Principle 1 – Effective Teachers Understand How Students Learn
Behaviorism: A teacher-centered approach. Focuses on “observable and measurable aspects of students behavior.” (Tompkins, 2017, p.6) The teacher provides small mini-lessons, then students practice them by completing worksheets. Children are motivated through a combination of rewards and punishment. The lessons are planned, sequential style, and one must be mastered before moving to the next.
Constructivism: This is a student-centered approach. Students learn from connecting and processing new information with existing knowledge. A base knowledge is very important to build from.
Schema Theory: Our knowledge is organized into cognitive files called schema’s. Within these files we organize new information and add them to the correlating file that already has some base knowledge in it called assimilation. When the new information doesn’t correlate to something we already know, we construct a new file/schema through a process called accommodation. The way we group these schema’s is based off our past experiences and knowledge base.
Inquiry Learning: The understanding that students are curious, and want to ask questions, seek new information, and engage in investigations to learn acquire new knowledge.
Engagement Theory: The theory that students who are more engaged and hold self-efficacy will be more motivated to reading, writing, and reaching higher levels of achievement. They will enjoy collaborating with peers and despite any obstacles, overcome them successfully.
Sociolinguistics: This is also a student-centered approach. This theory is that children learn better when teachers focus on their zone of proximal development. Which means instead of focusing simply on where students actual development is focus on their potential development too. It’s a scaffolding technique in which teacher assists with task, then slowly backs off to let students master the task themselves. Once mastered, they move on to a new task to be learned and completed independently.
Sociocultural Theory: The cultural aspects intertwined with reading and writing the better off the student will be. The student will appreciate other cultures and become more successful at reading and writing.
Situated Learning Theory: A student will do better in a live learning atmosphere versus controlled. Interaction between students in the classroom is key here.
Critical Literacy: This theory has a political agenda and wants students to be social advocates. The more cultural diversity the better they will be at resolving inequities and injustices as they grow.
Information Processing: This theory suggests that our minds are very much like computers. We receive information, process the information, store in short-term, store in long-term, and so on.
Interactive models: Both reading and writing are interactive processes. While reading we try to comprehend text, then create meaning based from that. With writing we plan, draft, revise and edit to make meaning to us and other readers. There are steps to learning and displaying both.
Transactional theory: This is the theory that each reader creates meaning to text through their own personal interpretations.
Strategic Behaviors: Students actively control their behaviors/thinking through metcognition. “Metacognition is a control mechanism that involves both students’ awareness about their thinking and their active control of thinking.” (Tompkins, 2017, p.11) Think inception!
Principle 2: Effective Teachers Support Students’ Use of the Cueing Systems
There are four Cueing Systems: 1. The phonological, or sound system (talking) 2. The syntactic, or structural system 3. The semantic, or meaning system 4. The pragmatic, or social and cultural use system
- Phonological System: There are 44 sounds in the English language. (Phoneme – the smallest unit of sound /m/), (Grapheme – the written representation of a phoneme using one or more letters, the alphabet). (See figure 1 -2 p. 12)
- Syntactic System: This is the system we use that governs how words are combined into sentences. Syntax is the grammar of a sentence. Morphemes dictate our sentences.
- Semantic System: This is the focus on the meaning of words. We decipher synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms.
- Pragmatic System: This is where we deal with the social aspects of language use. Think different dialects due to ethnicity, geographics etc.
Principle 3: Effective teachers create a community of learners
Characteristics of a Classroom Community: Safety, Respect, High Expectations, Risk Taking, Collaboration, Choice, Responsibility, Family and Community Involvement
“Teachers are the classroom managers: They set expectations and clearly explain to students what’s expected of them and what’s valued in the classroom.” (Tompkins, 2017, p.16)
Principle 4: Effective Teachers Adopt a Balanced Approach to Instruction
A balanced approach to instruction integrates these ten components for all students:
- Comprehension
- Content Area Study
- Literacy Strategies and Skills
- Literature
- Oral Language
- Phonemic Awareness and Phonics
- Reading
- Spelling
- Vocabulary
- Writing
virginiawilson 