Eight Components of Powerful Teaching

Effective instruction begins with what learners bring to the setting: cultural practices and beliefs and knowledge of academic content.
Learners use their current knowledge to construct new knowledge.
What students know and believe at the moment affects how they interpret new information.
Sometimes learners' current knowledge supports new learning; sometimes it hampers learning.

Knowledge is accessible, i.e., age and developmentally appropriate, and is applied to problem solving and higher-level thinking.
Curriculum helps students learn with understanding rather than simply promoting the acquisition of disconnected sets of facts and skills.
Students also become knowledgeable by learning in ways that enable transfer of their understandings to novel situations.
An appropriate balance is struck between activities designed to promote understanding and those designed to promote a necessary automaticity of skills.

By themselves, specific instructional strategies and/or curricula are insufficient to increase student learning to the level required by the EALRs and the WASL.
Clear and focused instruction, closely aligned with state curriculum standards, is essential to improved student achievement.
Teacher beliefs and attitudes about student capabilities and achievement expectations are critical.

Students plan and/or carry out independent research.
Students generate their own ideas, questions, or hypotheses, and are encouraged to make decisions about their learning.
Students consider alternative and/or multiple ways to investigate and problem solve.

Classroom climate and culture supports students learning from each other, as well as from the teacher.
Students work collaboratively to share knowledge, complete projects, and/or critique their work.
Trust, both among students and between students and teachers, establishes a noncompetitive environment in which students encourage each other and share ideas.

Student learning is intentionally connected to multiple contexts, including self, world, their interests, other texts, and other subjects.
Students apply new lesson information to relevant, real-world contexts.
Students interact with the world beyond the classroom or school via field-based experiences or technology.
Students produce a product or performance for an audience beyond the classroom.

Students learn to assess their own work, as well as the work of their peers, in order to help everyone learn more effectively.
Students intentionally reflect on their own learning (metacognition).
Students rethink (revise) work based on data, self-evaluation, and/or constructive feedback from peers/teacher.

Clear expectations define what students should know and be able to do.
Teachers and students set learning goals and monitor progress via formative feedback.
Students produce quality work products and present to real audiences.
Assessment tasks allow students to exhibit higher-order thinking and show evidence of understanding, not just recall.