The “How” of Teaching

This chapter provides teachers with a list of core pedagogical principles, derived from the practice of the four excellent teachers showcased in Chapter 2 , which they can use to redesign their teaching practice. Those pedagogical principles are not new (they have been espoused by educational researchers and scholars for decades), they are durable (they have endured even as fashionable educational strategy and practice has come and gone), and they are universal (they work regardless of classroom and school context). Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 are intentionally coupled together to demystify what excellent teaching is, what it looks like, and how it is discussed in the research. Because teachers are very busy people who come to this book with varied experience with the research on teaching and learning, this chapter provides a list of the pedagogical principles that teachers can use to find a good starting point to refresh or redesign their practice. Chapter 5 provides a more robust examination of the pedagogical research for readers who are interested in knowing more about why these principles have held up over time.