The Answer Sheet: effective teaching

The following is a story that Education Secretary Arne Duncan told about his most powerful learning experience. It is one in a regular series of “learning stories” that I am starting to publish and that are focused on effective teaching and learning.

By Diana Senechal. In discussions of “effective” teaching, we often hear about the “objectives” that teachers should spell out and repeat, the “learning styles” they should target, the “engagement” they should guarantee at every moment, and the constant encouragement and praise they should provide—all in the interest of raising test scores. DCPS IMPACT (the teacher assessment system for D.C. public schools) awards points to teachers who implement such practices; Teach for America addresses some of them in its forthcoming book. Except for the misguided notion of targeting learning styles, none of these techniques is wrong in itself. But together they raise a barrier.