CHAPTER 6

WHAT'S THE RELEVANCE THAT FEEDBACK AND HOMEWORK HAVE FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHERS?

According to the book, educators recognize the important of feedback to students on their work. Feedback helps students to increase their learning outcomes; on the other hand, effective teachers provide specific explanation of what students are doing correctly or what they are not doing correct. For many teachers, feedback is primarily use to correct students, so they avoid indicating right or wrong answers because this can have a negative impact in students learning. Also, according to the book, homework remains an important part in effective teaching when it is used as an extension of the classroom. Many teachers get frustrated when assignments are not completed by the majority of students (that happened to me when just the fifty percent of my students completed the task, horrible!) because if students do not complete their assignments, it is probable that my lesson was not understood. There are three important purposes of homework: practice that is the reinforcement, preparation that exposes a student to a concept, and elaboration that facilitates the exploration of related concepts. However, before assigning homework we must state: the purpose of it, the time, space for it, explain the benefits of it, etc.

WHY DOES ASSESSMENT PLAY A CENTRAL ROLE IN TEACHING?

Assessment is an important element in the teaching process it helps to determine the effectiveness of a lesson plan in terms of student learning and engagement. Also it is to evaluate student’s progress. Assessment is important in a lesson plan to see if my goals and objectives have been reached; if not we as teachers should think what is wrong in our teaching. Besides, assessment plays an important role in teaching because it is use to monitor students in term of level of knowledge they have grasped so we can know which students are progressing and which are not.

WHAT ARE SOME EFFECTIVE WAYS OF MONITORING STUDENT PROGRESS?

There are many ways to monitor students used by effective teachers. Some techniques (the most important) are: formal and informal assessment, and formative and summative assessment.  Teacher uses informal assessment when they scan and circulate around the classroom to see if students are completing the task or he talks to small groups of students about specific tasks or activities. Teacher uses formal assessment when he elaborates standardized tests, writing activities, or projects. Effective teachers always use tests in class because they know how to interpret and use the information provided by a student in a test.  If the question is incorrect, he determines what was misleading that student to answer wrong.