Podcast Fav of the week: SMARTBoard Lessons Podcast

Last week I found this podcast called the SMARTBoard Lessons Podcast.  I know I don’t have a real SMARTBoard, but I want my students to use my new interactive Wiiboard.  I needed to find resources for it, and I found them on this podcast.  Canadians Ben and Joan, the clever hosts of the podcast, include a SMARTBoad lesson each week.   I love that the lessons are build upon Robert Marzono’s pedigogical research in his book Classroom Instruction That Works.  I already found a couple lessons I want to use.

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What are the best practices in teaching?

What are the best practices of teaching. This top ten list of best principles of learning comes from New Zealand is the summary of a full report that is a synthesis of research-based teaching practices.

Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration (BES) - Education Counts

1. Quality teaching is focused on student achievement (including social outcomes) and facilities high standards of student outcomes for heterogeneous groups of students. Research-based characteristics.
learning processes. Research-based characteristics are specific to curriculum context and the prior knowledge and experiences of the learners.
2. Pedagogical practices enable classes and other learning groupings to work as caring, inclusive, and cohesive learning communities.
3. Effective links are created between school and other cultural contexts in which students are socialised, to facilitate learning.
4. Quality teaching is responsive to student learning processes.
5. Opportunity to learn is effective and sufficient. Research-based characteristics
6. Multiple task contexts support learning cycles. Research-based characteristics
7. Curriculum goals, resources including ICT usage, task design, teaching and school practices are effectively Research-based characteristics
8. Pedagogy scaffolds and provides appropriate feedback on students’ task engagement. Research-based characteristics
9. Pedagogy promotes learning orientations, student self-regulation, metacognitive strategies and thoughtful student discourse. Research-based characteristics
10. Teachers and students engage constructively in goal-oriented assessment.

I found the study on a link from Tom Hoffman’s presentation at a educon2.0 workshop on the Coalition of Essential Schools Ten Common Principles The ten principles are:

Tuttle SVC: The Historical Role of the CES Common Principles

1. Learning to use one’s mind well
2. Less is More, depth over coverage
3. Goals apply to all students
4. Personalization
5. Student-as-worker, teacher-as-coach
6. Demonstration of mastery
7. A tone of decency and trust
8. Commitment to the entire school
9. Resources dedicated to teaching and learning
10. Democracy and equity

Lists don’t do as much for me as stories. I’ll look for stories that will help illustrate what best practices in teaching look like.

My thinking so far on best practices includes:

1. Helping my students be the best they can be, whether they want to of not.
2. Make learning centered around the student, not around the textbook.
3. Cooperative learning makes learning fun, and helps everyone in the group to learn more if done properly. Kagan cooperative learning structures are an excellent, but proprietary example.
4. Hands-on, minds-on learning is the best for all students.
5. It’s Ok for learning to be fun. Games focused on objectives are a fun way to reinforce learning.
6. Technology tools can amplify learning if used to categorize/organize, communicate, collaborate, and create.

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