Fourteen Ways to Think about Good Teaching
Based on Elliott Seif, Teaching for Lifelong Learning: How to Prepare Students for a Changing World. (2021: Solution Tree Press)
Much of my educational career has been spent in teaching or observing teachers. I also had the incredible opportunity of attending many wonderful professional development sessions with outstanding presenters, and working with some amazing educators over many years.
As a result, I have compiled a synthesis of some of the most important things that I have learned about effective teaching along the way. Here are fourteen ways of thinking about teaching that, when part of true self-reflection, can change much of what is being done in the classroom for the better.
These fourteen ways of thinking can be explored with individuals or groups of teachers to raise issues about teaching and learning, focus professional development around some important issues and challenges, and help provide a framework for professional growth over time. They may also be useful as a framework for thinking about teacher evaluation.
Read the descriptions below of my fourteen “ways of thinking” about teaching and learning. Get familiar with them. When you are done, consider doing the exercises at the end of this commentary, or sharing them in PD sessions, in order to better apply them to teaching and learning.
1. Get to know your students, especially how they learn and think.
An important aspect of teaching is in developing relationships with students. Getting to know students helps with planning, motivation, interest, and discipline. It is about knowing how students learn, how they think, what blocks their learning, what’s on their minds.
As much as possible, get to know students as individuals, with all their variety of thoughts, passions, ideas, backgrounds, humor, unique qualities. This is especially hard to do for middle and high school teachers, who have so many students to teach. But it is important that all teachers, whatever their level of teaching, whatever their situation, take some time during the school year to do activities that build relationships and help to learn about students. There are many ways to both formally and informally do this, such as get-to know-me activities, written self-reflections, observing how students go about solving problems, observing groupwork discussions, encouraging students to ask for help when they are having problems, meeting with students informally after school, or talking with other teachers about specific students (not always problem students).
2. Plan key goals for both the long term and the short term.
Long term planning should be the force behind short term planning. In other words, plan for what you want your students to accomplish in the long run, and then plan each day so that your students can get closer to your goal. For example, a long-term goal might be to help students become better writers, while the short-term goal is to improve their writing organization, grammar and vocabulary. A long- term goal might be a unit goal, and each daily lesson plan contributes to the goals of the unit. A long-term goal might be a yearly understanding-based goal, and a unit goal might contribute to the year-long understanding goal.
As most teachers know, this is not easy. There are many obstacles, changes, and detours along the way, depending on what happens each day. The variables are tremendous. But it is always important to consider what you want your students to accomplish over a long period of time (the big goals), and figure out how each day helps them get there.
3. Include “habits of mind” as well as academic goals.
With the emphasis today on standardized test score success, learning academic content and skills become the most important focus for achievement and success. But much recent research suggests that “habits of mind” qualities are critical for long term success. Students who don’t see a connection between their effort and learning, are unable to be persistent, lack curiosity and resilience in the face of challenges, cannot work well with others, lack self-responsibility, are unorganized or unable to plan their time well, or lack the ability and willingness to ask for help and support when needed will have a great deal of trouble both in learning and in life. So it is important for teachers to assess these “soft” skills as well as academic and cognitive learning to help students achieve long-term success.
4. Translate learning goals into meaningful, interesting questions and challenges.
According to several sources, Richard Feynman, a world-renowned physicist, was “heavily influenced by his father, who encouraged him to ask questions to challenge orthodox thinking”… “[His father] never taught facts so much as questions. He encouraged young Richard to identify not what he knew, but rather what he did not know… What's most important for knowledge is the well asked question”.
Today, in my view, too many teachers have lost the art of helping students focus their learning around meaningful questions. My observations indicate that teachers still most often focus learning around imparting specific subject matter or stating goals in terms of “behavioral” objectives. But what if we thought about our teaching in terms of exploring open-ended questions that are interesting and meaningful to our students? What if we put “essential”, compelling questions on the board at the beginning of units and lessons, discussed with our students why they are important and meaningful, and then referred to them throughout the unit? Designed core questions that extended throughout the year? Created meaningful open-ended challenges as starting points for learning? Asked our students to develop essential questions?
