Teacher Toolbox –
Classroom Instruction that Works
The text chosen for this task is
called “Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for
Increasing Student Achievement” (2nd Edition). It was a very well laid out text with so many
important tips to keep in mind for children.
The text was put into four parts, labeled in order include part one,
creating the environment for learning.
Part two, helping students develop understanding. Part three helping students extend and apply
knowledge. Part four, putting the
instructional strategies to use. The
parts were also subdivided into a total of ten sections throughout the
text. This summary will include
information on the first eight which includes all the parts of the text with
the exception of putting the instructional strategies to use.
In part one, creating the environment for
learning, the main focus was on setting objectives and providing feedback for
the students. Objectives are set so
learning becomes purposeful and reassures students there is a reason for
learning the current content. With this,
students will be able to connect what is done in class to what they are
supposed to learn and build intrinsic motivation by setting personal learning
objectives. Recommendations for use in
the classroom related to setting objectives include developing objectives that
are specific but not restrictive (figure 1.1 has some excellent examples of too
general, too specific, and just right learning objectives), communicate the
objectives with the students and parents, make a connection to previous and
future learning, and have students set personal learning objectives. Now, when a student is provided with proper
feedback it helps improve performance, confirm understanding, demonstrates what
quality performance looks like and explains what changes are necessary to
improve learning. There are four
recommendations for providing feedback in the classroom. First, feedback must address what is correct
and elaborates what to do next. Second,
feedback should come at the appropriate time in order to meet the student’s
needs. When a student is focused on
figuring out a difficult task or learning a new concept, delay feedback. When the student is in need of feedback in
order to complete a task or when acquiring procedural skills, immediate
feedback may be necessary. It is also
important to know your students as delaying feedback for high performing
students can develop cognitive and metacognitive processing but for low
performing students, frustration. Third,
feedback should be criterion referenced.
Rather than referring to a child as “your smart” or good job”, which are
examples of personal feedback, teachers should use feedback that addresses
knowledge to be learned along with providing information to improve performance
with specific guidance. Ensuring that
the teacher is providing the proper feedback, a rubric can be used as it provides
levels of performance for a skill (example provided on figure 1.3). Finally, teachers should engage students in
the feedback process. This allows
students to reflect on their own performance or performance of others and
provide feedback. In the case of
reflecting on others, it is important to note that students should not provide
scores for peers. Only feedback on what
is correct and what may need work.
The
next section for creating the environment for learning involves reinforcing
effort and providing recognition. There
is a link between motivation and achievement.
Motivation determines the amount of effort a child put into a task along
with time spent. Therefore, teachers
need to build that motivation that leads to achievement by reinforcing effort
and providing recognition. Reinforcing
effort allows students to recognize the relationship between effort and
achievement. When students see the
results hard work can have, they change their attitude and can then persevere
when times get tough. The text supplies
three classroom recommendations when reinforcing effort in the classroom. First, teach students the relationship
between effort and achievement. This can
be done by providing stories of oneself or examples from media clips related to
effort so students can gain a better understanding. Second, provide guidance on what it means to
expend effort. When a teacher supplies a
definition of what it means to work hard by giving explicit actions and
behaviours of effort, it will lead to success.
And third, get students to track their effort and achievement. By monitoring this, it allows students to
focus on the learning objective, what it takes to achieve the objective and
their progress to get there. Next for
this section is providing recognition as introduced above. It is important to use the mastery-oriented
approach (explained more below) as it bases success on mastery of a task and
results in increased engagement. When
done correctly, positively effects learning.
If praise and recognition is personal or ability oriented, it forms a
negative effect on the student’s intrinsic motivation. There are three practices teachers can
provide in the classroom for providing recognition. First, promote mastery-goal orientation. Teachers should emphasize learning and
meeting goals rather than comparing students.
This approach leads to students increased self-efficacy and intrinsic
motivation. The students will recognize
that they can control their work and success through this approach. But if students are compared to one another,
they lose that sense of control because they cannot control how other students
perform. Second, provide praise that is
specific and aligned with expected performance.
Teachers can acknowledge the care students put into their work and the
progress they are making in understanding the concepts. However, praise must also be sincere. How, what and when teachers praise is
important. Do not praise every
accomplishment as students begin to rely on it and it is no longer sincere. Other negative ways to praise a child include
in the presence of peers, overused, random, disconnected from accomplishment or
inconsistent with cultural norms. The
third recommendation for providing recognition suggests using concrete symbols
of recognition. By using rewards to
recognize quality of work, student’s self-efficacy will improve. The types of rewards can include stickers,
tokens or coupons.
The
final section in part one is on cooperative learning. With the world becoming more than just a
place that needs high intellectual capabilities, cooperative learning provides
opportunity to prepare students for a future of working with others. The cooperative learning theory suggests that
learning is maximized through well designed social interaction. As students talk through the material, they
develop a better understanding. Through
this cooperative work, students also feel an obligation to work for one another
and it results in an increase in motivation.
Out of the five suggestions made by a research group Johnson and
Johnson, the authors of our text highly suggest using two of the five for
learning activities. The first of these
two is positive interdependence. This
emphasizes that everyone is in it together and the success of one person does
not come at the expense of others success.
It is important to ensure that the students work load is equal among
students. Second is individual
accountability and this relies on the feedback on how each member’s efforts
contributed to the achievement of the goal.
A teacher can determine this through formative and summative assessment
as it will determine each student’s contribution. There are three classroom practice
recommendations for cooperative learning.
