As you sit on the dock with your lemonade watching your kids splash around in the water this month, it might also be a great time to reflect on the past year of teaching.  While we are in the midst, it is hard to take a clear look at how we are doing, but sometimes during the relative quiet of the summer, there are moments for reflection.

This month's page offers some great resources to help you not only recognize all of the great things you are already doing, but also to give you some solid ideas for improvement.

Overall, I hope you will take some time to remember the many lives you touched for good this year, by giving the gifts of movement, critical thinking, and social skill development to your students.  What other discipline consistently offers so much?

Thank you!

Cindy Kuhrasch
Interdisciplinary Section Editor

Best education practices are teaching and learning processes that affect student achievement.  These practices take the teacher off stage, decentralize the classroom, and transfer responsibility for active learning to the students in any subject.  The following are common conclusions of what works. 

Physical Facilities

Safe and inviting

Bare, unadorned space Commercial decorations šStudent-made artwork/products/displays

Classroom Climate/Management

Management by punishments and rewards š Order maintained by engagement and community

Teacher creates and enforces rules šStudents help set and enforce norms

Students are silent/motionless/passive/controlled š Purposeful talk, movement, and autonomy

Students in fixed groups based on "ability" šFlexible grouping based on tasks and choice

Rigid, unvarying schedule šPredictable but flexible time usage based on activities

Student Voice and Involvement

Balanced with teacher-chosen and teacher-directed activities:

š Students maintain their own records, set own goals, self-assess

š Some themes/inquiries are built from students’ own questions; "negotiated curriculum"

š Students assume responsibility, take roles in decision making, help run classroom life

Activities and Assignments

Teacher presentation and transmission of materials šStudents actively experiencing concepts

Whole-class teaching š Centers and cooperative small groups šWide variety of activities

Teacher in front, directing whole class šTeacher hard to find, working with groups

Uniform curriculum for all šJigsawed curriculum; different topics by kids’ needs or choices

Focus on memorization and recall šFocus on applying knowledge and problem solving

One-way assignments/lessons šAccommodation for multiple intelligences and cognitive styles

Language and Communication

Forced constant silence šNoise and conversation alternates with quiet time

Short responses š Elaborated discussion šStudents’ own questions and evaluation

Teacher talk š Student-teacher talk šStudent-student talk

Talk and writing focuses on:  Facts š Skills š Concepts šSynthesis, Evaluation 

Time Allocations

Time allocations are BALANCED between:

Teacher-directed and student-directed work

Individual work/small-group or team work/whole-class work

Fundamental recurrent activities happen on daily/regular basis

Teacher-student and student-student conferences 

Students can explain the time allocations and recurrent activities/procedures in their classroom. 

Student Work and Assessment

Products created for teachers and grading šProducts created for real events and audiences

Classroom/hallway displays; no student work posted š "A" papers only šAll students represented

Identical, imitative products displayed šVaried and original products displayed

Teacher feedback is scores and grades šTeacher feedback is substantive, varied, and formative

Products are seen and rated only by teachers šPublic exhibitions and performances are common

Teacher gradebook šStudent-maintained portfolios, with self-assessments and conferences

All assessment by teachers š Student self-assessment an official element šParents are involved

Standards set during grading š Standards available in advance šStandards co developed with students 

Teacher Attitude and Initiative

Toward Students:

Distant, negative, fearful, punitive šPositive, respectful, encouraging, warm

Blaming students šReasoning with students

Directive šConsultative 

Toward Self:

Helpless victim š Risk taker/Experimenter šCreative, active agent

Solitary adult š member of team with other adults in school šMember of networks beyond school

Staff development recipient š Chooses and directs own professional growth 

Conception of Job Roles:

Expert, presenter šCoach, mentor, model, guide 

Sources:  Daniels, Harvey and Marilyn Bizar. 1998.  Methods That Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice Classrooms.  York, ME : Stenhouse.  Kohn, Alfie. 1996.  "What to Look for in a Classroom."  Educational Leadership (September).

Self-Assessment Worksheet

Carefully reflect on your teaching performance in all domains.

Key: U…Unsatisfactory B…Basic P…Proficient D…Distinguished

Based on domains from Charlotte Danielson, Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching, ASCD, 1996 and a form from the Newport News, VA Public Schools.

Here are a few thought provoking questions to share with your colleagues as you end the year.  How closely aligned are your answers with those with whom you teach?

When you participate in physical education there is always a right way to go about doing things and answers are not open to interpretation.

Investigating new situations and relationships among concepts are important parts of participating in physical education.

Some people are better at doing physical education than others because they have a certain kind of physical education way of thinking.

Collaborating with other people to share ideas and verify conjectures is an important part of participating in physical education.

Participating in physical education is a step-by-step mechanical process.

When participating in physical education it is not important to understand why a procedure works only that it will give you the right answer.

When participating in physical education, if you don't understand something you need to get help from a text book or the instructor.

Participating in physical education is thought-provoking.

When participating in physical education you are discovering patterns and making generalizations.

Physical education is most often a solitary activity.

Participating in physical education is a creative process.

There are many ways to go about solving most problems in physical education.

Using cooperative learning techniques in physical education instruction is not appropriate for high achieving students.

