September 29 2015

Joretta Nelson, Ph.D. reflects on "high-leverage practices" in education.

19 Impactful Teaching Practices

I have been closely following University of Michigan’s work in the development of the key pedagogical “skills” necessary for teachers (k-12). They created a list of 19 impactful practices for educators to utilize professionally. These so-called high-leverage practices are considered primary skills necessary to starting out strong as a beginning teacher.  

In my own experience as a faculty member within higher education, I always wondered when and how I would be given the skills to teach within my discipline. The development of Centers for Teaching and Learning springing up on many campuses reflect a recognition of that need within higher education. I wonder if these k-12 practices might translate into the higher education classroom.  

Here are the 19 practices:

1. Leading a group discussion
2. Explaining and modeling content, practices, and strategies
3. Eliciting and interpreting individual students’ thinking
4. Diagnosing particular common patterns of student thinking and development in a subject-matter domain
5. Implementing norms and routines for classroom discourse and work
6. Coordinating and adjusting instruction during a lesson
7. Specifying and reinforcing productive student behavior
8. Implementing organizational routines
9. Setting up and managing small group work
10. Building respectful relationships with students
11. Talking about a student with parents or other caregivers

12. Learning about students’ cultural, religious, family, intellectual, and personal experiences and resources for use in instruction
13. Setting long- and short-term learning goals for students
14. Designing single lessons and sequences of lessons
15.Checking student understanding during and at the conclusion of lessons
16. Selecting and designing formal assessments of student learning
17. Interpreting the results of student work, including routine assignments, quizzes, tests, projects, and standardized assessments
18. Providing oral and written feedback to students
19. Analyzing instruction for the purpose of improving it

What do you think? Do these high leverage teaching practices apply to higher education as well? 

Best Teaching Practices to Empower the Educators of Tomorrow

Learn more about the 19 high-leverage practices here and learn more about how the Credo student success division can help your institution empower the educators of tomorrow. 

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