Evidence-Based Teaching
CEP recognizes that effective teaching will produce measurable results and the best teaching practices are the ones that use evidence-based instruction. If a primary goal of teaching is to optimize student learning, it also seems reasonable, then, to assume that teachers should use teaching methods that have the biggest impact on learning. Best teaching practices are core to the ideal learning environment. The core of them are found in Evidence-Based Teaching (EBT).
EBT will produce measurable results. This means includes practices for which student work and assessments are collected to determine the effectiveness of teaching. In our approach, teachers are encouraged to use expected learning outcomes to evaluate the knowledge from student formative and summative assessments and then refine teaching practices to meet the common core standards.
While this seems pretty straightforward, the difficulty lies in making this concept a reality. CEP provides a format teachers can grasp quickly and easily, information that tells what the practice is, the students for whom it is effective and how to implement the practice.
Employing an approach to create evidence-based classrooms requires professional development. CEP provides professional development that is coherent, continuous and possesses continuity by providing the teachers with evidence-based classroom practices and strategies.
Professional Development Goals:
- Create small and whole group student learning communities to mediate conceptual learning
- Design units that challenge students to construct their own understanding of the discipline
- Employ project-based tasks that expose students to real-life situations
- Develop guides and rubrics to facilitate student argumentation and supporting ideas with evidence
- Create tasks and assessments that focus on the process and products of learning
Administrator and Teacher Participants Gain:
- Get a sense of how students understand how subject-matter relates to real-world
- Provide students with frequent opportunities to engage in complex, meaningful, problem-based tasks
- Mediate learning through critical higher-level questioning strategies
- Construct students conversations with new ideas or alternatives that prompt students to apply knowledge in diverse and authentic contexts
- Build student groups based on anticipated interactions among student attributes and expected contributions of each student to the learning experience or task