When teaching physical education the teacher should demonstrate the physical education steps clearly and slowly and then give students time to learn the steps by repetition.

Students generally learn physical education best in classes/groups with students of similar abilities.

It is better to teach physical education ideas directly to students than to let then figure out relationships for themselves.

When working with slow learners in physical education teachers should focus a lot of instruction on "basic skills."

To learn physical education students should be given plenty of opportunities to engage in inquiry oriented activities

Twelve great guidelines

Good evaluations of professional development don’t have to be costly. Nor do they demand sophisticated technical skills (although technical assistance can sometimes be helpful). What they do require is the ability to ask good questions, and a basic understanding about how to find valid answers. Good evaluations provide sound, useful, and sufficiently reliable information that can be used to make thoughtful and responsible decisions about professional development processes and effects.

The following guidelines are designed to improve the quality of professional development evaluations. Although adhering to these guidelines won’t guarantee your evaluation efforts will be flawless, it will go a long way toward making your efforts more meaningful, more useful, and far more effective.

1. Clarify the intended goals. The first step in any evaluation is to make sure your professional development goals are clear, especially in terms of the results you hope to attain with students and the classroom or school practices you believe will lead to those results. Change experts refer to this as "beginning with the end in mind." It is also the premise of a "results-driven" approach to professional development (Sparks, 1995, 1996b).

2. Assess the value of the goals. Take steps to ensure the goals are sufficiently challenging, worthwhile, and considered important by all those involved in the professional development process. Broad-based involvement at this stage contributes greatly to a sense of shared purpose and mutual understanding. Clarifying the relationship between established goals and the school’s mission is a good place to begin.

3. Analyze the context. Identify the critical elements of the context where change is to be implemented and assess how these might influence implementation. Such an analysis might include examining pertinent baseline information on students’ and teachers’ needs, their unique characteristics and background experiences, available resources, parent involvement and support, and organizational climate.

4. Estimate the program’s potential to meet the goals. Explore the research base of the program or activity, and the validity of the evidence supporting its implementation in contexts similar to yours. When exploring the literature on a particular program, be sure to distinguish facts from persuasively argued opinions. A thorough analysis of the costs of implementation — and what other services or activities must be sacrificed to meet those costs — should be included as well.

5. Determine how the goals can be assessed. Decide up front what evidence you would trust. Ensure that evidence is appropriate, relevant to the various stakeholders, and meets at least minimal requirements for reliability and validity. Keep in mind, too, that multiple indicators will probably be necessary, in order to tap both intended and possible unintended consequences.

6. Outline strategies for gathering evidence. Determine how evidence will be gathered, who will gather it, and when it should be collected. Be mindful of the critical importance of intermediate or benchmark indicators that might be used to identify problems (formative) or forecast final results (summative). Select procedures that are thorough and systematic, but considerate of participants’ time and energy. Thoughtful evaluations typically use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, based on the nature of the evidence sought. To document improvements you must also plan meaningful contrasts using appropriate comparison groups, pre- and post-measures, or longitudinal time-series measures.

7. Gather and analyze evidence on participants’ reactions. At the completion of both structured and informal professional development activities, collect information on how participants regard the experience. A combination of items or methods is usually required to assess perceptions of various aspects of the experience. In addition, keeping the information anonymous generally guarantees more honest responses.

8. Gather and analyze evidence on participants’ learning. Develop specific indicators of successful learning, select or construct instruments or situations in which that learning can be demonstrated, and collect the information through appropriate methods. The methods used will depend, of course, on the nature of the learning sought. In most cases, a combination of methods or procedures will be required.

9. Gather and analyze evidence on organizational support and change. Determine the organizational characteristics and attributes necessary for success, and what evidence best illustrates those characteristics. Then collect and analyze that information to document and improve organizational support.

10. Gather and analyze evidence on participants’ use of new knowledge and skills. Develop specific indicators of both the degree and quality of implementation. Then determine the best methods to collect this information, when it should be collected, and how it can be used to offer participants constructive feedback to guide (formative) or judge (summative) their implementation efforts. If there is concern with the magnitude of change (Is this really different from what participants have been doing all along?), pre- and post-measures may need to be planned. The methods used to gather this evidence will depend, of course, on the specific characteristics of the change being implemented.

11. Gather and analyze evidence on student learning outcomes. Considering the procedures outlined in Step 6, collect the student information that most directly relates to the program or activity’s goals. Be sure to include multiple indicators to tap the broad range of intended and possible unintended outcomes in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor areas. Anecdotes and testimonials should be included to add richness and provide special insights. Analyses should be based on standards of desired levels of performance over all measures and should include contrasts with appropriate comparison groups, pre- and post-measures, or longitudinal time-series measures.

12. Prepare and present evaluation reports. Develop reports that are clear, meaningful, and comprehensible to those who will use the evaluation results. In other words, present the results in a form that can be understood by decision makers, stakeholders, program developers, and participants. Evaluation reports should be brief but thorough, and should offer practical recommendations for revision, modification, or further implementation. In some cases, reports will include information comparing costs to benefits, or the "return on investment."  Learn more at https://www.nsdc.org/library/publications
//jsd/guskey194.cfm