This document outlines suggested practices for effective teaching based on educational research and theories of learning. It discusses creating circumstances that lead to significant learning through joining with students, engaging their motivation to learn, and helping them integrate new knowledge with their experiences. The document provides questions to help teachers reflect on their own significant learning experiences and what factors were most influential. It also gives prompts for teachers to think about how to establish a safe environment, facilitate rigorous thinking, and ensure students are actively learning. Overall, the document advocates applying principles of brain-based learning and establishing a classroom that motivates students and allows them to make meaningful connections in their own learning.

1. Outline of Suggested Practices for
Teaching
By: Dawn Deming

2. I TAUGHT I SAID I
I DON’T
STRIPE TAUGHT HIM.
HEAR HIM
HOW TO I DIDN’T SAY
WHISTLING
WHISTLE HE LEARNED IT
From Checking for Understanding, King Features Syndicate.

3. ―Good teaching is the creating
of those circumstances that
lead to significant learning in
others.‖
--Finkel, Teaching with Your
Mouth Shut

4.  Thinking back over your whole life,
what were the two or three most
significant learning experiences
you ever had?
 List the moments (or events) in
which you discovered something of
lasting significance in your life.

5.  Did it take place in a classroom?
 Did it take place in a school?
 Was a professional teacher instrumental in
making the learning experience happen?
 Was a teacher-like figure (e.g., coach, minister,
school counselor, theater director) instrumental
in making the learning experience happen?
 If the answer to 3 or 4 is ―yes,‖ then what did
the teacher (or other person) actually do to help
you learn?
 In general, what factors were instrumental in
bringing about the learning?

6.  Join – How we join with our students
 Engage – How we motivate them to learn
 Integrate – How the class integrates their
knowledge with ours and their experience with
ours so that they might practice and apply it.

7. Think about a time when you became aware
that your teaching was going very well. It
was a moment that confirmed you were in the
right calling. Tell us what you were teaching
and what specifically happened that made
you sense that you were in the flow. Begin
with this phrase: ―As I looked at the students,
I realized….‖

8. Think about a time when you were in
the classroom and became aware that
you were in default mode. You knew it
was going badly, but you could not
change what you were doing. Describe
a particular incident.

9.  Who or what enabled learning?-Motivation, a
mentor/expert/coach, experience, reading
practice, total emersion.
 What is the mood in the classroom?
 Where is the action?
 Who is in charge?
 Do you know that students are learning?

10. ―Long-lasting learning that forever
alters our grasp of the world,
deepening it, widening it,
generalizing it, sharpening it.‖
--Finkel, Teaching with Your Mouth
Shut

11. Risk free environment
Willingness to disclose
Gifted facilitation
listening
presence
attentiveness
Rigorous
thinking/speaking

12.  Motivation or personal importance
 Development of self-efficacy of the learner
 How student feels about the learning
 Brain-friendly environment
 Sense of belonging
 Support for achievement
 Sense of empowerment
 Tileston 10 Best Teaching Practices
 • Creating community
 • Managing the mob
 • Encouraging learner participation
 • Engaging learners in lecture

13.  5 common elements:
 Intriguing question or problem
 Guidance in helping the students understand the
significance of the question
 Engages students in some higher-order intellectual
activity: encouraging them to compare, apply,
evaluate, analyze, and synthesize, but, never only to
listen and remember. Often that means asking
student to make and defend judgments and then
providing them with some basis for making the
decision.
 Environment also helps students answer the
question.
 Leaves students with a question: ―What’s the next
question?‖
 Ken Bain

14.  ―Teachers should not assume
that transfer will
automatically occur after
students acquire a sufficient
base of information.
Significant and efficient
transfer occurs only if we
teach to achieve it.‖
 David Sousa. How the Brain Learns
(1995)

15.  Association
 Refer to previous lessons
 Ask about personal experiences
 Ask students to predict behaviors or events
 Be consistent and give it time.
 • Ask open-ended questions.
 • Utilize peer discussion.
 • Lower ―talk time‖; increase ―practice time‖.
 • Move away from the podium.
 • Provide clear instructions.
 • Walk around the room during group activities.
 • Be out of sight during ―think time‖.

16.  Visual
 Auditory
 Kinesthetic

17.  Use visuals when teaching
 Use visual organizers
 Show students the patterns in learning
 Use metaphors

18.  Use direct instruction, with guiding
learning through application and
practice
 Employ peer tutoring, in which
students help each other
practice the learning
 Use group discussions,
brainstorming, & Socratic seminars.
 Verbalize while learning, and
encourage students to verbalize as
well
 Use cooperative learning activities
that provide for student interaction.

