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Best practice

The processes, practices, or systems identified in public and private organizations that performed exceptionally well and are widely recognized as improving an organization's performance and efficiency in specific areas.

• Communities of Practice Learning as a social system by Etienne Wenger
  Wenger, the reigning authority on communities of practice, describes in detail the nature, life cycle and functioning of a community of practice.
• Building Collaborative Cultures: Seeking Ways to Reshape Urban Schools
  This monograph concentrates on two questions: (1) What are the components of collaborative cultures? and (2) How do schools develop collaborative cultures? In seeking to answer these questions, the monograph first details the importance of collaboration, paying special attention to the ways in which collaborative school cultures serve quality teaching and learning. It then examines the variety of cultures that exist among schools.
• The Peaks and Valleys of Online Professional Development
  Online professional development (PD) fits today’s fast changing K-12 educational environment where demands on teachers and re-certification require teachers to continually learn new and challenging content and pedagogy. This paper draws on two online professional development projects to discuss what is valuable about online PD, identify some successes, some problems, and provide tips for those doing online PD.
• 5 Easy Transition Activities
  A free resource from the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
• Academic Controversy
  ERIC Digest on Academic Controversy - Both theoretical and practical reasons support the belief that arousing intellectual conflict is one of the most important and powerful instructional procedures available to teachers.
• Alternative Assessment
  This link provides a "list of ERIC definitions for concepts related to alternative assessment is from the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation . These terms may be used as descriptors or identifiers when searching the ERIC database.
• Assessing Digital Videos
  Assessing student produced digital video requires the same amount of preparation and consideration as other more traditional assignments. You will find ideas for assessing student produced digital video in this area including links to sites that allow you to customize rubrics to fit a specific project.
• Assessment in Music (Texas Framework)
  The pages in this web site discuss internal assessment, developed within the school, and external assessment, developed outside the school but often required, and how they can be combined to help students and teachers better assess music learning.
• Characteristics of Games and Harnessing Them for Learning
  Presentation "Let's Play: The role and value of games and simulations in Education" by Robert McLaughlin (with slides from Robert McLaughlin and Calin Cazan), March 2005 Site Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
• Checklist of Classroom Procedures
  An excerpt from the LEARN North Carolina Beginning Teacher Handbook.
• Classroom Strategies for Helping At-Risk Students
  This monograph offers guidance for employing six effective practices aimed at helping at-risk students: * whole class instruction * cognitively oriented instruction * small group instruction * tutoring * peer tutoring * computer-based instruction.
• Connecting with Students
  Allen N. Mendler shows how to provide acknowledgement without disruption.
• Cooperative Learning Response to Diversity
  Dedicated teachers are always looking for better ideas for meeting the many challenges they face in school, especially as diversity increases in the student population. Cooperative learning methods provide teachers with effective ways to respond to diverse students by promoting academic achievement and cross-cultural understanding.
• Critical Issue: Implementing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Standards in Mathematics
  Critical Issue: Implementing Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Standards in Mathematics. This site includes information, links and videos to help teachers and others develop students' mathematical literacy.
• Decisions & Dilemmas of Electronic Portfolios
  This powerpoint goes deep into questions about setting up an electronic portfolio system, be David Gibson.
• Dodging the Power-Struggle Trap: Ideas for Teachers
  Specific and concrete actions to prevent classroom conflict situations to escalate out of control.
• Enhancing Students' Socialization
  ERIC Digest ED 395713 (1996) Author: Jere Brophy Research on effective practices associated with working with diverse learners in classrooms.
• First Six Weeks of School
  A guide to laying the groundwork for successful learning within the first few weeks of the school year.
• Grounded metadata: Validating a semantic web vocabulary for technical assistance to educators - Knapp, Kurowski, Dexter, Gibson, McLaughlin
  Abstract: Development of metadata (data about data) can be challenging because the vocabulary needs to be reliable yet flexible and extensible, locally relevant yet widely applicable and interoperable, and both machine and human readable. This article describes the process of creating “grounded metadata” for education, by engaging experts from technical assistance organizations, and the challenges the project faced.
• How To Manage Disruptive Behavior in Inclusive Classrooms
  Ten questions to ask in diagnosing situations that foster disrupotive behaviors in students with disabilities.
• Instructionally Intelligent...Socially Smart
  This article is working at illustrating the unlimited and delightful possibilities that exist in the design of powerful learning environments. The author argues for a more integrationist position; one that realistically reflects how experienced and effective teachers create learning environments...and create those environments in the moment as they sense, select, integrate, and respond to the endless classroom pressures and possibilities.
• Inventing Opportunity - Sustainability and Future Funding Opportunities presented by Melanie Zibit at PT3 Annual Meeting, Feb. 21, 2007
  Through innovative and persistent efforts, simSchool has been able to build new partnerships and win additional grants. Its strategies are based on the philosophy that " small things can add up to make a big difference" and "adapt your project's products to meet other's needs, and then collaborations will evolve.".
• Let the Games Begin
  Video games, once confiscated in class, are now a key teaching tool. If they're done right.
• Madison District Assessment Policy
