Joining Theory and Best Practice to Drive Classroom Instruction

What is the article about?

1. This article focuses on the strong positive relationship that theories and best practices, together, play in everyday classroom instruction.

2. Before describing and highlighting important theories and best practices, author, Carol J. Fuhler, asks the reader to honestly reflect on the following question: “Do theory and the knowledge of excellent ways to teach reading drive the decisions you make about how you currently instruct your middle school students” (2003, p. 24)?

3. The article then goes on to share some notable well-researched learning theories, including schema theory, the constructivist approach, and the literary response theory.

4. Then, Fuhler takes a look at a few suggested best practices for reading (though she asks readers to think how these would apply fluidly across the curriculum), such as time for reading aloud, fostering independent reading, and teacher modeling.

5. Finally, the practical part of the article comes at the end when Fuhler demonstrates, through an example lesson plan, how to integrate theory and best practice across the curriculum (ex. reading, writing, social studies, & technology).

What did I 'get' from the article?

1. Due to pressure and numerous expectations put on teachers to get through enough material each year and have their students perform well on tests, it is easy to forget to make time for the ‘simple’ things, like reading aloud and spending time activating a student’s prior knowledge before beginning a lesson, which are so crucial to a student’s education.

2. In a subject like reading, many of the necessary skills to be learned cannot be seen, so teachers have to model and demonstrate what is going on in a reader’s head in order for students to be able to apply them in their own reading.

3. An important takeaway for me is remembering the easily overlooked step of reflecting on why and how teachers are using theories and best practices in their classroom on a day-to-day basis.

4. Almost all of the theories and best practices mentioned in Fuhler’s article involve active student participation in the learning process, which contrasts with my experience teaching in Chinese schools, where they focus more on lecture style teaching yet yield higher student test scores than their U.S. counterparts.

5. Overall, being able to integrate theories and best practices across the curriculum will create a more cohesive learning experience for students, but it does take careful planning and collaboration with teachers from other subject areas.

Reference

• Fuhler, C. (2003). Joining theory and best practice to drive classroom instruction. Middle School Journal, 34(5), 23-30. Retrieved March 25, 2015, from JSTOR.