Five Highly Effective Teaching Strategies

In this post, I'm sharing a brief article, Five Highly Effective Teaching Practices, Published February, 27, 2015 in Edutopia.

In the article the writer reflects on her experience as a young teacher returning to school after attending a large conference.  She felt overwhelmed by the litany of new strategies that teachers are often encouraged to apply to their practice.  She makes a good point.  It would be extremely overwhelming for both new and veteran staff if they were to attempt to implement each and every "innovative" teaching strategy presented to them at conferences.

She goes on to write, "We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it's essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it's important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than "always trying something new" is the reason behind why we do what we do".

This rings true of our staff culture at York Middle School.  One of the major shifts in culture that has occurred over the last several years is that we have embraced the mindset that the fundamental task of teachers is to evaluate the effect of their practice on student achievement and learning.  We work hard to implement research-based practices and we actively study the impact of those practices on our students.  The following article briefly describes some of the practices that teachers at YMS strive to implement at a high level every day.  I hope you enjoy reading it.

Five Highly Effective Teaching Practices