After reading the NY Times Magazine article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?ref=magazine
I ordered the book Teach Like a Champion. I liked some of the items on the Taxonomy. I've been using the cold-call questioning technique for years and I like how it gets every mind in the room thinking about the question because every mind in the room is worried about if she/he will be called on. I like the use of positive classroom management: identifying how we would like children to behave and a right way of being rather than focusing on behavior problems.
I think that the combination of strong content knowledge so that the teacher can provide just-in-time instruction is as important as the ability to manage the classroom environment.
I want to believe that having a rubric of teacher behaviors that are proven effective (or "best practices" as my admin loves to say) will be enough to raise student achievement. However, I wonder if the article and the book haven't missed a step. Each of the effective teachers that Lemov studied and identified these techniques from went through a process where by they developed the technique in the first place. What was that process? How can we lead our teachers-in-training through a similar experience to develop their skills.
I guess what I am saying is this - My cohort of student teachers all read Pedagogy of the Oppressed, loved it, put our student desks into a circle, and expected that so-called best practice to solve our classroom woes. Too few of us tried to deeply understand the process by which Freire decided that he wanted his students to sit in a circle. To few of us wanted to deeply explore our unique teaching circumstances and develop techniques that work with our students.
