Rabu, 26 Juni 2013

https://www.box.com/s/352jwiybr1m9vdb5dv7l
https://www.box.com/s/qlczi09ej2wd4p64hnpf
https://www.box.com/s/aeui4jtq3itz4mrrx3x9
https://www.box.com/s/8dp5qng28h9nez5dojma

Teaching Methods



Teaching Methods
Herbert J. Walberg
PEDAGOGICAL METHODS
Evidence from many studies of 275 pedagogical methods and
educational conditions are summarized elsewhere.3 This section
concerns several that are relatively simple to employ and
that have excellent records of promoting learning. The research
on these methods and conditions has accumulated over
half a century. Most of the studies employed control-groups
and contrasted the amount learned, or gains, from pretests to
posttests given before and after the intervention. Other studies
analyzed national and international achievement surveys
of as many as several hundred thousand students.

Parent Involvement
Learning is enhanced when schools encourage parents to
stimulate their children’s intellectual development. Dozens
of studies in the United States, Australia, Canada, England,
and elsewhere show that the home environment powerfully
influences what children and youth learn within and outside
school. This environment is considerably more powerful
than the parents’ income and education in influencing what
children learn in the first six years of life and during the
twelve years of primary and secondary education.
As previously mentioned, one major reason that parental
influence is potentially so strong is that from birth through
age eighteen children spend approximately 87 percent of
their waking hours outside school under the nominal or real
influence of their parents. Cooperative efforts by parents
and educators to modify alterable conditions in the home
have strong, beneficial effects on learning. In twenty-nine
controlled studies, 91 percent of the comparisons favored
children in such programs over nonparticipant control
groups.
Sometimes called “the curriculum of the home,” the
home environment refers to informed parent-child conversations
about school and everyday events; encouragement
and discussion of leisure reading; monitoring and critical review
of television viewing and peer activities; deferral of immediate
gratification to accomplish long-term goals;
expressions of affection and interest in the child’s academic
and other progress as a person; and perhaps, among such
unremitting efforts, laughter and caprice. Reading to children
and discussing everyday events prepare them for academic
activities before attending school.
Cooperation between educators and parents can support
these approaches. Educators can suggest specific activities
likely to stimulate children’s learning at home and in school.
They can also develop and organize large-scale teacherparent
programs to systematically promote academically
stimulating conditions and activities outside school.

Graded Homework
Students learn more when they complete homework that is
graded, commented on, and discussed by their teachers. A
synthesis of more than a dozen studies of the effects of
homework in various subjects showed that the assignment
and completion of homework yields positive effects on academic
achievement. The effects are almost tripled when
teachers take time to grade the work, make corrections and
specific comments on improvements that can be made, and
discuss problems and solutions with individual students or
the whole class. Homework also seems particularly effective
in high school.
Like a three-legged stool, homework requires a teacher to
assign it and provide feedback, a parent to monitor it, and
a student to do it. If one leg is weak, the stool may fall
down. The role of the teacher in providing feedback—in reinforcing
what has been done correctly and in reteaching
what has not—is key to maximizing the positive impact of
homework.
Districts and schools that have well-known homework
policies for daily minutes of required work are likely to reap
benefits. Homework “hotlines” in which students may call
in for help have proven useful. To relieve some of the workload
of grading, teachers can employ procedures in which
students grade their own and other students’ work. In this
way, they can learn cooperative social skills and how to evaluate
their own and others’ efforts.
The quality of homework is as important as the amount.
Effective homework is relevant to the lessons to be learned
and in keeping with students’ abilities.

