Jeremy D. Visone, an associate professor of educational leadership and instructional technology at Central Connecticut State University, offers these instructional shifts to benefit students in an Education Week article:
Shift from . . .
Voluminous homework and group projects completed outside of school. John Hattie’s Visible Learning rankings indicate that homework, in general, is not a terribly effective strategy. Additionally, students (and their parents!) can become frustrated when homework demands are overly time-consuming, vague, and/or complicated.
Shift toward . . .
Less homework and additional in-class practice and project work. Students will benefit when they are provided with such opportunities in class, where they can receive real-time feedback from you and/or their peers. Further, they can work with peers without having to arrange times.
Shift from . . .
Zero-sum competition/grading on the curve results in the “friendly” nature of the competition being lost. Do not pit individuals or groups of students against each other for the one “A” you will award within the class. Do not give the “winning” group a homework pass for the night (see above), while the rest of the students need to complete an (punishment) assignment that evening.
Shift toward . . .
True cooperation. Use the entire class as a cohesive learning community and allow all individuals and groups to succeed, independent of the successes of others. Students and groups can even leverage each other’s learning by providing time to share while work is ongoing. I always told students that my goal was to help them all succeed. Educators should not have a maximum number of students who can succeed.
Shift from . . .
“Ping-pong” questioning. This is the classic whole-group discussion, where a teacher asks the class a question, one student volunteers a response, and the teacher provides feedback to that one student. This limits the thinking of other students, as only one student is interacting with the teacher at a time.
Shift toward . . .
Including many students for each question asked. Such approaches include all students voting, writing responses before some share with the class, discussing with a group before responding, among others. Teachers can also select many students to respond in rapid succession without providing feedback, so long as all students have had time to generate a response. Students can also produce products of their thinking (i.e., chart paper, white board, etc.) to display their answers.
Education Week
