University of Chicago researcher Nick Rabkin has presented new data supporting the success of the Writers in the Schools model. Here is an excerpt from an article on the Huffington Post:
What is good teaching?
There is broad agreement among leading researchers and education organizations about good teaching. Reports and studies have repeatedly found that it is grounded in three principles that test-driven schooling subverts:
• Good teaching is student centered. It begins with students’ interests and what they already know, offers students new and real challenges, choices and responsibilities, and features curriculum that that they find relevant.
• Good teaching is cognitive. Learning is the consequence of thinking and work on compelling ideas and problems across subject areas, and the demonstration of real understanding through the representation of learning in a range of media, including art forms.
• And good teaching is social. Individual students build competencies and knowledge, but students do that better together than they do alone. Good teaching involves building a community of learners that works and thinks together, challenges each other, reflects on its work, and supports taking the risks necessary to learn new things.
witsalliance.org 