There are so many resources out there today that the modern day teacher can find themselves confused about the best way to really drive results from their students. To help understand how educators can better engage their students and boost their performance, here are some of the best tools for the modern day teachers to implement in their classrooms:
Standardised Benchmarking Tests
Standardised benchmarking tests are some of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the modern day teacher. They help benchmark student performance at the individual, as well as the cohort level, providing teachers with the data they need to really understand their student progress and competitiveness. When it comes to testing tools for teachers, standardised benchmarking tests come with a number of avantages:
- Benchmarking tests provide teachers and school leaders with evidence-based analysis for better decision-making
- Opens up the possibility of peer-learning and support beyond the classroom, allowing teachers to compare techniques and teaching methods between schools, states and countries
- Allows for better allocation of resources and effort to boost learning outcomes
- Encourages a better understanding of how competitive students are in an increasingly globalised world
Cross-Functional Learning
The real world is a complex place and preparing students for the type of working environments they might come across is an important part of modern schooling. While our faculties are often divided along rather rigid lines such as mathematics, science and english, real world applications of any of these is often a blend. Incorporating cross-subject or cross-functional learning into your curriculum can help seriously boost student capabilities and enable more complex critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Deeper Understanding of Student Learning Context
Over the years we have learnt that context is everything and that while one student might be struggling to learn effectively it often isn’t a question of desire to perform but rather their circumstances or external factors that might be contributing to their results. This is why the modern educator should use the tools available to them to better understand their student’s context and motivations to help them achieve their best. A good place to start is through questionnaires that come with some standardised tests, which ask students to volunteer contextual information to help better understand what might be detracting from or contributing to their academic success.
Incorporation of Technology in the Classroom
Technology is unavoidable and as much as it can be a boon in the classroom it can also be a distraction. This is why it is vital to understand how technology can be used more effectively to elevate student performance. When technology is used to engage students, enable access to knowledge and familiarise them with the tools they are going to be using in the workform and their everyday life it is at its most effective.
Peer-Driven Learning Communities
Finally, technology and standardized testing has also enabled better connectivity between educators. By helping to identify what works, standardised tests also help identify what methods, techniques and curriculums most effectively boost student performance. This allows teachers to better benchmark their own performance and share learnings between institutions. Sharing methods, techniques, curriculums and learnings goals, mixed with performance reporting can help teachers identify where they might be doing thing differently and how they might improve their own classrooms by learning from their peers.
