Instruction
All Elkhorn Area School District staff are constantly learning about the best ways to teach. "Best Practice” instruction is based on research and is continually being fine-tuned in the education profession. Some examples of “best practice” instruction include:
Daily 5 is more than a management system or a curriculum framework - it is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working
independently that will lead to a lifetime of literacy independence.
CAFÉ in the Classroom is an assessment system to help elementary students understand and master different strategies used by successful readers. CAFÉ is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary, and the system includes goal-setting with students in individual conferences, posting of goals on a whole-class board, developing small group instruction based on clusters of students with similar goals, and targeting whole-class instruction based on emerging student needs.
Step Up to Writing features research-based, validated strategies and activities that help students proficiently write narrative, personal narrative, and expository pieces; actively engage in reading materials for improved comprehension; and demonstrate competent study skills.
Marzano’s A Six-Step Process for Teaching Vocabulary is a six-step process for teaching vocabulary terms so students develop deep understandings of the terms with fun and engaging activities and games that help students add to their knowledge of vocabulary terms as they review and play with the terms they have recorded in their Student Notebooks.
The Teaching with Primary Sources program through the Library of Congress works with colleges and other educational organizations to deliver professional development programs that help teachers use the Library of Congress's rich reservoir of digitized primary source materials to design challenging, high-quality instruction.
Reading as Thinking is a developmental reading program designed specifically to teach both skills and the thinking processes necessary for skillful reading—that is, in-depth processing of text.
Representing-to-learn refers to learning activities that provide students an opportunity to both construct meaning of content being learned and share this learning with others. A teacher candidate can help students understand new material by selecting "examples and metaphors that illuminate new ideas and skills, connecting new content to students' knowledge, interests, and a school's culture" (Danielson, 1996).
Small Group Activities exist in "classrooms with effective sub-groups [that] are usually well structured places where students follow carefully developed norms and routines, and where working together is not a disruptive departure but rather business as usual" (Best Practice, Daniels and Bizar 1998 – p. 63) . This best practice is generally referred to as cooperative learning. Within such activities student collaboration with one another "is the mainstay of these classrooms" (p. 59).
Integrative units are evident in instructional plans and teaching when a teacher candidate crosses "subject boundaries, translating models from one field into another, importing ideas from other subjects, designing cross-curricular investigations, and developing rich thematic units that involve students in long-term, deep, sophisticated inquiry" (Best Practice, Daniels and Bizar 1998 - pp. 20-21).
Classroom Workshop Students in a classroom workshop "choose individual or small group topics for investigation, inquiry, and research" (Daniels & Bizar, 1998, p. 131) . This best practice approach differs from a teacher presentation and places value on teacher modeling where students work "with real materials.[and] become active, responsible, self-motivating, and self-evaluating learners, while the teacher [serves] as model, coach, and collaborator" (pp. 131, 135) .
Reflective Assessment nurtures student reflection, goal-setting, and self-assessment of learning. The concepts contained in the following section on "Learning Targets and Assessment" address this best practice for effective teaching.
Authentic experience makes meaningful connections to "real world" activities. The National Academy of Science states, "Inquiry into authentic questions [are] generated from student experiences. Teachers focus inquiry predominately on real phenomena where students are given investigations or guided toward fashioning investigations that are demanding but within their capabilities" (cited in Daniels & Bizar, 1998, p. 171). Authentic experience, therefore, is developmentally appropriate and linked to "real issues that people face in the world" in a manner that helps students make connections "to the importance of what they are learning" (p. 173).
Strategies - Students are taught a variety of strategies--- multiple ways to solve and think about a problem or scenario. If a strategy your child is using is unfamiliar to you, please speak with your child's teacher so that he or he may demonstrate it for you.
Daily 5 is more than a management system or a curriculum framework - it is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working
independently that will lead to a lifetime of literacy independence.
CAFÉ in the Classroom is an assessment system to help elementary students understand and master different strategies used by successful readers. CAFÉ is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary, and the system includes goal-setting with students in individual conferences, posting of goals on a whole-class board, developing small group instruction based on clusters of students with similar goals, and targeting whole-class instruction based on emerging student needs.
Step Up to Writing features research-based, validated strategies and activities that help students proficiently write narrative, personal narrative, and expository pieces; actively engage in reading materials for improved comprehension; and demonstrate competent study skills.
Marzano’s A Six-Step Process for Teaching Vocabulary is a six-step process for teaching vocabulary terms so students develop deep understandings of the terms with fun and engaging activities and games that help students add to their knowledge of vocabulary terms as they review and play with the terms they have recorded in their Student Notebooks.
The Teaching with Primary Sources program through the Library of Congress works with colleges and other educational organizations to deliver professional development programs that help teachers use the Library of Congress's rich reservoir of digitized primary source materials to design challenging, high-quality instruction.
Reading as Thinking is a developmental reading program designed specifically to teach both skills and the thinking processes necessary for skillful reading—that is, in-depth processing of text.
Representing-to-learn refers to learning activities that provide students an opportunity to both construct meaning of content being learned and share this learning with others. A teacher candidate can help students understand new material by selecting "examples and metaphors that illuminate new ideas and skills, connecting new content to students' knowledge, interests, and a school's culture" (Danielson, 1996).
Small Group Activities exist in "classrooms with effective sub-groups [that] are usually well structured places where students follow carefully developed norms and routines, and where working together is not a disruptive departure but rather business as usual" (Best Practice, Daniels and Bizar 1998 – p. 63) . This best practice is generally referred to as cooperative learning. Within such activities student collaboration with one another "is the mainstay of these classrooms" (p. 59).
Integrative units are evident in instructional plans and teaching when a teacher candidate crosses "subject boundaries, translating models from one field into another, importing ideas from other subjects, designing cross-curricular investigations, and developing rich thematic units that involve students in long-term, deep, sophisticated inquiry" (Best Practice, Daniels and Bizar 1998 - pp. 20-21).
Classroom Workshop Students in a classroom workshop "choose individual or small group topics for investigation, inquiry, and research" (Daniels & Bizar, 1998, p. 131) . This best practice approach differs from a teacher presentation and places value on teacher modeling where students work "with real materials.[and] become active, responsible, self-motivating, and self-evaluating learners, while the teacher [serves] as model, coach, and collaborator" (pp. 131, 135) .
Reflective Assessment nurtures student reflection, goal-setting, and self-assessment of learning. The concepts contained in the following section on "Learning Targets and Assessment" address this best practice for effective teaching.
Authentic experience makes meaningful connections to "real world" activities. The National Academy of Science states, "Inquiry into authentic questions [are] generated from student experiences. Teachers focus inquiry predominately on real phenomena where students are given investigations or guided toward fashioning investigations that are demanding but within their capabilities" (cited in Daniels & Bizar, 1998, p. 171). Authentic experience, therefore, is developmentally appropriate and linked to "real issues that people face in the world" in a manner that helps students make connections "to the importance of what they are learning" (p. 173).
Strategies - Students are taught a variety of strategies--- multiple ways to solve and think about a problem or scenario. If a strategy your child is using is unfamiliar to you, please speak with your child's teacher so that he or he may demonstrate it for you.