Book Review: The Highly Effective Teacher: 7 Classroom-Tested Teaching Tips That Foster Student Success

How do you know if you are an effective teacher? I would imagine if you ask most teachers if they believe they are doing a good job, they would say, “Yes.”

Most teachers know when they are challenged by a class of students or could have taught a lesson better, but overall, most teachers believe they are doing all they can to help students achieve.

If you are reading this book review, then you are a special kind of teacher who values the life-long learning process and is always looking to learn more teaching tips and do more for themselves and their students. My favorite kind of teacher!!

I’d like to think that I am an effective teacher, but how do I know? As a life-long learner myself, I have been reading various books about the qualities of an effective teacher.

The Highly Effective Teacher: A Book of Classroom-Tested Teaching Tips

One of the books I have read is, “The Highly Effective Teacher: 7 Classroom-Tested Practices that Foster Student Success.”

Before I begin my review, I will be honest in that I DID NOT LOVE this book. While some of the TIPS did resonate with me, I found the text to be dense at times, repetitive, sometimes wandering, and geared more towards middle school and high school.

BUT I did find valuable advice which I will include below.

First, I took the included Needs Assessment which helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses based on the 7 TIPS that would be presented in the book.

Teaching Tips - Teacher Intentionality of Practice Scale

The premise of the book is that we can vastly improve the learning in our classrooms when we maximize our performance through intentional, effective instructional improvements. These are the two tips that stood out to me the most:

1. INTENTIONALITY OF PRACTICE

This book focuses on ESSENTIAL, RESEARCH-BASED, FIELD-TESTED TEACHER ACTIONS that INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD OF STUDENT SUCCESS.

Often teachers are seen as proficient based on their classroom management skills, lesson preparation, etc. But it is the data that tells the whole story.

2. TRANSFORMATIVE INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES

We often have a narrow focus on the everyday tasks of grading, answering emails…

We must be intentional in our time and efforts regarding our teaching practices. We need to focus on the WHY and the HOW of teaching not just WHAT we teach.

Teachers need to let go of nonessential components that are currently being done to make way for intentional teaching.