Deliberate Acts of Teaching
Deliberate Acts of Teaching (DATs)
Teacher Actions promoting student learning
and Deliberate Acts of Teaching (DATs)
Below are a selection of audio and written descriptions that describe the acts of teaching our teachers focus on when working to support students. Source for text can be found here (TKI 2022)
Modelling.mp3Modelling
Modelling, or “showing how”, is perhaps the most powerful and pervasive form of instruction. Almost everything the teacher does and says in the course of the school day provides a potential model to the students in the classroom. Much of this modelling is implicit and occurs without either teacher or students being conscious of it. However, deliberate, goal-directed modelling is an essential teaching tool.
Prompting.mp3Prompting
Prompting means encouraging the learner to use what they already know and can do. It is an effective strategy to focus students’ attention and to build their metacognitive awareness and their confidence. In order to prompt effectively, the teacher needs a detailed knowledge of the learner.
Questioning.mp3Questioning
Questioning is perhaps the instructional tool used most commonly by teachers. Questions may be directed towards building a particular aspect of students’ knowledge, such as how to use a strategy for making meaning or thinking critically.
Feedback.mp3Giving Feedback
The impact of effective feedback on student outcomes has been established through a number of studies (for example, Hattie, 1999, and Crooks, 1988). Hattie, on the basis of extensive research, describes feedback as the most powerful single factor that enhances achievement. Like modelling, feedback pervades the school day: most interactions between teachers and students involve some element of feedback.
Telling.mp3Telling
At its simplest, telling means supplying what the student needs, such as an unknown word, the URL of a relevant website, or the steps in a literacy learning task. The idea is to fill a gap at that moment to enable the student to maintain momentum and move on.
Explaining.mp3Explaining
Explaining can be thought of as an extension of telling. Teachers may explain the task itself, or they may explain a strategy, a learning activity, or the content of a text. For example, the teacher may explain:
what they want the students to do and think about while reading a particular text;
how a certain task will help the students to achieve a particular goal;
the background to a writing topic.
Key indicators for success:
Create a supportive learning environment
Effective teachers foster positive relationships with students and the wider community that are caring inclusive and culturally responsive.
Students are actively engaged in their learning.
Learning focused relationships maximise the opportunities for learning, enabling students to become to become confident ,resilient active learners and citizens.
Positive Behaviour Expectations at Albany (PBE): Teachers create an environment that promotes and encourages ownership of actions and decisions, reflections, utilising restorative practices.
‘Where learning makes a difference’
A culture of inquiry and review of professional practice is established at Albany Primary School. In such a community we learn together, from each other and from evidence-based practice and research.
The NZC (p34-35) identifies Teaching as Inquiry at the heart of Effective Pedagogy requiring teachers to inquire into the impact of their teaching. Teacher inquiry ensures the improvement of student outcomes through the development and use of more effective teaching strategies and is woven into our ‘GROWTH Coaching’ and school wide appraisal systems.