  The purpose of this web site is to provide stakeholders involved with educational assessment within the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) a consistent foundation upon which to base their assessment practice. The site has a section on philosophy and another section on standards for practice.
• Mapping a Route Toward Differentiated Instruction by Ann Tomlinson
  Even though students may learn in many ways, the essential skills and content they learn can remain steady. That is, students can take different roads to the same destination.
• New Directions in e-Learning: Personalization, Simulation and Program Assessment
  This paper discusses three areas of recent innovative work: personalization and e-portfolios, simulation-based assessments, and research-based criteria for e-learning. A new web-based personal application illustrates the strengths of both generic tools and customized systems in e-portfolios.
• Pathfinder Science
  Pathfinder Science is a virtual community that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires a passion for learning about the material world through science. This Collaborative Research community grew from an attempt to fulfill the vision of national efforts to reform science and technology education.
• Profiles of Selected School-Community Partnerships
  This page is the index page from which you may link to profiles of selected school-community partnerships in California. In each description, the site provides you with background on how the program got started, its goals and activities, management structure, coordination with schools, staffing information, number of schoolsites and students served, funding, and program evaluation findings.
• Rapport With and Knowledge of Students
  Students who are happy and successful in school are not likely to disrupt learning for other students. Teachers need to get to know their students as individuals.
• River City: A Multi-User Virtual Environment Experiential Simulator
  Presentation as part of the symposium "Let's Play: The role and value of games and simulations in Education" by Debra Sprague, George Mason University, March 2005 Site Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
• Rules in School
  Written by four classroom teachers, this book is filled with instructions and examples for creating a calm, safe learning environment.
• School, Family, Community Partnerships
  This Knowledge Loom spotlight presents research-based principles for effective practices that can be used in schools and districts to develop School/Family/Community Partnerships that support improved student achievement. The content has been prepared by RMC Research Corporation , a leader in educational research and services.
• Seating and Room Arrangement
  Excerpted from the LEARN North Carolina Beginning Teacher Handbook.
• She Will Succeed! Strategies for Success in Inclusive Classrooms by Mary Ann Pratner
  Given the number of students needing individual assistance in the general classroom, teachers need strategies to assist them in making appropriate modifications and adaptations to their curriculum, instruction, and learning environment. This article includes a case situation where a teacher implements specific adaptations and steps to modify the learning environment.
• Study Groups
  ASCD site sharing what are, why use and how to start study groups.
• Study Groups by Carlene Murphy
  Paper outlining the methods for creating, implemening, evaluating study groups in schools. Journal of Staff Development, Summer 1999 (Vol.
• Teacher-Parent Collaboration
  Use these organizers to prepare for successful parent-teacher interactions.
• Teaching for Cooperative Learning: The Challenge for Teacher Education
  Teaching for Cooperative Learning: The Challenge for Teacher Education is a new book edited by E.G. Cohen, Celeste Brody, and Mara Sapon-Shevin (SUNY Press, 2004: ISBN 0-7914-5970-5).
• Teaching Methods COOPERATIVE LEARNING
  Cooperative learning can be summarized as “the instructional use of small groups so that the students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.” Cooperative learning groups proliferate in every educational setting, regardless of the age or educational level of the students present. In cooperative learning situations, there is a “positive interdependence among students’ goal attainments; students perceive that they can reach their learning goals if and only if the other students in the learning group also reach their goals.” The NBCTs in these video clips have chosen to use cooperative learning groups to meet specific content goals.
• Technology in the Classroom: Tools for Doing things Differently or for Doing Different Things (Reil and Fulton0
  This paper explores issues of school reform and the role of technology in designing new learning environments. .
• Ten Activities for Establishing Classroom Rules
  Includes to involve students in setting classroom rules. Links to related sites are also provided.
• The Psychological Atmosphere We Create in Our Classrooms
  An essay by Adrian Underhill that models thinking out loud about one's beliefs about learners, learning, and the role of the teacher in assisting learning.
• The Use of MicroWorlds at Forest Glen Elementary School, Wisconsin
  Mary Karl is the T.E.A.M. (Talent Enrichment Accelerating Minds) Coordinator at Forest Glen Elementary School (Howard-Suamico School District) in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• Thirteen Ways to Beat the First Day Jitters
  An excerpt from the LEARN North Carolina Beginning Teacher Handbook and the National Education Assiociation New Teacher CD.
• Transfiguring It Out Converting Disengaged Children to Active Participants
  Do you want to help students believe in themselves and their learning potential? This article addresses the challenge of disengaged students and provides teachers with a “transfiguration” model that uses a practical and robust strategy to transform disengaged learners to active participants. Let’s examine the inclusive education environment and why we need to transform the way we work with all our students to set learning goals, create a workable plan, use motivating activities, and reflect and evaluate along the way.
• Transitions in the Classroom
  Tips for managing classroom transitions, including looking at predictability, boundaries, and flexibility in time use.
• Using Functional Assessment to Promote Desirable Student Behavior in Schools
  Whether aggressive or merely annoying, challenging behavior attracts the attention of the teacher and other students, thus interrupting the focus on learning. This article presents a rationale for using the functional behavioral assessment (FBA) approach to problem solving.

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