WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
In the spirit of yesterday’s post, I came across this article - Summary of the Best Practices in Teaching recently. Although the way it’s presented and its length probably lends itself more to being printed out and read at leisure, it includes some good advice. It’s American and has college teaching as its touchstone, but its ideas are certainly relevant to 6th Form teaching, if not lower down the school… 
Some points of note to think about are:
Avoid Praise
Praise, the expression of judgment, is less successful in rewarding learner performance than the techniques liste below. It tends to foster approval seeking rather than independence. Examples: “Good question.” “That’s a nice weld.”
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Self-Talk
Talk about your own thoughts or prior personal experience. Example: “I have wondered that, too.” “Questions like that have always intrigued me.”
Norverbal or Vocal Sounds
Smile. Wink. Thumbs up. Gestures of excientement and success. “Wow!” “Indeedee-do.” Whistle.
OK, so only an American could get away with saying ‘Indeedee-do’ or whistling, but it’s something to think about. Praise is good, but there’s a difference betweeen that and affirmation. Perhaps praise should be reserved only for when pupils do especially well, otherwise it gets devalued?
Climate Setting
Regulate the physical and mental climate.
A large portion of teaching effectiveness involves setting the stage; it comes with the territory. Solve comfort issues first and the learning path is smoother. Research shows that successful teachers spend 10% of classroom time optimizing the arrangement of the physical seating as well as the psychological setting - a climate of collaborativeness, supportiveness, openness, pleasure, and humanness.
The article goes on to talk about making sure the learner is aware of their status within a ‘learning community’ - whether that be class-wide, school-wide, nation-wide, or world-wide. Knowing that they’re part of a bigger picture is a powerful motivator for pupils. It’s also a good point about manipulation of the physical teaching space. So many times I’ve ‘made do’ with the bog-standard seating arrangements because it’s ‘easier’ when actually a lot of hassle and a lot more productive work and learning could have occurred if we’d spent 5 minutes re-arranging the furniture!
So although due to the typeface, size of font and length of article it’s perhaps a little difficult to read on screen, I’d recommend that you print, read and inwardly-digest some of the points made here and on the post yesterday about Learning Techniques from Cognitive Science. It can’t do your teaching any harm! 
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I have yet to read the whole article so my comments here are very superficial and based entirely on Doug’s summary of what it says.
I can’t agree that ‘praise is bad’ and should be reserved only for when pupils do especially well. Nor do I think it merely tends to foster approval seeking. My experience is that virtually all pupils respond well to quiet words of praise eg a personal word as they leave the lesson saying eg. “You worked hard/made some real progress/asked some thoughtful questions today”
Over the top expressions such as “Gestures of excientement and success. “Wow!â€? “Indeedee-do.â€? Whistle” are not likely to work well and just make the pupils think you are a prat. To me that is infinitely worse than justifiable praise for small achievements.
As for ’status’ in the learning community ….. what is motivating in knowing/being made even more aware that you are right at the bottom of the ’status strata’???? Pupils usually know pretty much where they stand without having it spelt out to them. Or maybe I have the completely wrong end of the stick here?
Thanks for your comments Carole.
The article itself doesn’t say that ‘praise is bad’ but makes the lesser claim (I think!) that praise for minor achievements can actually undermine the intended outcome. If pupils receive praise for average work, not fully-thought-through ideas, etc. then their levels of effort will no doubt decline…
My main reason for choosing to comment on that particular aspect of the article was to stir up some debate surrounding the recent research r.e. praise (e.g. Guardian, BBC)
Finally, I do think it’s important for students to be aware that they are part of a learning community and that collaboration and discussion can (not always) lead to greater insight. So I suppose what I’m saying is that what you’ve probably taken as being strong claims are actually much weaker in the article!
I’m afraid I have still not read the article you mentioned in the original post - I suppose I should if I am to understand what is being said
but I have followed up your Guardian and BBC leads.
I can see absolutely [u]nothing[/u] new in what these two reports on the John Moore’s research say. The idea of reinforcing good behaviour by praise when pupils are doing what they have been asked is by no means new. I can’t precisely recall when ‘positive discipline’ was first suggested/introduced but it must have been at least 10 years ago (if not more). All the evidence that I have ever seen (including my own experience)shows that this actually works. I can’t see what there is to debate really. Endlessly focusing on the negative has negative consequences. Focusing on the positive tends to have positive consequences. My only suprise here is that (presumably) teachers still need to be told this stuff.
By extension, and again in my own experience, praising children for small signs of progress and improved work does not lead them think that they are “doing OK so I’ll stop trying.”
The crucial thing in my view is not to go over the top and especially not when in public. As I said before, it’s the quiet word rather than the public “Wow!” that is most effective.
On the learning community thing I fear I am just not understanding at all. The statement “The article goes on to talk about making sure the learner is aware of their status within a ‘learning community’ - whether that be class-wide, school-wide, nation-wide, or world-wide. Knowing that they’re part of a bigger picture is a powerful motivator for pupils.” was what I was commenting on when I said “As for ’status’ in the learning community ….. what is motivating in knowing/being made even more aware that you are right at the bottom of the ’status strata’????”
Status means where one stands/the level one has reached vis a vis others doesn’t it? So I find it hard to relate that to what you then said “Finally, I do think it’s important for students to be aware that they are part of a learning community and that collaboration and discussion can (not always) lead to greater insight.” Being aware that others ‘higher up the ladder’ are also interested in/struggle to understand/are working on/carrying out research in the same topic is obviously important and by and large collaboration and discussion with others is productive ….. but what does that have to do with [b]making sure the learner is aware of their *status* within a ‘learning community’[/b]???
Perhaps I really had better go and read that article!
I suppose instead of ’status’ within a learning community it should have said ‘aware that they are part of’, which would sidestep the issue you raise. The point was, I think, that it is a great motivator for pupils to realise that education isn’t about simply the transmission of knowledge from the initiated to the uninitiated but, in many respects, a collaborative activity.
As regards the ‘Wow!’ factor I suppose, this being an American article, there are cultural differences in what is being advocated. Americans, in my experience, are much more likely to go ‘over the top’ in terms of praise, etc. so may need to be encouraged to ‘tone down’ a bit. Us Brits are probably the reverse - a bit more reserved and therefore need to be encouraged to praise pupils a bit more! Having said that, it can be interesting to see pupils’ reactions when you tell them a piece of work simply isn’t good enough and you’re not going to put up with that standard of work. There’s a balance to be struck…
I have actually read this article now or, more truthfully, skimmed it. I notice that it was actually directed towards good practice for College lecturers rather than school teachers. No matter in some ways since much ‘good practice’ is not age-specific.
Now that your statements are modified I can’t see a great deal that I can debate. Most teachers I have ever worked with - certainly in the last 10/15 years - have worked hard to foster the notion that learning is not just a one way process and have used collaborative strategies to foster learning. The possibility if using electronic means (email, online Forums etc) widens the acope for this and I know that some teachers have used this effectively.
As for your second para … well yes. I can’t see anything more I can say really. Constructive criticsm is the best course of action I have found, but sure there are pupils who need to know that their work is sub standard. The real point is ‘know your pupil’.