Benefits of AP Literature

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/descriptions/4499.html

This is a really interesting article that talks about how AP literature classes prepare students most for college. It talks about how perhaps we should be teaching all of our courses in a way that focuses on more analytical and critical thinking.

Small Group Teaching

http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/archive/publications/reports/small_gp_teaching.pdf

This is an article that focuses on teaching in small groups. The article has tons of stuff from strategies to how to set up your classroom for the best small group experience. It talks about when to use small groups, how to transition into small groups, and basically any question you could possibly have on the benefits of small group teaching.

Best Practice Strategies

 http://static.dpsk12.org/gems/cecteachers/BP912LangArts.pdf

This is a link to a PDF that has a guide to teaching an entire class using best practice strategies. It tells the teacher exactly what to keep in mind when teaching a lesson, but it doesn’t give specific lessons so you can apply it to whatever you are teaching.

Best Practice Lesson Plan

http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/compare_best.php

This is a lesson plan for teachers on how to discuss best practice. It’s a jigsaw activity where teachers reads one of the three sections of information below and then find similarities and differences between them. I like this because it is using best practice to teach best practice.

Best Practice: New Standards For Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools

http://www.ttms.org/best_practice/best_practice.htm

This article is really just a book review of the book, “Best Practice: New Standards For Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools”, but it has some really good points and charts with samples of how to achieve the “best practice” in schooling and what that means. The one of the article’s main points is to focus curriculum around students and student choice so that they will want to choose things for themselves.

National Education Association Research Page

http://www.nea.org/tools/17073.htm

This is a page from the NEA again, but this one focuses on the best practices in teaching. There are a bunch of different topics that have articles from researcher in the teaching field. The topics range from ability grouping to year-round education. This is a great site!