Lauren McNease

ELED 300
Professor Isbell
October 9, 2014
Module 2: Effective Teaching
Introduction
In my elementary school years I had many teachers, but only one made a profound
impact on me as a student. Looking back, she was an effective teacher who expected her
students to be great achievers and she made the classroom an exciting place to be. These are
characteristics that I want to bring to my own classroom and as I want to be remembered by my
students. For module 2, the readings were Chapter 4, 5, and 6 and Competencies 003, 004, and
008 which contained many invaluable resources on how to be an effective teacher. Listed below
are the topics that stood out and were very important to me.
Planning for Learning
It is essential that teachers plan, as this helps to decide what content, learning activities
and objectives will motivate students. There are many factors teachers must consider when
selecting topics to teach and how to assess a students learning. The TEKS provides curricular
guidelines for all grades, however, it is up to the teacher to select learning objectives for the class
and its students. Blooms Taxonomies can put goals into perspective for teachers when planning
lessons. Objectives can be divided into three domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor.
The cognitive domain is how thinking, memory, and reasoning is developed by the student. The
affective domain is how attitudes and values are perceived in the learner. The psychomotor
domain is how a students physical abilities will be assessed in a classroom. Competency 003
pertains to procedures for designing effective instruction and assessment based on goals and
objectives which relies heavily on Blooms Taxonomy.
Effective Teaching
Just as personal attitudes are a reflection on how one feels about life, this is equally
important in the classroom. Personal teaching efficacy is described as, The belief that teachers
and schools can have an important positive effect on students. (Eggen & Kauchak, 2012).
When a teacher truly believes that she can be a positive impact on a student, learning is
increased. Teachers need to accept responsibility to be a positive and driving force for students,
for example, offering praise instead of criticism. This is fundamental for children who may not
have positive role models at home and need that encouragement. Expectations are another
characteristic of an effective teacher. If a teacher sets high expectations for every student, she is
implying that all students are capable of learning the material. Most importantly, effective
communication from the teacher is a true indicator of how a student will know what a lesson is
about. If a teacher cannot communicate to her students in a professional manner, the lessons
content will be unclear and a student might walk away confused on what it was about.
Competency 008 states that a teacher will provide appropriate instruction that engages the
student in the learning process.
Learning through Student Involvement
This chapter was full of content that was relevant to what I would use in my own
classroom. How will I get their attention and make them be active participants in the classroom?
One of the key ways to be effective is to motivate and engage all students by questioning,
Teacher questioning is the single most effective and most generally applicable strategy teachers
have for promoting student involvement. (Eggen & Kauchak, 2012). Questioning also provides
a way for teachers to determine if the students are assessing the lesson correctly. It also
increases the students curiosity by challenging the way they think and helps guide the student to
be able to expand on their existing knowledge of a subject. This learning tool engages students
in five separate mental operations.
There are six essential strategies that are used to make questioning more effective
regardless of the topic or grade level. When asking questions frequency is important as this
encourages students to connect ideas, and the more teachers ask the more opportunities for the
students to engage in class. Questions then need to be an open invitation for discussion, and
directed at all students in the class making everyone a participant. Since it is important that
everyone in class gets a turn, some may not know the answer. Prompting would be useful for the
teacher when a student is unsure of the correct answer. For lessons to be successful, sometimes
teachers need to be repetitive with questions, to go back to some key points that were made
earlier. The last element in the strategies would be considering an appropriate wait time after
asking a question. When a pause is made after a question it gives the students time to think
about the answers. Competency 004 is focused on factors that impact students learning and how
a teacher will apply this information to planning effective and motivating lessons.
Conclusion
From my readings of Chapter 4, 5, and 6 along with Competencys 003, 004, and 008
there were key resources that will really resonate with me. Blooms Taxonomy puts goals into
perspective so a teacher can plan an efficient lesson by dividing objectives into three domains. A
teachers attitude will present to the class what she expects from the students. Finally, without
effective questioning assessment will be impossible to determine so the six strategies are useful
tools to determine understanding.



References
Kauchak, D. , & Eggen, P. (2012). Learning & Teaching Research-Based Methods. (6
th
ed.)
Boston, MA: Pearson.