Best Practices for Teaching and Learning
Explore Instructional Strategies that Improve Student Learning
Best Practices for Teaching and Learning integrates the wealth of institutional knowledge with current educational research. This resource offers research-based strategies for helping students learn in all grade levels and content areas.
Three Essential Areas of Best Practices for Teaching and Learning:
- Create a Student Centered Learning Environment
- Examine how physical set-up and teacher role affects student expectations
- Build relationships that promote a safe and positive environment in which students are responsible, self-motivated, and self-evaluating
Plan and Teach for Student Learning
- Plan assignments and assessments in alignment with Standards of Learning
- Purposefully plan to adjust teaching practices to meet the needs of individual students
- Employ teaching strategies, techniques, and resources that meet the needs of all students
- Be responsive to the variety of ways students demonstrate thinking and learning
Assess Student Learning
- Adapt teaching, based on evidence, to meet the needs of the student
- Check student progress in meeting standards and learning goals
- Actively involve students in assessment to promote continuous learning; and inform students, parents, and others about student achievement
Setting Up Your Classroom
Set up your classroom in a way that promotes student engagement and learning.
Checking for Understanding
What types of questions did you ask students in order to check for understanding?
Be a Part of a Collaborative Team
Educators are committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve.
Give Students a "Real-World" Problem to Solve
Problem-Based Learning is more challenging for students, as they must use creativity to come up with original solutions to the problem.
Student-led Discussions Encourage Open-Ended Expression of Ideas
Socratic Seminars can function as formative or summative assessments.
Watch the Best Practices For Teaching and Learning Video Collection
This resource offers research-based strategies for helping students learn.