Introduction
"To teach is to touch lives forever." These are the words of my first-ever principal, Dr. Marlyn R. Quiming. At first, I didn't know how it was possible. I taught in the Philippines for eight years and challenged myself to teach abroad, specifically in Bahrain, for 6 years. I am in my third year as an English teacher here in the US. As usual, everything is new, but the thing is, I have my instructional coaches, Laura Kirkpatrick and Sarah Johnston, and my principals, Dr. Whitney Anderson and April Shay, who made my life easier.
In my first year, Sarah Johnston gave me the book The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction written by Sean Cain and Mike Laird. This book introduces five principles, known as 'The Fundamental 5 ', which are crucial to effective instruction. It was mentioned that we will for certainly recognize similar practices and strategies when observing teachers, it is one-on-one instruction or regular classroom instruction. The concept is easy to understand, but it is difficult to accomplish without self-discipline.
When attending seminars and workshops, I always apply things I learned in my classroom. Upon reading the book, I found out that even if we love to improve our classroom instruction, we may fail due to the following reasons:
a. Not having s good plan
b. Not having the desire
c. Procrastination
d. Not recognizing the opportunity loss
e. Not having support
f. Not having a way to regularly and accurately gauge progress
As educators, we often ask ourselves, 'Is there a straightforward plan to enhance the effectiveness of our classroom instruction?' The authors, Sean Cain and Mike Laird, both experienced educators and researchers, provide a resounding yes to this question with their Fundamental 5 principles:
1. Frame the Lesson
2. Work in the Power Zone
3. Engage in Frequent, Small Group, Purposeful Talk about Learning
4. Recognize and Reinforce
5. Write critically.
These principles are not just theoretical concepts, but practical tools that can empower us to improve our teaching. They remind us of the importance of recognizing and reinforcing our students' efforts, making them feel appreciated and supported in their learning journey.
One of the weaknesses of the current instructional practice is that the teacher views that poor performance as the fault of the students, while the root of excellent performance is the teacher. Another is time on task. Time is something that a teacher cannot control because they need to follow specific schedules- I personally had this struggle up to this day- during my first year, we followed the block schedule, and last school year, we switched to a seven-period day schedule. The authors pointed out a disadvantage of this, this is when we provide teachers with additional instruction time, it creates more "fundamentally flawed instruction. Cain and Laird involved themselves in educational research with the aim to rapidly improve student achievement. They have observed that the current practice is simultaneously both ahead and behind the current state of academic research. I, for one, strongly believe that as teachers, we need to conduct research to have data as a basis for whatever we want to find out about problems and data-based solutions.
