EFFECTIVE TEACHING PRACTICES

Before the cognitive shift in educational psychology research on teaching practices that bring about the desired learning outcomes on the part of the students was dominated by the process-product research program. The findings of this confirmative research approach show that an effective lesson may consist of five sections: (a) homework should be discussed and the material covered recently should be repeated; (b) new material should be presented and explained, using structuring, step-by-step presentation, redundant explanation, frequent progress checks by means of questioning and responding appropriately to students’ questions; (c) students’ opportunity to practice under the supervision of the teacher who provides feedback and corrective teaching; (d) independent work on the part of students, including homework, prepared by the teacher and spread out over the course of the lesson is conducive to achieving the desired learning outcomes; (e) material should be repeated and tested frequently. To prevent that, through the dominance of cognitive psychology, available and applicable knowledge achieved in behavioristic research may be forced into the background, or indeed may be forgotten, a plea is made for devoting greater care to organizing knowledge into theories.