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By Dr. Harry Tennant

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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Why is continuous improvement important?

Consider this:

The best teachers are very good.

  • There is a large difference between student performance and teacher quality
  • The students of the best teachers learn 1.5 years of material in a school year
  • The students of the worst teachers learn 0.5 years of material in a school year

Teacher improvement doesn't just happen

  • Improved student performance correlates with completion of the first year or two of teacher experience
  • Student performance shows little or no improvement with teacher experience after 2 years
  • Student performance does not correlate with teacher education

How do good teachers get good?

Performance improves through deliberate practice

  • Practice with high focus and concentration
  • Practice specific to improve performance
  • Continue for long periods of time
  • Must be repeated
  • Requires continuous feedback
  • Requires goal-setting
  • Involves self-observation and self-reflection
  • Involves careful reflection after practice sessions

Continuous improvement is a set of practices for conducting deliberate practice on processes such as teaching.

Teachers don't get great just by teaching

  • Improving student performance requires better teaching
  • Improving student performance by improving teaching requires deliberate practice
  • Improvement requires sustained practice and focus on improvement

Continuous improvement of teaching must become as high priority as teaching itself.

Posted at 12:00 AM Keywords: continuous improvement 0 Comments

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