Seven Structures of Best Practice Teaching

1.) Small Group Activities

Partner/Buddy Reading - Students work in small groups and take turns reading aloud stories while other group members follow along.

Peer Response and Editing - Ongoing groups give diplomatic and critical feedback on each others' writing pieces.

Literature Circles/Book Clubs - 4-5 students work in groups to discuss literature.  Each student has a significant role in the group; i.e. Literary Luminary, Discussion Director, Illustrator, Vocabulary Extender, and Connector.

Study Teams - Students from independent groups are helped by others that parcel out tasks, share work, and provide benefits for others to succeed.

Group Investigations - The classroom indentifies a problem and work together to discuss a topic, share prior knowledge, generate hypothesis, pose questions, set goals, and make a plan for researching or studying the topic.

Centers - Students work in small groups where they rotate and work on multiple skill-related activities.

2.) Reading as Thinking

Study-reading strategies is pivotal and take place before, during, and after reading takes place.

3.) Representing to Learn

Students have responsibility of learning by using learning logs, writings, drawings, etc.  In particular, learning logs provide teachers with valuable information regarding student learning.

4.) Classroom Workshop

Reading and Writing Workshops are set up so that students can work collaboratively though discussions with peers.  Students also keep records and self-evaluate their work.  Students seek feedback though peer and/or teaching conferences.

5.) Authentic Experiences 

Authentic experiences in classrooms might include discussing current events, inviting guest speakers from the community, and watching performances.

6.) Reflective Assessment

Teachers use reflective assessments based on qualitative research, observations, interviews, or questionnaires.  Reflective assessment might also involve students collecting and interpreting artifacts.

7. Integrative Units

Units of study include subject matter from other content areas.  For example, a Science unit on animals may include where animals live (Social Studies/geographical info), songs or chants (Music), or poems (Language Arts/poetry).