One of my favorite questions, used by Kathy Davis, a first grade teacher, is the following: What writing is worth reading? Imagine studying different kinds of writing over a long period of time with that question in mind? Another set of questions, worth studying in an American History course, is the following: “What is the American Dream? Where did it come from? Does it still exist?
So here’s something to think about: How can you translate your learning goals and objectives into important, interesting, meaningful questions? How can you use these questions as starting points for learning? For skill development? For making content relevant? How can these questions repeat and recur over time? Become the focus for many learning activities over time?
Much, if not most, important learning and growth starts with curiosity around questions, or perplexities around challenges. Teachers need to reinforce that type of learning, and begin student learning with questions and challenges that stimulate curiosity and interest, and motivate students to learn.
5. Teach reading and other forms of literacy as inquiry, exploration, and research.
Textbook activities often are treated solely as reading assignments (e.g. Read chapter seven and answer the questions at the end of the chapter). But what if teachers thought of textbooks and other reading materials, especially non-fiction reading, as sources of information designed to help answer questions, build understanding, explore interesting topics, and help find answers to challenges. What if the reading of literature was built around some interesting, significant questions, conflicts and issues? What if students had a chance to choose some of the literature they are asked to read based on their own curiosity? Treating textbooks, literature and other reading resources as a form of inquiry, exploration, curiosity, or research to answer questions helps put reading in an important context, not as a chore.
One simple textbook-non-fiction reading strategy that helps support this approach is the simple SQ3R strategy and its variations. First, students survey the material to be read, looking at headings, key words, difficult passages, pictures and other ancillary materials, and the like. Next, students turn headings into questions or bring into play previously developed questions to begin to find answers in the materials. Finally, they read and highlight key points, recite learning from the text that answers key questions, and then review and summarize the information that relates to the answers to each question.
6. Develop both foundational and deep learning.
I have always felt that many teachers try to teach too much content and therefore do not have enough time for getting deeper into subject matter and skill development. Teachers need to think about priorities so that content is most likely to be remembered. For example, the period of history in which the Constitution was developed is a very good time to concentrate on a few key points about the Constitution: the Bill of Rights, the Organization of Government, and the Constitutional “compromise” on slavery. While there are many other issues and facts that might be learned, these are key.
Deeper learning also results from analysis, interpretation, or doing something with (applying) the information learned. What if students ended this American history unit by developing their own Constitution for their classroom or school? Or created a new and better Constitution for America? Or simulating the Constitutional Convention and developed a Constitution based on the interests of each of the thirteen states?
Finally, deeper learning also occurs when students are able to choose independent projects built around the curriculum, or have the opportunity to develop their own “passion projects” based on their own interests.
7. Frequently use a variety of open-ended assignments as a key instructional tool.
Asking students of all ages to continually develop their thinking in many formats helps them formulate their ideas, organize their thoughts, think clearly and cogently, draw conclusions, self-reflect, and argue for a point of view, among other things.
Opportunities include discussion or writing activities at the beginning of a unit to determine what students know and how they think, daily short written reflections summarizing what they have learned at the end of a class, position papers around an issue discussed in class, visual organizers to help students create meaning from learning, research and project reports, analyses and interpretations from reading, frequent self-reflections, and end of unit essays in place of or complementary to traditional tests. Not all writing has to be graded, but carefully choosing writing to provide feedback provides students with significant opportunities for improvement.
8. Involve and engage ALL students in learning.
It is surprising how often teachers, especially in middle and secondary teachers, spend little time thinking about how to engage and involve every student on a daily basis. All too frequently, I have observed teachers who ask questions and involve very few students in giving answers; allow students to put their heads down on their desks during a lesson; stand in front of the class instead of walking around to engage students. Many students learn that it is OK to “tune out” of the lesson, and that they will be rewarded just for coming to school that day. Beginning teachers are especially likely to make the mistake of letting students “tune out” of their lessons. Here are some ways to avoid student passivity:
Don’t just stand in front of a group of students. Walk around the room. Catch the eye of students. Watch what they are doing. Gently shake a student who has his or her head on the desk. Call on students who you think are not paying attention.
