Effective Instructional Practices

Effective Instructional Practices

Effective instructional practices are very crucial to a students’ learning environment. It affects how one perceives and retains information in a classroom. Students can become easily confused if material is not presented in an organized and structured manner. This is where effective instructional practices come into play. When we present material and information on concepts to students’ we have to word and explain everything in detail. Educators seem to neglect effective practices, and tend to structure their curriculum to outline the material necessary for a state exam. Although there is no way around state exams, teachers need to engage their students effectively. If you do not engage students and tend to their needs, they will not succeed on the exam or more important, in life.

Educators seem to be more concerned about their students testing high instead of retaining the concepts and relating what they learn to their everyday lives. After working in Longwood High School last year, I realized how much teachers teach to the test. Longwood was audit by the state due to their low-test scores. Longwood’s state test scores need to improve over the next few years. This plays a crucial part in their teaching strategies now; teachers in Longwood are going to be more concerned about students’ test scores, then the actual material and concepts they should comprehend. Instead of students thinking for themselves and analyzing, they are simply memorizing concepts, formulas, and theories. If we could link the two together, students would not only test well, but understand and comprehend these concepts, formulas, and theories, and could apply them to everyday skills.

The controversy is that teachers go into a classroom attempting to relate concepts and theories to everyday life, but become caught up in the testing policy. Teachers become concerned with their students’ test scores, and begin to stress on the knowledge and comprehension of the material, rather than the theory and purpose behind the material. In the article, Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Rethinking the Connection Between High-Stakes Testing Policy and Classroom Instruction, examine the link between how the high-stakes testing policies influence the way the classroom is run. The author John B. Diamond uses data from classroom observations, and interviews and states that these testing policies affect instruction. Diamond states, “that teachers link the influence of high-stakes testing policies to instructional content more often than pedagogy” (Diamond, 2007). Teachers emphasize the knowledge and skills rather than the purpose of learning the material. There is a problem if a student is expected to memorize numerous facts, instead of engaging them to think and understand what these facts mean. Students are not going