Running head: ARTICLE REVIEW 1

Article Review

Shoko Hattori

Pelita Harapan University

International Teachers College

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Summary

In the introduction of the article, the authors address that the United States

spends approximately 192 billion dollars for education in a year. Thus, it is significant

to hire teachers that can effectively increase student achievement. To know the effective

qualities of effective teachers, they say, it is crucial to investigate what teachers do in

class. According to the observations in various schools in America done in 2000 years,

three practices that were key to effective teaching. They were instructional planning,

instructional delivery, and assessment by the teachers.

Firstly, According to the article, teacher who performed effective instructional

planning carefully planned when, what, and how to teach. They explored various and

creative strategies. They collaborated with other teachers when they brainstormed ideas.

Their data based plans were effectively brought to action. Planning well helped them

become effective in solving or avoiding issues in class. Secondly, instructional delivery

was a characteristic of an effective teacher. Many researchers stated that the teachers

background and dispositions effected student learning. However, the instructional

delivery of the teacher was most influential to students. This was because different

teachers had different beliefs that lead them to understand knowledge, make plans,

utilize resources, or choose how to deliver the lesson through their own lenses. Thirdly,
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effective teachers observed the students well. These teachers assessed their students to

know where they were in their learning. Based on the assessments, these teachers

reconsidered their teaching styles and made feedbacks. The article also pointed out basic

qualities of effective teachers. However, the article concluded that despite the fact that

the three qualities were seen in effective teachers, one cannot say that there is a specific

list of characteristics that makes an effective teacher effective. What they can say is that

effective classrooms are created by teachers who are hard workers.

Evaluation and Connection

I do not have disagreements with this article on the characteristics of an

effective teacher. They are true according to my experience during my student teaching

experience and they were qualities that my textbooks say I should have to be effective.

However, I disagree on the articles definition on effective and the goal of why teachers

should teach effectively. I found distortion on a few things. First, this article seems to

believe that effective teachers are those who makes the students score higher on tests.

That is what was written in the opening of the article, which lasted throughout the

article. What troubled me further was the first page that asked what effective teachers

do to make students work for the teachers. In the first Alignment class I took, I learned

that students should have internal motivation that comes from the joy to learn. They
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should not work to please the teacher. Lastly, since the article was mainly focused on

academic achievements, it did not talk about how teachers could influence students in

other aspects of life such as emotional, social, and spiritual.

There were some truth in several statements of the article. One is that planning

a lesson should be done with effort by exploring original teaching strategies.

Furthermore, I found how collaboration with other teachers made lessons more

productive was Biblical because God created man to live in community. He gave

individual gifts to supplement each other to think of better ways to work together.

Secondly, the article said that how teachers interpret ideas effected student learning.

This is a truth that shows how significant it is for Christian teacher to have a world view

based on Gods truth. Every lesson planning, every interpretation of lessons, and every

delivery will be based on how the teacher believes about the world. Lastly, I agree that

there is not set of qualities that makes a teacher an effective teacher. As my professor

said in class, there what might work for a certain class may not work in another class.

In conclusion, it is probably good that there is no answer to what is effective

teaching because it makes the teachers work hard and to think about the students more.

It would encourage growth in the teacher and the student.

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