Some Best Practices in Teaching

I recently read a paper (Comparing Classroom Enactments of an Inquiry Curriculum: Lessons Learned From two Teachers; The Journal of Learning Sciences, 16(1), 81-130) by Sadhana Puntambekar (Associate Professor, Learning Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison). The study reported in this paper made so much sense to me, specially in the context of teaching the kids in Noida (India), that I want to put down some of the interesting points here for future reference.
(...the topic of discussion here are pulleys and physics associated with them)

1. Connecting prior learning to the current topic:
This basically refers to the practice of bridging the gap between the existing knowledge and the current knowledge by encouraging students to share what they knew about pulleys and relating this knowledge to other machines that they had already learned about. Sharing of knowledge also helps establish a "common ground" / shared knowledge base.

2. Generating goal-oriented questions:
The final goal of the class/session is kept in mind and a discussion initiated that encourages the students to generate questions. The most relevant questions generated by the students should then be used to structure the session. This is helpful because (a) it makes learning more meaningful for the students since they are now solving problems/questions raised by themselves and (b) helps the classs focus on the big picture and work towards solving that.

3. Connecting concrete experiences with abstract science knowledge:
Children learn best when taught in the context of concrete examples. Yet majority of the science teachers like to teach abstract concepts and leave the onus of forming connections between the abstract and concrete concepts on the students. A classroom discussion can help form this connection -
- Keep the big picture in mind
- Ask the students specific questions that encourage them to think in the right direction towards the final goal (big picture)
- Repeating/ Re-iterating the connections between abstract and concrete so that the connections are internalized by the students.

4. Integration of activities within the unit:
All the activities (atleast within the unit) should be connected coherently and weaved into a story that relates to the final goal.

5. Connecting concepts:
It is important to relate all the concepts/principles to one another in order to form a coherent picture of the goal. "Knowledge Centered " environments help develop an integrated understanding of the concepts.

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