The Seven Structures of Best Practice Teaching

By following the seven structures of best practice teaching, classroom learning will have a huge effect on student's overall learning and growth.  Here are some strategies that stand out to me.

-All best practices are student centered, replacing teacher to student learning.  The teacher must take a less predominant role which; thus, there needs to be a balance between student-centered activities and teacher directed lessons.  Set aside time for student centered learning and make teacher directed learning more meaningful.

-During reading by using text coding, marking up the text can be the most simple, practical, and widespread thinking tool that real-life readers use.  Symbols can be used to help student notice their responses quickly.  The insert system, INSET TEXT CODES, looks like this:

check mark = confirms what you thought

x = contradicts what you thought

? = raises a question

?? = confuses you

* = seems important

! = is new or interesting

-Classroom Workshop:  When focusing on literacy, the most important strategy is the reading-writing workshop.  Students choose their own topics that they want to write and read about.  Instead of the teacher telling about reading and writing, the students actually DO their own reading and writing.  Workshops are about providing choice. 

AR/Classroom application:   These practices are all strategies that can be implemented into the classroom to get results for an action research project.  I like the one-on-one conferencing with students where I listen and ask questions.  I could put this practice into place in the fall in my 3^rd grade classes.  They could choose their own books, write in academic journals, and reflect on and set goals for learning.  I could track each student’s growth and learning by using reflective assessment.  I could also survey them before and after to see how they found the practices of choosing books and directing their own learning.