Classroom Look-fors
A "look-for" is an observable teacher behavior that has a positive impact on student achievement. After completing this course, classroom look-fors will be evident in your instruction.
Effective Instructional Strategies Classroom Look-fors:
- The teacher helps students set learning goals and provides them with timely feedback about their progress.
- The teacher uses cueing, questioning, and advance organizers to assist students in activating prior knowledge prior to presenting new content.
- The teacher provides ongoing instruction and explicit guidance in helping students create nonlinguistic representations for acquiring knowledge within or across a subject area.
- The teacher provides ongoing instruction and explicit guidance in helping students to make comparisons and classifications and to create metaphors and analogies.
- The teacher provides explicit instruction in generating and testing hypotheses through a variety of tasks within various content areas.
- The teacher provides explicit instruction in how to summarize information for a variety of purposes and to take notes as a way of acquiring new information.
- The teacher uses a variety of grouping configurations to organize students into groups to solve problems, check for understanding, complete a task, or accomplish a common goal.
- The teacher provides explicit comprehension instruction through modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and application to authentic reading experiences.
- The teacher provides vocabulary instruction (reading, writing, listening and speaking) through multiple and varied exposures to new words over time and through direct and indirect instruction.
- The teacher uses writing as a tool for thinking to solve problems, identify issues, construct questions, and rethink.
- The teacher regularly monitors the progress of each student and celebrates successes.
- The teacher uses homework for practice, preparation, or elaboration for instruction provided within the classroom.
- The teacher uses formative assessment techniques throughout the lesson to assess students, adapt the lesson to meet individual student needs, involve students in self and peer-assessment, and engage students in clarifying their own and others' learning.