Handout: List of Effective Practices

· High expectations for all students

· Strong personal connections between students and adults

· Greater student engagement and motivation

· A rich and engaging formal and informal curriculum

· Effective teaching practices in all classrooms on a daily basis

· Effective use of data and feedback by students and staff to improve learning

· Early support with minimum disruption for students in need

· Strong positive relationships with parents

· Effective engagement with the broader community

1. Intentional use of literacy artifacts in dramatic play and throughout the classroom

2. Read aloud with reference to print

3. Interactive read aloud with a comprehension and vocabulary focus

4. Play with sounds inside words

5. Brief, clear, explicit instruction in letter names, the sound(s) associated with the letters, and how letters are shaped and formed

6. Interactions around writing

7. Extended conversation

8. Provision of abundant reading material in the classroom

9. Ongoing observation and assessment of children’s language and literacy development that informs their education

10. Collaboration with families in promoting literacy

1. Deliberate, research-informed efforts to foster literacy motivation and engagement within and across lessons

2. Read aloud of age-appropriate books and other materials, print or digital

3. Small group and individual instruction, using a variety of grouping strategies, most often with flexible groups formed and instruction targeted to children’s observed and assessed needs in specific aspects of literacy development

4. Activities that build phonological awareness

5. Explicit instruction in letter-sound relationships

6. Research- and standards-aligned writing instruction

7. Intentional and ambitious efforts to build vocabulary and content knowledge

8. Abundant reading material and reading opportunities in the classroom

9. Ongoing observation and assessment of children’s language and literacy development that informs their education

10. Collaboration with families in promoting literacy

1. Deliberate, research-informed efforts to foster literacy motivation and engagement within and across lessons

2. Intentional, research-informed instruction using increasingly complex texts and tasks that build comprehension, knowledge, and strategic reading activity

3. Small group and individual instruction, using a variety of grouping strategies, most often with flexible groups formed and instruction targeted to children’s observed and assessed needs in specific aspects of literacy development

4. Activities that build reading fluency and stamina with increasingly complex text

5. Discussion of the ideas in texts and how to construct text meaning across texts and disciplines

6. Research- and standards-aligned writing instruction

7. Intentional and ambitious efforts to build vocabulary and content knowledge

8. Abundant reading material and reading opportunities in the classroom

9. Ongoing observation and assessment of children’s language and literacy development that informs their education

10. Collaboration with families in promoting literacy

1. Problem-based instruction

2. Diverse texts and abundant reading opportunities in the school

3. Intentional and standards-aligned instruction in disciplinary reading

4. Intentional and standards-aligned instruction in disciplinary writing

5. Higher-order discussion of increasingly complex text across varying participation structures

6. Opportunities for and instruction in speaking and listening

7. Intentional efforts to build vocabulary, symbolic, and conceptual knowledge

8. Ongoing observation and assessment of students’ language and literacy development that informs their education

9. Community networking to tap into available funds of knowledge in support of developing students’ mathematical knowledge and identities

10. Metadiscursive awareness within and across academic and cultural domains (attention to language use at the "meta" level, e.g. talking about talk)

1. Establishing mathematics goals to focus learning

2. Implementing tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving

3. Using and connecting mathematical representations

4. Facilitating meaningful mathematical discourse

5. Posing purposeful questions

6. Building procedural fluency from conceptual understanding

7. Supporting productive struggle in learning mathematics

8. Eliciting and using evidence of student thinking

· The Physical education teacher uses instructional practices and deliberate practice tasks that support the goals and objectives defined by the school district’s/school’s physical education curriculum (e.g., differentiated instruction, activer engagement, modified activities, self-assessment, self-monitoring).

· The physical education teacher evaluates student learning continually to document teacher effectiveness.

· The physical education teachers employs instructional practices that engage students in moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 50% of class time.

· The physical education teachers ensures the inclusion of all students and makes the necessary adaptations for students with special needs or disabilities.

· Expectations for student learning

· Class organization

· Class design

· Learning time

· Maximum participation

· Teaching/learning styles

· Teacher enthusiasm

· Success rate

· Teacher feedback

· Technology use

1. Select and present real and relevant phenomena or challenges

2. Guide observation and development of student questions

3. Facilitate students developing and using meaningful and relevant questions

4. Communicate clear expectations for use of information as evidence

5. Facilitate connections between relevant core ideas and crosscutting concepts related to the phenomena or challenge

6. Communicate clear expectations for students to develop evidence-based explanations and models

7. Set clear expectations for students to develop arguments for how their evidence supports explanations

8. Support design and testing of solutions to challenges, including redesign and retesting as students refine their approach

9. Provide opportunities for students to produce multiple models and other artifacts that communicate their reasoning

10. Establish a classroom culture of respect and guide productive and inclusive discourse

11. Reflect on student and teacher learning

12. Highlight connections to experiences and phenomena students have encountered in previous units, courses or in earlier school grades

13. Plan coherent support for students to connect learning to phenomena beyond the classroom.

1. Creating consistent opportunities for inquiry

2. Designing tasks that build civic literacy

3. Designing tasks to encourage historical thinking and analysis

4. Fostering spatial thinking

5. Facilitating philosophical thinking and discussions

6. Creating opportunities for learners to engage in economic ways of thinking

7. Designing opportunities for learners to engage in cross-disciplinary studies

8. Building on learners’ prior knowledge and experiences, making the learning relevant to the world outside of school

9. Authentically assessing learner thinking, processing, and giving them opportunities to solve problems related to significant human issues