19.  Need the opportunity to be mobile
 Want to feel, smell, and taste everything
 May want to touch their neighbor as well
 Like to take things apart to see how they work

20. 1. Use short, ungraded writing to deepen thinking (and
to let people prepare before speaking up:
 Have students write for five minutes, then have them read
their writing aloud, or list their main ideas on the board.
 For homework, have students write the questions they have
about the reading: ―What are you wondering about? What
does this make you think of?‖
 Use helpers to free yourself up to notice more discussion
dynamics
 Model the life attitude of vulnerably asking questions by
wondering aloud, not knowing: Put on the board or in a
PowerPoint document a question for which you don’t have
the answer

21. 2. Slow the flow, probe deeper:
 Use groups and assign each a different question,
problem, or section of reading to report on.
 Probe for more meaning by 1) extending wait time,* 2)
repeating the question, and 3) asking for more: ―What did
you say, Melanie? Hmm, interesting—why do you think
that?‖ ―Good. Can you say what your reasoning is?‖
 Ask people to ―say back‖ the opposing view to the other’s
satisfaction before they disagree.
 Transfer responsibility away from you to class

22.  Most teachers wait less than one second after
asking a question.

23. 3. Balance students’ voices:
 ―Others we’ve heard from less?‖
 ―If it’s already been said, how would you say
it?‖
 ―Whose opinion on this topic would you like to
hear?‖
 Encourage even when off track: ―Good, thanks
for getting us going,‖ ―Yes, more, what else?‖
 remind people ―No question is stupid.‖

24. 4. Track themes to bring discussion back on track or
reframe it:
 Put guiding questions or ideas on screen or board, then
to move people on: ―Which one are we addressing to
now?‖
 Prompt for links: ―Wait, what was the connection
between this and Jack’s question?‖
 Use evidence to support or challenge ideas: ―Do these
lines answer Kanisha’s question?‖
 Offer your own discoveries to encourage reframing:
―Oh, I just realized! Maybe Hector is the real hero of
the poem.‖ ―What if we solved the problem this way?‖

25. 5. Comment explicitly on group dynamics:
 ―Please, folks, I can’t hear her.‖ ―Let her finish.‖ ―One
at a time.‖
 ―How many feel we need more structure? How many
want more freewheeling discussion?‖
 ―What can we do to encourage those reluctant to
contribute to share their thoughts?‖
 At midterm, email individuals, ―I’d really like to hear
from you more in class. As your writing shows, others
could gain from the greater diversity you’d bring.
 Participation counts too . . .‖

26. 6. Summarize what was learned (while valuing uncertainty,
depending on the content):
 ―Did you learn anything, or are you left thinking about
anything?‖
 ―What struck you?‖ ―What do you want to remember?‖
 In general, use open questions (―what‖ and ―why‖) over
closed questions (―Is this clear?‖ or ―Does that make sense?‖)
to give practice at putting complex ideas into language.
 At end of class, give a ―minute paper‖ or ask for the
―muddiest point‖ and begin the next discussion by
reviewing what students wrote about.

27.  ―...no thought, no idea, can possibly be
conveyed as an idea from one person to
another. When it is told, it is, to the one to
whom it is told, another given fact, not an idea.
...Only by wrestling with the conditions of the
problem at first hand, seeking and finding his
own way out, does he think.‖
John Dewey, Democracy and education an
introduction to the philosophy of education, p 188.

28.  Bain, Ken. 2004. What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
 Dewey, J. (2006). Democracy and education an introduction to the philosophy of education.
[S.l.]: Public Domain Books.
 Finkel, D. L. (2000). Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook
Publishers.
 Sousa, D. A. (2006). How the brain learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
 Tileston, D. W. (2000). 10 best teaching practices: how brain research, learning styles, and
standards define teaching competencies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
 Torosyan, PhD., R. (2009, December). Reminders for improving classroom discipline.
Building Student Engagement: 15 Strategies for the College Classroom. Retrieved June 12,
2011, from
http://www.jsums.edu/jsuoaa/resources/Building%20Student%20Engagement%
2015%20Strategies.pdf
 Woodard, B. S. (2007, November 7). Improving Learning: Best practices for teaching in the
library. Lecture presented at CARLI I-Share Instruction Forum in Heartland
Community College. Retrieved June 12, 2011.