A pedagogical framework can be useful to administrators and to help teachers evaluate the many approaches that they may have experienced as students themselves, to see if they fit into a cognitive model. Many former experiences don't, yet we are all influenced by that mental model of what teaching looks like. For example, a new teacher who believes that walls filled with various aids to learning may be encouraged to change these up frequently, to maintain novelty in the classroom. Incorporating student input into the types and rotation of such aids to understanding, as well as the generation of such, will produce a more brain-active model.
As the lead person for two buildings' school improvement plans, I think that the model could provide us with direction in general achievement gains as well as targeted gap-filling. Students who are not achieving are rarely taking that route to make our day difficult. Instead, there are factors over which we have control that may not be in place, leading students away from achieving at a high level. Teachers should examine the environment, formative assessment, meaningful application, and climate of acceptance that makes sure that all students think success belongs to them. The model could be used by our SI team, to help structure reform strategies that will lead to higher achievement for all.
Hi Carol,
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“….as students themselves, to see if they fit into a cognitive model…yet we are all influenced by that mental model of what teaching looks like. “
really strikes a chord. You’re so right. Without a unifying mechanism in many schools teachers are each operating under such individual “mental models.” Instead of a teaching community, there is just a faculty made up of teachers, support personnel, and administrators who work at the same place. You also mentioned that the very slow pace of educational reform may be due to this lack a unifying mechanism.
The BTT model could help a faculty coalesce into a community. With this common point of view teachers can be much better equipped to support one another and teaching improves as a result. As a community teachers are better able to tackle a lot of what hindered student success whether it’s “the environment, the lack of formative assessment, the dearth of meaningful application, or a climate of failure acceptance “As you suggest each of these factors can be addressed by the BTT model.