Begin each class or new learning experience with an engaging “To Do” Activity that students must respond to as they enter your classroom. For example, a “To Do” Activity might begin with writing a short summary of what they were asked to read the night before or finding the answer to a math problem based on the work they did the previous day.
Use “think-pair-share” strategies to involve everyone in exploring significant questions. Here’s how it works. Ask an open-ended question. Then ask each student to write down their answer. Then students pair up with another student to discuss their answer. Finally, teachers call on individual students to share their answer and hopefully begin a discussion.
9. Bring the outside world into the school and classroom, and the school and classroom into the outside world.
Here’s how I think about schools and the surrounding world: The school world is for learning - the outside world is for living. People don’t live in a school. They go to school to learn. They live in their homes, in their offices, in the environment around them, in the world outside of school. Too often, school becomes an isolated entity unto itself, with little or no connection to the way people live in the outside world. As teachers, we need to remember this and, as often as we can, bring the outside world into the school and the school into the outside world.
How do we do this?
I remember watching KayTolliver, an excellent elementary math teacher who made some wonderful professional development tapes, take her fifth grade urban students on a walk through the school neighborhood looking for mathematics concepts and creating mathematics problems. They found mathematics problems around park benches, playgrounds, subway trains, parking meters, building blocks and shapes, maps of the neighborhood, and seven step staircases in Central Park. The math that they were learning in school became real and relevant. Another example: in a local comprehensive urban high school I once visited, a counselor organized talks in the school by local community members to help students see the variety of careers and lives led by those with similar ethnic backgrounds. Finally, there are currently many examples of how technologies provide new tools for bringing the outside community into the school and the school to the outside community: for example, how teachers are using Skype and Zoom to bring in the outside community and world into the school and classroom.
10. Know when to maintain a strong structure for students and when to “let go”.
Good teachers know when to structure learning and when to give students opportunities for greater freedom and self-direction. For example, when students are first learning how to do research, they need more structure – a step-by-step process, good explanations of how to conduct research and use research skills, models of good research products, and guided practice opportunities. Once they have learned and practiced the basic components of research, then they can be given more freedom to work on their own. In other words, sometimes students need strong structures, especially when they are first learning how to do something. But, eventually, we need to “let go” and give them freedom to use their knowledge and skills to work on their own and make their own mistakes in order to keep getting better at what they are doing. One of the most difficult decisions about teaching is knowing when students need significant structure and when to let go and give them more self-direction.
“Letting go” may also mean giving students greater choice and more options. Giving students the right to select their own books to read should be an important part of a good comprehensive reading program. Allowing students to select their own research question and project, sometimes within the parameters of a subject area, also gives students greater interest in and responsibility for their research.
11. Help students to improve and make progress.
What does it mean for students to get better at doing something? Understand in a deeper way? What does it look like when they improve? How will you know when your students have a better understanding of core content? How can you build a student culture of “craftsmanship and understanding” that supports and encourages improvement over time?
Seeking progress and improvement is more likely to occur when students frequently do tasks related to what needs improvement, such as writing, making presentations, conducting research, performing experiments, and organizing learning for understanding. Feedback that provides students with specific guidance on what they need to do to improve their work is important. Showing models of good work to strive for is very helpful. An approach to teaching and learning that savors and supports gradual progress and improvement can lead to the development of a culture and way of thinking that promotes craftsmanship, deeper understanding, and striving for improvement over time.
Progress can also be assessed over time, through the collection of activities into portfolios or student work or interactive notebooks. These collections help students and teachers show progress over time, and help students analyze their own strengths and pinpoint areas to work on.
12. Check for understanding - often.
Another way to help students improve learning is to check for understanding often. Teachers need to check in frequently with students to see if they are “getting it” – really understanding what they are learning. This way of thinking has been getting much more play lately, and rightly so. Many strategies are available for this purpose, such as using application-oriented math problems, end of lesson summary strategies, such as 3-2-1 (three things I learned from this lesson, two things that were the most interesting, one question I still have); 10-2 lectures (10 minutes of lecture, 2 minutes of reflection and questions), and self-reflection opportunities.
