Ch. 7 Doing What Matters Most: Developing Competent Teaching

I really enjoyed "Doing What Matters Most: Developing Competent Teaching" because it seemed to break down what teachers can do to be effective and to go beyond simply having good intent. The authors captured this idea in the phrase "...so that good teaching is no longer a magical occurrence." We all can name some of our favorite teachers and maybe identify activities that they led or positive qualities they had, but this chapter seeks to explore specifically what goes into producing successful teachers. A theme that I saw repeated was that teachers, like students, work best when learn from one another through collaboration, have models/scaffolding, constantly reflect on their work, and seek to always improve. In almost every technique, I thought, "that sounds like a good practice for students as well," which makes sense since teachers are life-long learners themselves. Another idea that caught my attention was that goals have to be aligned in an entire system for there to be far-reaching results. A whole school or district must desire for students to focus on learning rather than just high test scores for that goal to be achieved. One teacher with good pedagogical strategies cannot fight a system that doesn't support her. A lot of this information sounded like tidbits I've heard about the MAT (continuing to learn teaching strategies while getting to practice and refine them in classes with mentor teachers), so that makes me excited to think about what lies ahead! Lastly, I was tickled to see the Trinity shout out in the professional development school section. Hollaa :)