In this post, we continue to examine best practices for effective teaching. The topics of this post are as follows…

• Teacher Task-Orientation
• Student Success Rate

Teacher Task Orientation

Task-orientation of the teacher is about how much time a teacher spends actually teaching. There are many hurdles to staying on-task from classroom management issues to interruptions by announcements from the administration. In addition, if the teacher is not prepared through thorough planning and if he/she is unclear in their delivery, a lot of time will be lost in having to re-explain and go over the same material several times unnecessarily.

Task-orientation plays a role in the environment of the classroom. As such, it influences the students’ perception of their learning experience. If the kids are off-task too much there learning suffers and their experience at school plummets as well. Therefore, If the focus of the teacher is not on teaching and the instructional guidance of the students, it could impact their effectiveness. This means that planning and the focus of the teacher are components of successful teaching.

Student Success Rate

Student success is the rate at which students are able to understand and complete assessments at levels that meet or exceeds objectives. It is a common misperception among many that if students do not perform well it is their fault. To be fair, it is often the student’s fault at least partially. However, an effective teacher also needs to look at him or herself if many students are struggling.

A general rule of thumb to determine how challenging a task should be is that students should spend about 2/3 of their time on tasks and assignments that allow for almost totally understanding of the content. This means that your goal should never be to overwhelm your students through requiring task beyond their ability. The desire should be the growth of the talents of the student and not to decimate them through requiring tasks that are beyond their zone of proximal development.

Frequent failure lowers self-esteem and could lead to students who become disengaged. On the other hand, moderate to high levels of success contributes to mastery of content and fosters deeper critical thinking. This may be because the students are learning but they are not perfect. Thus, they are doing well but are also aware of where they need to improve. This experience of good but not perfect contributes to a growth mindset in which the student is convinced that they can improve. To summarize, an effective teacher must be cautious of the twin dangers of total discouragement and on total success of students.

Conclusion

Time on task and implementing principles of assuring student success are core components of effective teaching. It is not necessarily easy to get things done in the classroom. In addition, it is a challenge to determine the right amount of difficulty for assignments. However, understanding how to achieve the goals of time on task and student success is necessary for those who aspire to increase the effectiveness of their instruction.