Act of Teaching

Chapter 11
Professional Skills and Abilities
Outline
Focusing and Engaging Students Attention (368)

Establishing Set (368)

Using Variety (370)

Using Instructional Time Efficiently (373)

Optimizing Time (373)

Conducting Interactive Instruction (377)

Using Questions (377)

Providing Clear Instruction (386)
Monitoring Students Progress (389)
Providing Feedback and Reinforcement (390)

Notes
Focusing and Engaging Students Attention (368)
Effective teachers are able to get students attention at the beginning of a
lesson and to hold their attention throughout the lesson (Lunenburg, 1998)
(368)

Establishing Set (368)

o providing a context for the lesson and the instruction (368)
o Opening activities:
Get the students attention or give an outline on the lesson
(368)
Link with what the students have learned before
Determine students' entry-level knowledge prior to
introducing new content (368)
o Goals for opening activities:
Makes the new lesson interesting
establish and interactive climate or tone (369)
direct students attention to important aspects of the
content (369)
Link with what the students already know (370)
Using Variety (370)
o Instructional Activities and Materials (370) teach in a variety of
activities
o Interacting with Students (371) varying the ways teachers
interact with students (371)
Using Instructional Time Efficiently (373)

Optimizing Time (373)

 o at the broadest level is mandated time; that is, the formal time
scheduled for school or academic activities (373)
o Allocated time is the amount of mandated time intended or
scheduled for academic activities. (374)
o the amount of allocated time during which the teacher is actually
conducting instructional activities. This is called academic
instruction time (374)
o the amount of academic instruction time during which students are
actively and successfully engaged in learning and is referred to as
academic learning time (ALT), or engaged time (374)
Maintaining Momentum - The concept of momentum is
related to the effective use of time. Momentum refers to the
flow of activities and to the pace of teaching and learning
maintained in the classroom. The most effective teachers
maintain a smooth, relatively rapid instructional pace (376)
Making Smooth Transitions Instructional transitions are
"points in instructional inter actions when contexts change"
(Doyle, 1986, p. 406). Instructional transitions require that
teachers refocus students' attention on changes in the
direction of a discussion or lesson. (376)
Conducting Interactive Instruction (377)

Using Questions (377)

o Effective questions require students to actively process information
and compose an answer (378)
o How to Ask Questions
If teachers want their questioning to be effective, they must
be sure to phrase questions clearly and concisely
questions should require students to process or think about
what they are learning and to compose an answer
teachers should take care to ask only one question at a time
(378)
An additional consideration in formulating and asking
questions is the type of question or level of thought required
of the students (379)
o Obtaining Good Answers (381)
It is particularly important that teachers use wait time and
that all students participate (381)
Thus, wait time includes (1) the pause between the
teacher's question and the student's response and (2)
the pause between a student's response and the
teacher's reaction (381)
Most teachers pause for less than one second before
calling on a student to respond. In contrast, the most
effective teachers include pauses of from three to five
seconds after asking a question and before reacting to
a student's response. (381)
The second factor to consider during the response phase of
questioning is how to maximize student participation (382)
o Following Up Students Responses (383)
 When a student responds correctly and confidently, accept
and acknowledge the response and move on (383)
When a student responds correctly but hesitantly, provide
feedback to the student or use additional questions that
encourage the student to determine why the response is
correct (383)
When a student responds confidently but incorrectly,
reinforce the initial effort, then use additional questions to
help the student arrive at the correct answer. Avoid giving the
student the answer or calling on another student to respond.
(383)
When a student responds incorrectly and carelessly, provide
the correct response and move on. (383)
o Methods to follow up incorrect answers
Probing means asking additional questions of the responding
student to help expand or raise the level of the response
(384)
Redirecting is another way of following up an incorrect
response. When redirecting, the teacher asks another student
to answer the same question (385)
Rephrasing simply means restating the same question in
different terms (385)
Providing Clear Instruction (386)
o Instructional clarity refers to the teacher's ability to provide
instruction that helps students come to a clear and accurate
understanding of important concepts or ideas. (386)
o The teachers' behaviors that make instruction clear apply not only
to the ability to explain content clearly, but also to the ability to
structure presentations (387)
Preparing and Entering the Lesson
Introducing and Emphasizing Important Points
Elaborating on Important Ideas or Concepts
Monitoring Students Progress (389)
o Effective teachers are adept at monitoring students'
understanding, not just their behavior (Marzano, 2002; Walberg,
2003) (389)
o You can monitor student understanding in numerous formal and
informal ways (389)
Providing Feedback and Reinforcement (390)
o Feedback (sometimes called knowledge of results, or KR) is
primarily intended to ( 1) inform students about the quality and
accuracy of their performance and (2) help them learn how to
monitor and improve their own learning (390)
o Several principles can make teachers' feedback more effective
(391)
Provide feedback as frequently as possible
Provide feedback as soon after performance as possible
Make your feedback specific rather than general
Focus feedback on the quality of the student's performance,
not on his or her intentions or motivations
 Design and use feedback that teaches students how to gauge
their own progress and performance
o Reinforcement is intended to strengthen and increase the
frequency of a desirable behavior or response, usually by providing
some type of reward (391)
Reflection
My learning experiences mostly involves lectures, so I am very interested in this
chapter. I realize that teaching is a two way interaction and that students need to
be involved in our lessons. I am a shy person at the core, but I do have the ability
to talk in front of the public. The problem is sometimes when I talk, I do not stop
talking. That is why I need to keep in mind that I need to engage my students
when I am teaching. I need to know when to keep quiet and let my students talk.
I also feel the need to engage students, especially if I were to teach in my old
schools. I notice that Indonesian students tend to be not engaged, so I am
interested to know how to trigger my students engagement.