1. INSTRUCTIONAL BEST PRACTICES IN TEACHING

2. 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.

3. 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.

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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. SIT IN TABLE GROUPS OF 4

12. 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.

13. 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

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

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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)

18. 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

19. 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.

20. 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?

21. 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 ( )

22. 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?

23. 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)

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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.

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