Getting Started with Teacher Clarity

Book excerpt: Help elementary school students engage in the learning process and achieve their goals in the classroom with the effective and proven principles of teacher clarity. Clear communication between students and teachers is crucial for effective learning. When students understand the why and how of learning (aka “teacher clarity”), it’s so much easier for them to fully comprehend and engage with the material. But it can be hard to ensure good communication while also juggling curriculums, state standards, grading, and the other elements of teaching in an elementary school classroom. That’s where Getting Started with Teacher Clarity comes in. This friendly, all-in-one guide breaks down the basic elements of teacher clarity, gives advice on how to incorporate those elements into the school day, and even provides classroom-ready activities for busy teachers to implement right away. This book not only explains the importance of the shared learning progressions between the student and the teacher, but also offers effective teaching practices for classroom settings, including: • Deconstructing state standards to develop learning intentions and objectives • Developing success criteria to support new learning • Building student awareness through structured language talk • Embedding self-assessment checks for students to assess their levels of understanding throughout a lesson • And much more! Through the research-based methods of teacher clarity, educators will understand the importance of partnership between students and teachers, which in turn fosters improved student success.