In May 2024, IEW sent out a Best Practices Survey to all of our Premium Members, asking them for suggestions or ideas that they found to be most useful in their classrooms.
The results are in!
After poring over the responses, we have some fantastic suggestions and insights as you prepare to go back to school this fall!
Define Success in Your Classroom
The first question we asked was “How do you define success in your classroom or teaching environment?” Responses could be grouped into three main responses.
- About half (46%) of respondents believed success depended on whether students were able to reach a goal set by the instructor. One of the clearest responses stated, “Success is when students have the courage and curiosity to think critically and express themselves clearly, resulting in the pride and satisfaction of completing any work to the best of their abilities.”
- Thirty-eight percent of responses focused on whether or not progress was being made even if it was small. As one respondent put it, “Students are growing in wisdom and knowledge even if it's at a slow pace.”
- The remaining 15% of responses asserted that their classrooms were successful as long as students were enjoying the learning process.
Learning and Review
Answers to the next question in our questionnaire were far more varied: “What practices have you found to be particularly effective in helping students to learn or review material that they’ve already learned?” Some of the best suggestions from respondents included:
- Name the thing you’re teaching and ask a student to express it out loud. Then have a conversation about it or ask the student to tell me a story about it.
- Model anything new for the student first, do it again with them,and then let them try on their own when they feel ready and tell a teacher/parent or a sibling how they did it.
- Find the holes [in the student’s knowledge] and reteach those with drills or find someone else who can help.
- Allow students to work on tasks at their own pace but with a daily deadline.
- When students enter the room, give them an entrance ticket with a question on it that pertains to the previous unit. At the end of class, give them an exit ticket that describes a small activity to review what they learned.
Games or other fun activities were commonly suggested as means for the repetition necessary for review.
- Songs and silly voices make repetition fun.
- Review repeatedly what you’re teaching, starting with small amounts of content and adding more as they learn.
EZ+1 has been very helpful! - Set information to song or rhyme and associate hand motions with it.
- Use flashcards.
Keeping Students on Task
There were four primary answers to the question “What practices do you employ for successfully keeping students on-task?”
- Fifteen percent of respondents favored limiting distractions in the environment with one respondent sharing an entire work-time management system:
“Independent work time is quiet time” was my mantra. Each student had their own work space, and I insisted on quiet while writing. I also provided each student with a trifold card to use as a signal. One side said, “Please help me,” one side was blank, and the other side said, “Please keep working.” When students needed help, they would turn the card so the “help me” side pointed towards me, and the “keep working” message pointed towards themselves. This visual cue reminded them to stay on task as I circulated among them, answering questions and supporting the class as needed. It also avoided the scenario where a student just sat with a hand raised in the air, doing nothing!
- The next two most favored answers (23% for each) centered on the ideas of intentionally encouraging participation from students and valuing active wiggle time between instruction sessions.
- Nearly 40% of respondents favored some sort of accountability system, whether for the students or the parents. One respondent put it simply: “I write out what needs to be done each day. She [the student] works best with a short, precise list.”
Teaching IEW® Methods
The most varied answers were given for the fourth question: “What best practices have you discovered for helping your students implement IEW methods specifically?”
Answers varied widely and included IEW resources included with Premium Membership such as the Student Resource Packet, videos, and Mini Posters. However, about 23% of respondents saw the tremendous value in using IEW checklists with their students while 46% recognized the impact of modeling as espoused by Andrew Pudewa in helping to form confident and competent communicators.
Premium Membership Helps
The final question was “What have you found to be the most helpful part of the IEW Premium Membership for your growth as a teacher?” The favorite answer was all of the video content included in Premium, from the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style training course to the Teaching Tips with Andrew Pudewa. Audio talks were also considered as an important element, followed by the Checklist Generator and access to Master Classes.
Premium Member respondents to the survey saw great value in setting goals, improving students’ writing, and making the learning process enjoyable. It should be no surprise that modeling and games were also strongly recommended for effective learning, and respondents stressed that the learning environment should eliminate distractions, encourage student engagement, allow for active breaks, and require student accountability. IEW teaching methods and aids such as modeling, checklists, videos, and Premium Membership resources led to success for respondents in their Structure and Style® classrooms led to success for respondents in their Structure and Style classrooms, underscoring the tremendous benefit and power of IEW Premium Membership for best practices in your classroom!
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to our survey. If you are not yet a Premium Member and would like to learn more about the benefits of IEW’s yearly membership, visit IEW.com/premium for more information.
