Current Research on Classroom Instruction: Goals, Teachers' Actions, and Assessment

In the broadest sense, classroom instruction includes any activities and experiences organized to encourage student learning. Instruction generally occurs as part of a cycle of teaching and learning. Although its phases overlap and are interrelated, we can think of the cycle as beginning with an understanding of the goals of instruction, proceeding through a vision of classrooms and teachers’ instructional actions, and moving to assessment. In practice, phases of teaching and assessment are closely linked and may be indistinguishable from one another.