13. Create strong culminating experiences and assessments.
Unfortunately, at the middle and high school levels, end of unit culminating experiences are often in the form of multiple choice-short answer tests. What could be less interesting for a student? What could be less relevant? Should the traditional test be the culminating experience of student work and learning?
Consider developing alternatives to traditional tests, even for just some units. How about a field trip to an art museum at the end of a unit so that students can analyze and write about a specific artistic period in greater depth? Perhaps students should write a position paper about a controversial topic in American History or design an experiment as the culmination of a science unit? How about giving students two or three (or more) essay questions several days in advance of a test time to give students time to prepare outlines of answers, from which one or two are selected to be written during a two hour class period? How about giving students interesting open-book (or even open-research) essay questions? Or what about completing an authentic performance task that demonstrates the ability of students to apply their learning to a new situation? These are much more interesting, relevant, and meaningful culminating assessments.
14. Use technology to foster strong student outcomes.
Technology, when used appropriately, can be an extremely valuable tool that enables teachers and students to learn more efficiently and effectively. For example, simple technologies, such as Microsoft word and powerpoint are useful for encouraging and editing writing and making presentations. The Internet and search engines are wonderful tools to support research, but students have to learn how to use them carefully, skillfully, and wisely for this purpose. Some of the more complex technologies are useful to promote “gaming” and simulations. “Flipping” uses technology to help students learn basic information outside of school so that teachers can focus on “deeper learning” when students are in class. Some technologies that promote individualized learning through highly structured, engaging learning situations are very helpful to students.
Any of these technology tools, and others, might be used in schools and classrooms, but especially when they are appropriate to the teacher’s goals and to the learning situation. Technology tools should be used for specific goals when they make learning more efficient, but not when they might deter students from using their minds, thinking through a problem, or reading texts carefully.
An Exercise to Share and Learn from These Fourteen Ways of Thinking About Teaching
Now that you have read and learned about the fourteen ways of thinking about good teaching, here is an exercise you can do to help you examine these in greater detail and apply them to your own teaching situation. Review the fourteen ways of thinking about good teaching, listed without commentary, below:
1. Get to know your students, especially how they learn and think.
2. Plan key goals for both the long-term and the short term.
3. Include “habits of mind” as well as academic goals.
4. Translate learning goals into meaningful, interesting questions and challenges.
5. Teach reading (and other forms of literacy as inquiry, exploration, and research.
6. Develop both foundational and deep learning
7. Frequently use open-ended writing assignments as a key instructional tool.
8. Involve and engage ALL students in learning.
9. Bring the outside world into the school and classroom, and the school and classroom into the outside world.
10. Know when to maintain a strong structure for students and when to “let go”.
11. Help students to improve, make progress and get better
12. Check for understanding - often
13. Create strong culminating experiences and assessments.
14. Appropriately use technology as a learning tool.
After your review, reflect on the following questions:
· Do these all make sense to you? What would you add or subtract and why? How would you change the wording to increase clarity and meaning?
· Which to you are most important for effective teaching? Least important? Why?
· If you are an administrator, consider which of these are strongest in your school or district? Weakest and need work?
· If you are a teacher, consider the following:
how you apply these to your own teaching situation? Which areas are your strengths? Which are challenges?
If you could pick one or two areas that you currently do really well, what would they be?
Which one or two do you need to work on the most? What do you do well? What do you specifically do that makes one or more of these “ways of thinking” work well for you?
Think about which areas do you most need to work on? Find out what other teachers do who are strong in those areas. Do some research on effectiveness in these areas. Consider one or two changes to your routines that might improve them.
Finally, use my book Teaching for Lifelong Learning: How to Prepare Students for a Changing World (Solution Tree Press, 2021) to provide ideas and specific strategies for implementing these fourteen suggestions for good teaching.
