What Is Good Teaching?

Can good teaching be taught?

Models of Good Teaching
• Framework for Teaching, Charlotte Danielson
• Identifies 22 components (knowledge/skills) in four domains of teacher
responsibilities that promote learning
1. Planning and preparation responsibilities
2. Classroom environment responsibilities
3. Instruction responsibilities
4. Professional responsibilities
Beginning Teachers
• Often experience reality shock
• Only partially prepared for full responsibilities of teaching through student
teaching
• Focus concerns on classroom discipline, motivating students, accommodating
differences, and more
• Ask, “How am I doing?”
• With experience, shift from focus on self to focus on students’ needs
• Ask, “How are the children doing?”
• Judge teaching success by accomplishments of students
The Role of Educational Psychology
• Beginnings: Issues discussed by Plato and Aristotle
• Role of teacher, teaching methods, nature/order of learning, teacher-student
relationship
• History of educational psychology in the U.S.
• William James, Harvard, 1890, lecture series
• G. Stanley Hall (student of James) founded American Psychological Association
• John Dewey (Hall’s student)
• Father of progressive education movement
• Founder of Laboratory School, Univ of Chicago
• E. L. Thorndike, first educational psychology text, 1903, founder of Journal of
Educational Psychology, 1910
Educational Psychology Today
• Viewed as a distinct discipline with its own theories, research
methods, problems, techniques
• Also applies methods and theories of psychology
• Research focused on learning and teaching
• Working to improve educational policy and practice
• Research does not always support common sense practice
• Research shows diversity of opinions among teachers about what is sensible
• Strongly held beliefs often not supported by research
• Issue: Not what sounds sensible, but what is demonstrated (by
research) to be effective
Using Research to Understand and Improve
Learning
• Descriptive studies
• Collect detailed information about specific situations using observation,
surveys, interviews, recordings
• Results often include reports of correlations
• Correlation studies: Statistical descriptions of how closely two
variables are related
• Positive: Relationship between variables increases or decreases together
• Negative: Relationship between variables shows one increasing while other
decreases and vice versa
Using Research: Experimental Studies
• Experimental studies look at cause and effect
• Variables are manipulated and effects recorded
• Participants (subjects): People being studied
• Random: Subjects randomly grouped for study
• Quasi-experimental studies: Using naturally existing groupings such as classes or schools as the
subjects
• An aspect of situation is changed for one group, not others
• Compare results of each group
• Statistically significant differences: Not likely to occur by chance (indicating cause/effect
relationship)
• Correlations do NOT show causation
• Single-subject design: Determine effects of a therapy, teaching method, other
intervention
Clinical Interviews, Case Studies,
Ethnographies
• Clinical interview: Pioneered by Jean Piaget
• Open-ended questioning to probe responses, follow up on answers
• Case studies: Investigation of one person or situation
• Example: Interviewing family members, teachers, friends to identify students
for gifted program
• Ethnography: Study of naturally occurring events in life of a group to
understand meaning of events to the people
• Participant observation: Researcher becoming participant in the group being
studied
The Role of Time in Research
• Longitudinal studies: Happen over months or years
• Example: Study of cognitive development
• Involves keeping up with subjects for years
• Cross-sectional: Study groups of students at different ages
• Example: Study how conceptions of numbers changes from age 3 to age 16
• Interview children of different ages
• Microgenetic studies: Observation/analysis of changes in a cognitive
process as it unfolds (days or weeks)
• Observe period of the change
• Make many observations
• Put observed behavior “under a microscope”
Quantitative Versus Qualitative Research
• Qualitative: Use words, dialogue, events, images as data
• Goal: Explore specific situations/people in depth; understand meaning of
events to people involved
• Interpret subjective or socially constructed meanings (as in case studies,
ethnographies)
• Assume no process of understanding meaning can be completely objective
• Quantitative: Take measurements; make calculations
• Use numbers/statistics to assess relationships among variables or differences
between groups
• Try to be as objective as possible (as in correlational and experimental studies)
• Generalizable results (apply to similar situations/people)
Evidence-Based Practice
• Integrate best available research with insights of expert practitioners and
knowledge of the client
• What kind of research should guide education?
• Robert Slavin and others argue for scientific evidence
• David Berliner and others disagree because context cannot be controlled in
classrooms, education settings
• Complementary methods: Using both qualitative and quantitative methods
to fit the research questions
• Questions involving causes, meanings, relations among variables; pursue both depth
and breadth
• Example: Study 10 classrooms, explore how teachers with fewest behavior problems
establish positive learning environment
Teachers as Researchers
• Action research: Systematic observations, tests, methods conducted
by teachers to improve teaching/learning
• Use same kinds of observation, intervention, data gathering, analysis
as large research projects
• Examples of problem-solving investigations focused on a specific
teaching or learning problem
• Which writing prompts encourage the most creative writing in my class?
• Would assigning task roles in science groups lead to more equitable
participation of girls/boys?
• Reported in journals such as Theory Into Practice
Theories for Teaching
• Principle: An established relationship between factors
• Becomes established when enough studies in a certain area point to same
conclusions
• Theory: Integrated statement of principles that attempts to explain a
phenomenon and make predictions
• Beginning and ending points of research cycle
• From theories, develop hypotheses to be tested
• Hypothesis: A prediction of what will happen in a research study
based on theory and previous research
Research Cycle
• Empirical process (based on systematically collected data to test and
improve theories)
• Steps in the process
• State hypotheses or research questions based on current understandings or
theories
• Gather and analyze data about the questions
• Interpret and analyze data gathered
• Modify and improve explanatory theories based on results of analyses
• Formulate new, better questions based on improved theories
Supporting Student Learning
Factors that support K-12 student achievement
• Student personal factors
• Student engagement: Engaging their behavior, minds, motivations, emotions
• Learning strategies: Teaching cognitive, metacognitive, behavioral strategies
• School and social-contextual factors
• School climate: Academic emphasis, positive teacher qualities, school with
positive climate
• Social-familial influences: Parental involvement, positive peer influences
Educational psychology addresses these supporting factors