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    Best Education Practices Defined

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    Ulfah Irani
    This document defines and discusses best education practices. It begins by explaining that best practices in education can refer to a wide range of approaches and activities, and there is no agreed upon definition. The author then proposes a framework to define promising, validated, and exemplary education practices based on the level of evidence supporting student outcomes. Within these categories, best practices can refer to either discrete activities or more comprehensive programs comprising several validated activities. The document emphasizes the importance of rigorous evaluation and replication in multiple educational settings to establish a practice as validated or exemplary. It aims to promote more careful use of the term "best practices" to establish credibility and clearly communicate what approaches have evidence of effectiveness.

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    Best Education Practices Defined

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    Ulfah Irani
    14 views4 pages
    This document defines and discusses best education practices. It begins by explaining that best practices in education can refer to a wide range of approaches and activities, and there is no agreed upon definition. The author then proposes a framework to define promising, validated, and exemplary education practices based on the level of evidence supporting student outcomes. Within these categories, best practices can refer to either discrete activities or more comprehensive programs comprising several validated activities. The document emphasizes the importance of rigorous evaluation and replication in multiple educational settings to establish a practice as validated or exemplary. It aims to promote more careful use of the term "best practices" to establish credibility and clearly communicate what approaches have evidence of effectiveness.

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    BEST PRACTICE

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    BestEducationPracticesDefined

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    This document defines and discusses best education practices. It begins by explaining that best practices in education can refer to a wide range of approaches and activities, and there is no agreed upon definition. The author then proposes a framework to define promising, validated, and exemplary education practices based on the level of evidence supporting student outcomes. Within these categories, best practices can refer to either discrete activities or more comprehensive programs comprising several validated activities. The document emphasizes the importance of rigorous evaluation and replication in multiple educational settings to establish a practice as validated or exemplary. It aims to promote more careful use of the term "best practices" to establish credibility and clearly communicate what approaches have evidence of effectiveness.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    14 views4 pages

    Best Education Practices Defined

    Uploaded by

    Ulfah Irani
    This document defines and discusses best education practices. It begins by explaining that best practices in education can refer to a wide range of approaches and activities, and there is no agreed upon definition. The author then proposes a framework to define promising, validated, and exemplary education practices based on the level of evidence supporting student outcomes. Within these categories, best practices can refer to either discrete activities or more comprehensive programs comprising several validated activities. The document emphasizes the importance of rigorous evaluation and replication in multiple educational settings to establish a practice as validated or exemplary. It aims to promote more careful use of the term "best practices" to establish credibility and clearly communicate what approaches have evidence of effectiveness.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

    net/publication/334454764

    What is a Best Education Practice?

    Preprint · January 2010


    DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24683.49442

    CITATION READS
    1 3,751

    1 author:

    David R. Arendale
    University of Minnesota Twin Cities
    96 PUBLICATIONS   384 CITATIONS   

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    What is a Best Education Practice?
    David R. Arendale, Associate Professor Emeriti, University of Minnesota and
    EOA Best Practices Clearinghouse Manager

    “Best education practices” is one of the most important, misunderstood, and misused
    concepts in education. I have been working with others for nearly two decades
    regarding the identification, validation, and dissemination of these practices.

    It seems everyone is talking about best practices today. The business world has talked
    about them for decades. From the business perspective, a commonly accepted
    definition for best business practice is what the businesses in the top five percent of
    their industry (generally defined by profitability) are doing throughout their company.
    Commonly, there is no discernment which individual practices within the collection of
    everything the company does that makes the difference. Classic books on this subject
    include "The Search for Excellence" and a "Passion for Excellence."

    Before implementing a best education practice, agreement is needed how to define


    them. In education, the phrase best education practice is used for a wide variety of
    activities and approaches that may or may not have been rigorously evaluated. Due to
    frequent use, the term is practically meaningless. In July 2019, a Google search for this
    phrase identified 1,230,000,000 web pages. Adding the word definition to the previous
    search phrase helped slightly; Google identified 713 million web pages.

    Best Education Practices. I define Best Education Practices as the wide range of
    individual activities, policies, and programmatic approaches to achieve positive changes
    in student attitudes or academic behaviors. This umbrella term encompasses the
    following categories that differ on level of evidence supporting desired student or
    institutional outcomes: promising, validated, and exemplary.

    A. Promising education practice: Contains detailed information describing the


    practice and how to implement it. Data collection is in process, but has not yet
    completed rigorous evaluation.
    B. Validated education practice: A promising education practice that has
    undergone rigorous evaluation documenting positive student outcomes in one
    education setting. The evaluation design could be experimental or quasi-
    experimental quantitative, qualitative, or mixed design. A similar term used to
    describe this type of practice is evidence-based education practice.
    C. Exemplary education practice: A validated education practice successfully
    replicated at multiple education settings with similar positive student outcomes. A
    similar term used to describe this type of practice by federal Department of
    Education is scale-up since the practice has high potential for successful
    implementation at other education sites.

    Whether at the promising, validated, or exemplary level, description of practices contain


    specific information to implement it: (a) detailed description; (b) critical elements for
    implementation; (c) essential resources, both personnel and budgeted; and (d) process
    used to gather impact data for rigorous evaluation of the practice.
    Some might say, why not skip the promising practices until they prove themselves? My
    response is to let educators decide which practices to investigate. Promising education
    practices can be modified, improved, and implemented by others. Besides, every
    validated and exemplary practice was at the promising level initially. Why wait when
    others can experiment with them now?

    Difference between a best education activity and a best education program


    Within these three levels of practices above, there are different levels of complexity.
    Some practices are small, discrete activities or policy decisions. Other practices are
    programmatic approaches that include a carefully selected bundle of activities or policy
    decisions. The following definitions differentiate these levels.

    A. Best education practice activities: These activities are behaviors or policies by


    faculty, staff, and administrators that result in positive changes in student
    attitudes or academic behaviors. Examples include mandatory assessment of
    students for proper advisement and placement of students in their classes,
    training student tutors before they begin their work, active learning activities
    within the classroom, and classroom assessment techniques to provide
    nongraded feedback resulting in changed student learning behaviors.

    B. Best education practice programs: These programs are composed of a


    carefully coordinated collection of individual best practice activities. Examples of
    exemplary education practice programs from the area of academic support
    include Supplemental Instruction, Peer-led Team Learning, Emerging Scholars
    Program, and Structured Learning Assistance. For example, the Supplemental
    Instruction program is composed of many validated best education practice
    activities such as active learning, classroom assessment techniques, cooperative
    learning activities, and Universal Instructional Design, just to name a few.

    Best Administrative Practices. These practices are defined as the wide range of
    individual activities, policies, and procedures to achieve positive results that benefit a
    student, program, or an organization. The practices should contain specific information
    to implement it: (a) detailed description; (b) innovation of the practice; (c) critical
    elements for implementation; (d) relevant research; (e) essential resources, both
    personnel and budgeted; and (f) claims of effectiveness.

    What difference does it make?


    Careful word use creates higher credibility for the claims made by the education
    practices. Confidence is higher that the practice will work. Another benefit is clear
    communication with policymakers, legislators, the media, and the public.

    Educational Opportunity Association Best Practices Clearinghouse


    http://besteducationpractices.org [email protected] (612) 812-0032
    The EOA Best Practices Clearinghouse identifies, validates, and disseminates practical
    activities and approaches to improve success of students who are low-income, first-
    generation, and historically underrepresented in education.
    Cite this publication as: Arendale, D. R. (2010). What is a best education practice?
    Unpublished manuscript. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of
    Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Available from https://www.arendale.org/best-education-
    practices

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