Best Practices for Student Learning Essay

Great educators help the learners become great. Best practices are what the teachers at the Binford middle School aim at to ensure that their students learn. Effective teachers pride themselves on maintaining positive interactions with the pupils inside and outside the classroom, give prompt feedback as well as inspire teamwork among the students (Hammer, Piascik, Medina, Pittenger, Rose, Creekmore, Soltis, Bouldin, Schwarz, & Scott, 2010). Highly influential teachers will acquire and put in place helpful feedback, employ various methods to promote active learning that helps students become self-directed, critical thinkers and independent.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Teachers at Binford Middle School ensure that students remain engaged as well as focused on their work, provide numerous learning materials, use collaborative or authentic tasks placing students at the center in learning, and ensure that classrooms are activity-based. The instructors at Binford Middle School are industrious, engage actively with various groups of students and promote a joyful and vibrant learning environment. The teachers here also encourage learners to work to their fullest potential through setting high but realistic targets, giving emphasis to openness in communication, and practical instruction as an art that necessitates modification and mastery. Teachers at Binford Middle School provide concrete, clear, and engaging teaching, use evidence-based supervision and instructional strategies, as well as developing lasting relationships with students to ensure that they achieve their instructional goals. The teachers adopt a differentiated curriculum where they adapt it in various ways to meet the specific needs of all the students. Instructors in the school modify the content, process, expected outcomes, physical environmental factors enhance student success. A differentiated curriculum gives students an opportunity for personal acceleration and remediation, nurtures respect and self-esteem, improves motivation by exploring personal interests, as well as builds strong relationships with the learners through recognizing their strengths(Macsuga-Gage, Simonsen, & Briere, 2012).

Course organization and planning is a critical element in student learning at Binford Middle School. Designing the lesson demonstrates the ability of the instructor to communicate the learning materials and outcomes clearly to the students. Instructors at Binford Middle School should always plan adequately for their lesson because it helps them deliver relevant content in an organized way (ETS, 2013). Additionally, the school should emphasize more on teachers being cognizant of the depth and breadth of the material, offer cultural responsiveness, and develop structured courses to enhance facilitation of information and empower learners.

The Binford Middle School exercises achievement reporting to support student learning through the provision of information to students and their parents about students' achievement and progress, and to specify areas for additional development. The school should provide regular, precise and comprehensive information concerning the student's intellectual, personal and social development as it provides accountability of the school for the learning outcomes of the students (Brady & Kennedy, 2012). The school should also ensure that the achievement reporting fosters partnerships between the parents and educators to support the student's learning as well as progress.

The Binford Middle School is an inclusive school and believes that together they can learn better, "Excellence from all, for all." Inclusivity is a challenging task, but it has helped strengthen the school community and benefited all the children (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2017). The universal design for learning, encouragement of essential life skills, collaborative planning as well as teaching, and development of a firm behavior management plan are some of the comprehensive strategies employed in the school. Richmond Public Schools provide a range of services to achieve the distinctive needs of the students with learning disabilities: autism, behavioral and psychological support, occupational therapy/physical therapy, assistive technology, hearing impaired/vision impaired, and speech/language services. The universal design makes learning engaging and accessible to various learners with diverse strengths and needs. It calls for the Binford Middle School teachers to apply many modalities for the learners to react to learning with many assessment tools. Teachers should, therefore, know the significance of the universal design learning since students learn and express themselves in diverse ways.

Life skills education comprises of activities that an individual requires to work, live, and recreate in the community (Nilholm & Alm, 2010). Learning life skills is something challenging for students with disabilities, and therefore instructors should focus on teaching these skills to the students. The classroom in Binford Middle School is not an island, particularly a classroom that is inclusive. Opening up the classroom to the service providers, teachers offering special education, paraprofessionals, and parents provides great opportunities and adequate planning, hence covering needs of all diverse students (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2017). Some of the critical specific behavior managing strategies schools emphasize for fruitful instruction are posting of daily schedules, exposing the classroom rules along with the expectations, and inspiring peer instruction and leadership because they help a teacher control the classroom effectively.

