Not a lot to say these days. I’m doing some contract programming at the State Department of Public Instruction. It’s like having a job. I put on my tie every morning. It’s a ritual.
Anyway, here’s the point.Â
- What is a best practice?Â
- Who makes it a best practice?Â
- What is a best practice before it becomes a best practice?
- Where are best practices born?
- Where do you go to find THE best practices?
- How many best practices are there?
- How much of a highly qualified educator do you have to be in order to make a best practice?
- ..or do you have to work for the government?
- Is there a stamp, an FDA for teaching and learning, and expiration time, a special handshake, or
Is a best practice any teaching or learning experience that simply accomplishes the goal at hand?
2¢ Worth!
technorati tags:technology, education, warlick
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Hello Mr. Warlick,
I think personally your reflexions about best practice are good ones, because everybody is asking for them. And this way there is a need to go near to the motivations peoples have asking for bp. Maybe they ask for an ultimative reciept and solution for all similar kontextes, mabye they ask for an good example where they can learn something – both good an evil.
For my point of view this is a question how to illustrate the best practice. Is there something i can easily demonstrate on an more abstract level which allows me to absorbe the made experiences to my problems. Otherwise it can be wise to illustrate, like in a deep analyse, possibly much of the kontext and his influencing parameters and so allow to learn about how to handle different kontextes and get an strategy how to handle in my.
So or diffrent best practices are imhpo examles which i can learn something or let me know more about the field of the theory and the potencial and the practice.
Best whishes from Koblenz, Germany
Andreas
I read your questions with humor and appreciation. Continuing questions on BP:
Can we get them at big box stores?
Do they have to be accompanied by endless, meandering inservice sessions?
Do they have to have accompanying notes that state and restate the obvious in terms the writer defined in his/her dissertation?
When is someone qualified to distinguish between “best” practices and simply “examples”?
Now I will stop being facetious and offer my “best definition” of a “best practice” :
A thoughtfully-generated and field-tested example that can be implemented by others who follow a well-written (or stated) explanation of both the practice and the rationale behind it. [Three essential elements to earn the “stamp.”]
This would mean that ANY education practitioner (yes, practitioner, not theorist alone) who engages in the thought process, testing, and explanation can generate a best practice, even teachers who are shy about their own capabilities or too busy to ever “toot their own horn.”
OK folks, go to town on my definition…
Candy Shively
You’d think all those vendors at the big conferences were doing best practice. Best practice is something different for everyone. Often I hear friends say so and so, now she is doing best practice. But I might think it’s just what she is supposed to be doing. I think best practice is all about perspective. Who can define it? Kids for sure. Consider test scores–well I guess the state departments of education would definitely define BP starkly different, and factor in test scores. Consider the source…
Hi David
To me, “best practices” are those that have been deveveloped, tested and used successfully with students to achieve stated goals. Accordingly, best practices exist within the framework of the goals; if one disagrees with the goal, then the practice is not best.
I’ve been working with an organization here in New York called NYLearns (www.nylearns.org). The service provides access to about 20,000 instructional resources, all supportive of and aligned to NY state standards at the performance indicator level. Every resource has been peer reviewed, and so has a “stamp of approval” from practicing educators. To me, this is a good sign of best practices (or at the least “better practices.”)
Jeff
Best Practice:
A list of mistakes to avoid while doing something worthwhile.
Craig
I’m hopeful that technology will save us from “meandering inservice sessions” and deadly “trainings,” but not altogether convinced.
Hi David,
I’ve been approaching “best practices” not from the frame of best practices with technology, but best practices in the content areas and then looking to see how technology will support them (a rather easy match actually).
My bible for best practices in the content areas is Best Practice: New Standards by Semelman, Daniels, and Hyde.
In the book, they look at the recommendations of NCTM, NCTE, IRA, etc.
If you are truly interested in what the mainstream field of education regards as best practice, I’d highly recommend the book.
All the best,
Doug
The very concept of “best practice” is flawed: best practice for whom? Who says it’s “best” practice? In the UK we (ie the educational tech community, including government agencies, have moved away from highlighting so-called best practice and towards interesting practice. What can I, for example, take from watching you and bring back to my own school? What works for you may not work in my context — but there may be one or two ideas I can adapt, if not adopt.
Dave – according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_practice
Hi everybody,
Great conversation going here. Andreas my grandfather is from Koln, Germany. Guten Tag : )
There are lots of interesting perspectives on Best Practices that are really making me think. Hmmm…so here goes my definition.
It is my contention that best practices are practical strategies (based on shared wisdom) that effective teachers use to optimize learning opportunities.
So what’s an effective teacher?
Good & Brophy (2002) contend there are three characteristics of effective teachers: (1) they have postive expectations for student success, (2) they are extremely good classroom managers, and (3) they know how to design lessons for student mastery.
Welp, those are my reflections. Auf Wiedersehen and Best Wishes, Mechelle : )
Good, T. & Brophy, J (2002) Looking in Classrooms, Allyn & Bacon, Needham, MA.
I agree with the note of caution in some of these comments. If we see something being applied really effectively and adopt the methodology and approach as being best practice, it might not work as well in another situation.
I can’t help wondering, though, if the original concept (and didn’t it used to be called “good practice”?) was a sort of amalgam of effective application and etiquette.
Effective teachers know to tailor best practices to the special needs and abilities of their students. Best Practices include differentiated instruction.
One of the important lessons that we can learn from the internet, but that we seem to be learning too slowly, is that the periphery often has a great deal to teach the center, or in this case, the mainstream. Even as they learn to pay lip service to student centered, non sage on the stage, learning, educational institutions continue to adhere to a top-down model of “best practices”. If it gets the seal of approval from the experts, then you can implement it in the classroom.
The question of “what is” a best practice seems the least interesting of those you’ve asked. After all, most of us would honestly say “I’ll know one when I see one”, and on the whole we’d be right. But the questions of who can make them, and how they reach others are central to the success of bottom-up educational change. And it’s here that a read/write ethos is called for. Just as in a wiki we continue to edit in the expectation of achieving an end-product that reflects the knowledge and experience of many, so with our practices. In the garden where 100 flowers bloom we’re sure to find more than a few weeds as well. But with enough gardeners seriously intent on tending that garden, chances are good that a group effort will actually succeed in bringing the “best practices” to the fore. Open source for educational practices is the way to go.
We, too, are looking at criteria we will use to name a best practice. We have almost decided to change the term to effective practice. Any criteria/strategies you can share are deeply apprediated.
The most engaging event of my liife was an AEE International Conference of 1200+participants. Each individual was asked to write on flip chart paper what he would like to learn OR teach during the day. The charts were posted around the hall and folks signed up. The subjects for which there were 40 (if I remember correctly) or more signitures became breakout sessions facilitated by the person who posed the subject. One could leave and join any other topic at will. For that audience this was the birthing and delivery of a best practice
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