Task 1-3 - educ 533- Best Practices Research

So for starters, I didn't know that Alta Vista was purchased by Yahoo! Go figure. I used the alternate search engine to see if I could get some different results.

Best Practices in Education

Okay, I found something worth my time. The US DOE has a web site called "Doing What Works." On it I found a .pdf that put some of the major mathematics benchmarks on a timeline (http://tinyurl.com/3ra88hz/). This was a nice linear representation of some major concepts that kids should be learning in mathematics during elementary and middle school. It's nice for me because I can know some of the skills that students should know coming into my classroom and where I need to head, curriculum and instruction wise, to prepare them for their next step.

Next, I found the site that I wish that I'd found first. (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/best-educational-practices.html) Here, educational best practices is defined:

"And the methods and tools used to give the best possible education (in the arena of formal education) to students in the available resources refer to best educational practices."

Short, succinct, and easy to understand.

Below this definition is a list of general ideas, or best practices I suppose. Included here are some cute names with general ideas that could be put into practice with a little bit of effort. "All Clear" was one that I liked in particular. It said that by stating clear goals, students have better focused direction. Seems almost too simple.

Next, we go to Oswego County, New York. (http://bestpractices.oswegoboces.org/index.php) [Note: You need a login to access the vast majority of the site. It's free and took me less than 90 seconds to register, click on the confirmation link in my e-mail and then access the site.]

This site is mostly focused on effective implementation of the Common Core Standards (something that threw a new spin on my integrated math course alignment last year after I'd already aligned with the "new, old" state standards. Ugh...). One article that I found here was something that reinforced an opinion that I've had since the end of my first year of teaching. Teaching deeply is far more important than just teaching facts. Now, I know that this is what every teacher is told from the get go in their formal teaching education, but the article that I read reinforced that it's so in areas of low economic advantage (exactly where I teach). Basically, it's better for me to teach the mechanics of how an end table is constructed (mortise and tenon joinery, proper alignment with dowel joints, how to make top setting blocks, etc...) and then have them design one to build rather than give a kid a plan for an end table and say, "...um...well...go to work!"

Best Practices in Instruction

http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/bestpractice/tiered/index.html has information on tiered instruction. Essentially this is teaching one concepts and then meeting every learner's needs to reach universal understanding. Great idea for me, because frustration builds along with increasing blood pressure when there are kids that fall behind and get farther and farther off track because they didn't understand one concept. For example, if a student doesn't understand that squaring a square root (or vice versa) leaves you with the number inside the square root (or square), moving on to solving single variable quadratic equations becomes fairly difficult.

The Texas Education Agency (http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/bestprac/bpc_instruction.html) provides a fairly good list of resources for best practices in instruction. Under the "mathematics" section, there is a program that details how a middle school targeted underachieving middle school students and got them into a "math lab" that stressed the use of manipulatives, hands-on activities and mid-year benchmarks to help elevate achievement. It was effective and demonstrated one thing that I wish to get better at as a teacher...helping to set clear, intermediate benchmarks (other than, "understand this particular lesson") that I help my students to work toward.


So the "best practices in education" are the more broad, sweeping ideas that should bound teaching pedagogy whereas the "best practices in instruction" are the nitty gritty plans for getting your hands dirty in the classroom.