Research-based practices are an essential tool for teachers to engage the students in improving academic performance. The research strategies provide a firm basis for constructing new knowledge (Morrow, 2008). The school's art of teaching is turning to the science of teaching. Through research, the Binford Middle School instructors identify discipline-specific conventions openly, relate the material to the students' interests and give learners an opportunity to apply skills and knowledge in different contexts.

Evaluation and revision of the school instructional strategies happen on a regular basis. The assessment takes the form of formative assessment which offers a substantial potential to improve students' learning. While instruction occurs, the teachers gather information to find out if their strategies are effective (Tessmer, 2013). They also require the level of understanding of individual students as well as groups to come up with the most appropriate strategies for instruction. Teachers in the school observe the knowledge and achievement of students in many ways; classroom dialogues, homework and seatwork assignments, questioning, formal tests, less formal quizzes, portfolios, projects, and so on.

The school considers opting for specific subjects during the morning classes in hopes of producing better grades and skills, which are essential for long-term academic success. Morning Math classes ensure better grades than in the afternoon when the students' concentration is minimal. However, scheduling may affect students differently because some find it easy to understand concepts in different hours such as in the afternoon because in the morning they have not made a successful transition from the slumber. The school should consider flexible schedules for students who have challenges with learning specific subjects at a particular time to enhance learning (Dills & Hernandez-Julian, 2008).

When designing the curriculum and the instructional strategies, the school adheres to the human development, motivation and learning theories. The cognitive theories apply when for instance scheduling for classes. The cognitive approach emphasizes the conditions under which the students learn, and the role of memory in information processing. Teachers should apply this theory in spacing the study or practice sessions, context, types of tasks, generating effects as well as using tests other than presentation because they create powerful learning opportunities (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham, 2013). Binford Middle School views students' motivation as multiply determined. The teachers focus on intrinsic motivation and collaboration among students. The focus of the teachers should be to create supportive classroom environments and provision of learners with choices of teaching activities as it gives higher levels of motivation to learn among students (Engel, 2011; Patall, Cooper & Robinson, 2008). The teachers can apply behavioral theories in choosing the tasks that they want the students to perform because students will respond only to the stimulus of interest.

The school conducts professional development for mathematics and talent based courses. Efficient, professional development helps instructors to develop the awareness and skills necessary to address the students' learning difficulties. It entails thoughtful planning by the teachers and then careful execution with feedback to certify that it responds to the educators' learning needs (Strong, Fletcher & Villar, 2004). The school typically uses a blend of local, state, and federal capitals for professional development.

The Binford Middle School is a learning community. It connects both the person's learning activity with the other stakeholders. All members acquire new ideas and accept responsibility for learning because the contribution of every individual is vital to the overall success of the school (Hubbard, Stein & Mehan, 2013). The teachers' lesson plan at Binford Middle School shows what the students will learn and be able to accomplish at the end. However, the instructional strategies sometimes do not meet the learning objectives. Teachers should think clearly about the lesson goals so that they deliver the content using the best practice.

Mostly, the school uses quizzes, writing assignments, and tests to guide improvements in learning in their classrooms. For the students with disabilities, involvement in state and district evaluations occurs and includes taking existing standardized tests with assessment accommodations. The alternative evaluation consists of: school accounts; the latest assessment data; formal as well as informal assessments conducted by the special education team; parents' reports, general and special education educators; classroom work samples; along with other information accessible to the special education team (Elliott, 2001). With increased demands of inclusiveness in classrooms, teachers in Binford Middle School are adopting co-teaching practices that teach general and special education curriculums. The school should consider supportive, parallel, complementary, and team Co-teaching strategies (Nevin, Villa & Thousand, 2009). However, appropriate matching of the Co-teachers is important.

School Management

The quality of school management always has some effect on the school effectiveness. The head teacher at Binford Middle School, who is the manager, plays a role in the following significant areas: overall school governance, curriculum, leadership as well as human relations, community affairs, and working relationships. The school has inadequate resources for discretionary use to support improved learning, and hence the principal has limited resources to raise student achievement, school environment, and professional development. Despite the efforts from various groups to finance the school, it still needs a lot of money. The school should adopt proper resource management so that it can provide an environment and teacher developments that support student learning (Houtenville & Conway, 2008).

Good financial practice denotes managing money and money processes for the school so that...