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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Education Development Trust
  • Year 1: First half-term: developing effective classroom practice

    • Video introduction

    Instructions

    Watch the video. The video outlines what you will cover in this Block.

    Video transcript

    You won’t spend long reading educational research before you come across a version of the statement:

    Good teachers are the most important factor in influencing pupil outcomes.

    But what does it actually mean to be a good and therefore “effective” teacher?

    Effective teaching can transform pupils’ knowledge, capabilities and beliefs about learning. Effective teachers are the ones who help pupils learn something they never thought they could, the ones who help pupils to understand new processes and ideas through well-structured lessons. They stimulate pupils to think hard and their support is well planned and tailored to meet the needs of all pupils so that every pupil experiences success even with challenging problems.

    In Block 2, you learned about how pupils learn. You considered what working and long-term memory are and learnt about cognitive load. Effective teachers understand the theory of how pupils learn and apply techniques and strategies which make learning more likely to happen. You explored some of these techniques in Block 2, such as how to present information to avoid cognitive overload.

    In this Block, we will look at some more of the fundamental techniques which lead to effective teaching:

    • Presenting new material in small steps
    • High quality expositions
    • Modelling and worked examples
    • Scaffolding and guiding learning
    • Practice
    • Teaching pupils metacognitive strategies. We will also be looking at what it means to “adapt your teaching”. At the heart of this is recognising that pupils, like the rest of us, have differences. It is important to understand that our classrooms are diverse places and it is our responsibility as teachers to ensure that all pupils learn and make progress. This is not about providing different lessons for different pupils – it is about knowing your pupils and having sufficient tools in your toolbox to be able to respond and meet their needs.

    In this Block you will look at:

    • How to effectively monitor pupils’ progress in lessons
    • Knowing when to intervene or adapt lessons “in the moment” whilst maintaining high expectations, so that all pupils make great progress
    • Knowing approaches for scaffolding learning for pupils who are making slower progress or struggling to engage. Becoming an effective teacher is not a quick tick-list of techniques and approaches you can use in the classroom. Each of the techniques you will explore in this Block require practice and you will refine them over time. You should be sure to make good use of the observation opportunities in this Block to both see the approaches being used by more experienced teachers and to receive feedback as you develop your own teaching craft.