Direct Teaching
Many studies show that direct teaching can be effective in
promoting student learning. It emphasizes systematic sequencing
of lessons, a presentation of new content and skills,
guided student practice, feedback, and independent practice
by students. The traits of teachers employing effective direct
instruction include clarity, task orientation, enthusiasm, and
flexibility. Effective direct teachers also clearly organize their
presentations and occasionally use student ideas.
The use of direct teaching can be traced to the turn of the
century; it is what many citizens and parents expect to see in
classrooms. Done well, it can yield consistent and substantial
results. The usual aspects of direct teaching are as follows:
• Daily review, homework check, and, if necessary,
reteaching
• Presentation of new content and skills in small steps
• Guided student practice with close teacher monitoring
• Corrective feedback and instructional reinforcement
• Independent practice in seatwork and homework with a
high (more than 90 percent) success rate
• Weekly and monthly reviews
Organized Lessons
Showing students the relationships between past learning
and present learning increases its depth and breadth. More
than a dozen studies show that when teachers explain how
new ideas in the current lesson relate to ideas in previous
lessons and other prior learning, students can connect the
old with the new, which helps them better remember and
understand. Similarly, alerting them learn key points allows
them to concentrate on the most crucial parts of the
lessons.
Well-organized lessons enable students to focus on key
ideas and concentrate on the relations among them. Moreover,
understanding the sequential or logical continuity of
subject matter can be motivating. If students simply learn
one isolated idea after another, the subject matter may appear
arbitrary. But having a “mental road map” of what they
have accomplished, where they are presently, and where they
are going can help them avoid unpleasant surprises and set
realistic goals. Similar effects can be accomplished by goal
setting, overviewing, and pretesting that sensitizes students
to important points and questions in textbooks and by
teachers.
Teaching Methods 63
It may also be useful to show students that what they are
learning solves problems that exist in the world outside
school, problems they are likely to encounter in life. For example,
human biology that features nutrition and exercise
applications is likely to be more interesting than molecular
biology, at least for beginning students. Teachers and textbooks
can sometimes make effective use of graphic organizers.
Maps, timetables, flow charts depicting the sequence of
activities, and other such devices may be worth hundreds of
words. They may also be easier to remember.
Learning Strategies
Giving students some choice in their learning goals and teaching
them to be attentive to their progress can yield learning
gains. In the 1980s, reformers sought ways to encourage selfmonitoring,
self-teaching, or “meta-cognition” to foster both
achievement and independence. They viewed skills as important,
but the learner’s monitoring and management of his or her
own learning had primacy, since citizens in democratic societies
are expected to learn and think for themselves. This approach
transfers to learners part of the direct teaching functions of
planning, allocating time, and review. Being aware of what goes
on in one’s mind during learning is a critical first step to effective
independent learning.
Some students lack this self-awareness and must be taught
the skills necessary to monitor and regulate their own learning.
Many studies have demonstrated that positive effects
can accrue from developed skills. Such effort can be premature
and overdone, however, since it would be wasteful to
expect students to rediscover large parts of knowledge on
their own.
Students with a repertoire of learning strategies can
measure their own progress toward explicit goals. When
students use these strategies to strengthen their opportunities
for learning, they increase their knowledge as well as
their sense of self-control and positive self-evaluation.
Three possible phases of teaching about learning strategies
are as follows:
• Modeling, in which the teacher exhibits the desired
behavior
• Guided practice, in which students perform with help
from the teacher
• Application, in which students act independently of the
teacher
As an example, a successful program of “reciprocal teaching”
fosters reading comprehension by having students
take turns in leading dialogues on pertinent features of
texts. By assuming the roles of planning, preparation, and
monitoring ordinarily exercised by teachers, students can
learn self-management and how to collaborate as well as gain
knowledge and skills. Perhaps that is why tutors learn from
tutoring and why it is said, “To learn something well, teach it.”

CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING
The methods described in the last section are hardly astonishing.
They reflect not only research findings but also common
sense and personal experiences we may have had with our better
teachers. What is astonishing is that they are so seldom
practiced or well practiced. Because policy makers, citizens,
and parents now more fully realize both the need and the potential
to raise achievement substantially, they need to know
about what promotes good teaching methods. Unfortunately,
the research on this important matter is neither voluminous
nor as rigorous as the control-group studies on teaching methods.
Some expert syntheses, large-scale surveys, and case studies
of outstanding schools that attain exceptional achievement
do provide useful and promising insights.

Indicators of School Quality Associated with Achievement
A. Curriculum
1. Develops quality curriculum
2. Ensures effective implementation and articulation of curriculum
3. Evaluates and renews the curriculum

B. Instructional design
1. Aligns instruction with goals
2. Employs data-driven instructional decision making
3. Actively engages students in their learning
4. Expands instructional support for student learning

C. Assessment
1. Clearly defines the expectations for student learning
2. Establishes the purpose of assessment
3. Selects the appropriate method of assessment
4. Collects a comprehensive and representative sample of student
achievement
5. Develops fair assessments and avoids bias and distortion

D. Educational agenda
1. Facilitates a collaborative process in developing a shared vision
2. Develops a shared vision, beliefs, and mission
3. Defines measurable goals focused on students’ learning

E. Leadership for school improvement
1. Promotes quality instruction by fostering an academic
learning climate
2. Develops schoolwide plans for improvement
3. Employs effective decision making
4. Monitors progress in improving student achievement and
instructional effectiveness
5. Provides skillful stewardship

F. Community building
1. Fosters community-building conditions within the school
2. Extends the school community through collaborative
networks and improvement

G. Continuous improvement and learning
1. Builds skills and capacity for improvement through comprehensive
and ongoing professional development
2. Creates the conditions that support productive change