Supportive Learning Environment, The

Effective Teaching Practices

Jennifer Hindman, Leslie Grant, James Stronge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317923381
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This entry in the James H. Stronge Research-to-Practice Series focuses on the characteristics of teachers who create supportive learning environments for their students. By conveying a sense of immediacy, credibility, and caring, they communicate to students in both verbal and nonverbal ways that are essential to cultivating a positive and productive learning community. In this book, Stronge, Grant, and Hindman provide a comprehensive overview of the qualities of a supportive teacher. They offer a bridge between research-based theories and practical classroom applications, with templates, planning forms, and other reproducibles. The authors help teachers move toward establishing a learning environment that contributes to effective instructional practices. Topics include: engaging students and their families, effective communication, student ownership of the learning environment, and much more.

Part I

Research and
Practice Intertwine

1

Introduction

If you needed a dresser for your bedroom, what would you look for? After all, there are millions of dressers in the world. What would be your priorities (e.g., price, style, craftsmanship, availability)? I look for hallmarks of quality in the craftsmanship such as solid wood, dovetail drawers, butterfly joints, hand sanding, and protective finishes that allow the beauty of the wood seen. Of course I want it all and at a good price. However, my funds are limited and so I make choices. There is one dresser in my home that I’d like to tell you about, it was my husband’s childhood dresser that his mother picked up at a garage sale. Over the years, I have changed how the dresser looks and functions in response to my household needs. I refinished the top to let the natural wood show, painted the body of the dresser twice, and changed out the drawer pulls a few times. This dresser was mass produced with dovetailed joints, and with my attention, it has become a piece that has functioned well in each setting.

To a degree, teachers are like dressers, there are 3.9 million teachers in the United States a number expected to grow to 4.4 million by 2016.¹ There is a lot of variation in the effectiveness teachers, influenced by personal attributes, acquired knowledge, and learned skills. Decades of research abounds on qualities of effective teachers. There are some teachers who are like finely crafted dressers in that there are numerous hallmarks of quality from how they interact with people to the learning outcomes recorded. On the other end, there are the ineffective teachers whose instruction barely holds together like a flimsy cardboard backed dresser. Many teachers, however, are like my husband’s dresser—they are effective, and if not quite effective, can be made so with some targeted efforts. Even better, these teachers can make choices to be even better like I enhanced the fit and usefulness of dresser. In this book, The Supportive Learning Environment: Effective Teaching Practices, both elements of finely crafted classrooms are explored and the background attributes of the teachers who created them—in essence, how teachers create environments and relationships that inspire and motivate students. The companion book, Planning, Instruction, and Assessment: Effective Teaching Practices, addresses the planning, instructional, and assessment choices that teachers make to construct learning experiences. Both books provide tools for practitioners to use to hone their craft.

In Student Achievement Goal Setting: Using Data to Improve Teaching and Learning (Eye On Education, 2009), we asked the critical question “Why do we have schools?” at the beginning of the book. In answer we offered “.. .there are only two reasons why schooling exists: (1) teaching and learning, and (2) supporting teaching and learning.”² It is this latter reason—supporting teaching and learning—that is the focus of The Supportive Learning Environment: Effective Teaching Practices. In particular, we address the following questions related to how and why we can and should provide proper support mechanisms for teachers and students.

♦ What is teacher effectiveness?

♦ Why is teacher quality important?

♦ What is the relationship between teacher quality and student learning?

♦ How is the book organized?

♦ How can the book be used to promote teacher quality?

What Is Teacher Effectiveness?^a

Teacher effectiveness is a broad concept³ that can be defined in many ways.⁴ The word “quality” denotes the experience of being with a special teacher, and the term “effectiveness” works well when referring to analytical evidence. We choose to use the terms “quality” and “effectiveness” interchangeably. One clear and undeniable way to define teacher quality is to personally know an effective teacher, or to have benefited from the tutelage and teaching of an extraordinary teacher. Another way to define teacher effectiveness is to analyze—or dissect—it based on the extant research about what makes teachers effective. In this section, we briefly explore both perspectives: analyzing a quality teacher and interacting with a quality teacher.

Although we may not be able to define teacher quality with precision, we certainly can identify key teacher qualities that form the foundation of any useful definition. Studies examining effective teacher characteristics are profuse and often seem to seek an elusive secret formula for teacher quality. Unfortunately, there is no single magic elixir for quality teaching. However, one thing we know for certain about teacher quality is that it is multi-dimensional and these multiple dimensions interact to form the chemistry of what makes good teachers good.

Figure 1.1 notes some key components of a quality teacher.^b

Figure 1.1. Selected Characteristics of Quality Teachers

♦ Communication skills including the ability to listen to and value what students have to say;⁵

♦ Teacher preparation in terms of content knowledge⁶ and certification,⁷ among others;

♦ Personal dispositions such as enthusiasm, motivation, and reflectivity;⁸

♦ Personal relationships with students built on fairness, trust, and respectfulness;⁹

♦ Classroom management that provides a safe, robust, disciplined, and vibrant learning environment;¹⁰

♦ Instructional planning, delivery, and ongoing student assessment combined in such a way as to constantly monitor and deliver differentiated, effective instruction;¹¹ and

♦ Clearly focused goals and high expectations to promote student achievement.¹²

Why Is Teacher Quality Important?

Regardless of how we choose to define quality, building-level administrators and teache...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Part I: Research and Practice Intertwine
• Part II: Reproducible Resources
• Part III: Annotated Bibliography and References
• References