unfold, expecting students to see the goals as we went along. This doesn't work, because students are not going to have an easy time pulling a few specific goals out of six weeks of activites, lectures, worksheets, and projects.

Here's a bit of homework for you! Take one of your units and try to boil down the information into a short list of learning goals. The goals should be specific, testable, and easy for students to understand. A goal is defined as something students must be able to understand or a skill students must be able to perform at the end of a unit. Your list should not exceed 5-6 items.