First, include elements of positive interdependence and individual
accountability. This way, students are
responsible for their own learning, learning of the group and get a chance to
demonstrate what they know to one another.
Second recommendation is to keep the groups small. No more than five students because any larger
results in a decrease in external and internal motivation as students figure
their individual contributions go unnoticed.
Finally, use cooperative learning consistently and systematically. There are three types of cooperatively learning
that can be used for the classroom.
Informal, suggests turning to your neighbour for example, and clarify
expectations for a few minutes. Formal
learning is done over several days and designed to ensure students have time to
complete a task. And the third is base
groups learning. This is a long term
group that provides support for one another.
These groups can be used in the classroom to complete routine tasks,
plan activities and help to establish a sense of belonging.
Now
welcome to part two, helping students develop understanding, beginning with
cues, questions and advance organizers. With
an estimate of 80 percent of teacher/student interactions involving cueing and
questioning, this is a rather important topic to understand. Cues and questions activate a child’s prior
knowledge and give an idea of what they will learn. In more depth, cues are hints of an upcoming
lesson, they reinforce information students already know and are able to
provide new information. A question
allows students to access previous information and allows a teacher and student
to assess what they know and do not know.
Four classroom recommendations are suggested for cues and questions in
the classroom. First, focus on what is
important. Without this, the teacher
will guide a student on the wrong path and the student will miss what is
important in the lesson or not understand how to integrate the teaching to
prior knowledge. Second, use explicit
cues. Explicit cues can help students
activate prior knowledge by bringing up relevant personal experiences or
situations they encounter on a regular basis.
Examples for this include showing pictures of the topic and asking
students to identify what they know the most and least about. Or, telling students what to pay attention to
by providing a list of questions students can answer as a result of the
lesson. The third recommendation
suggests to ask inferential questions. Rather
than using “right there” information questions, inferential questions require a
student to access prior knowledge.
Questions can help students make inferences about events, (who is
usually involved in this event?), things (what action is usually performed on
this thing or person?), actions (who or what usually performs this action?), and
states of being (what is the basic process involved in reaching this
state?). And lastly, ask analytic
questions. These questions require
students to think more deeply and critical about what is presented. Questions can be related to analyzing errors (what
are the errors in reasoning in this information?), construction support (what
is an argument that would support this claim?) and analyzing perspectives (why
would someone consider this to be good?).
As for the advanced organizers also brought up in this section. They help create stories and pictures that use
background information to learn new information. There are four formats for advanced
organizers starting with using expository advance organizers. Here students can describe or explain in
written or verbal form, new content students will learn and can emphasize what
is important. Second, use narrative
advance organizers as it serves to engage students while activating prior
knowledge as they read through information presented in a story format. Next, use skimming as an advanced
organizer. This requires students to
quickly look over the material before reading it fully. It helps students determine what the material
addresses and organizes new information.
“Tilling the text” is a form of skimming and asks students to read all
subheadings and points of emphasis. With
this, students will better understand key points, slow down when encountering
something of interest and it will encourage predictions. The final recommendation suggests using
graphic organizers in advance to learning as it introduces new material.
In the
next section to part 2, the text discusses non-linguistic representations. There are two ways to store information. The first is in words, which is linguistic. The second is as images, which is
non-linguistic. With non-linguistic
representations, a teacher can engage a student’s natural tendency for visual
image processing resulting in the child constructing meaning of relevant
content. There are five classroom
recommendations for non-linguistic representations. First, use graphic organizers as a way to
combine both linguistic and non-linguistic representations by representing
ideas with words and symbols. Second,
make physical models or manipulatives.
These should be concrete representations of content or concepts that
help students create mental images. The
next recommendation is to generate mental pictures with the children. Through proper detail, students can
incorporate sound, smells, taste and visual detail to the mental picture of
content and concepts in the lesson.
Fourth, create pictures, illustrations and pictographs. They allow children to represent learning in
a personalized way and is especially helpful when learning new concepts. The fifth recommendation is to engage
students in kinesthetic activities. This
means getting the students moving as physical movement associated with a
concept helps in creating a mental image.
This occurs because mental images include physical senses and they
create more neural networks in the brain resulting in a longer memory. Movement can be in the form of roleplaying,
acting out vocabulary, or using one’s body to illustrate concepts.
The
third section in part two is on summarizing and taking notes. Summarizing requires the student to learn how
to sort, select and combine information as it will lead to an increased
understanding in what it is they are learning.
It is also the process of removing what is unnecessary and leaving
behind the important points. Note taking
is the process of identifying what is the essential information as students
access, sort and code information. Both
of which deepen understanding because the strategies involve a higher order way
of thinking. There are three
recommendations for summarizing in the classroom. To start, teacher should teach the students
the rule based summarizing strategy.
This is a step by step process that begins with removing the unnecessary
material for understanding. Once that is
complete, take out the repeated material and then replace lists with a single
describing word (dutch, oak, spruce can all be changed to tree’s). The last step is to find a topic sentence or
create one for the information gathered.
It is important for the teacher to model this process whenever
possible. The second recommendation is
to use summary frames. Summary frames
are a series of questions designed to highlight critical elements of the text
pattern. There are six basic frames used
in the classroom along with their questions.
They include narrative frame (examples, who are the main characters and
what distinguishes them from others? When and where did the story take place?
What prompted the action in the story?), topic restriction-illustration frame
(what is the general statement or topic? What information restricts the general
statement or topic? What examples illustrate the topic or restriction?),
definition frame (what is being defined? what general category does the item
belong? What characteristics separate the item from other things in the
category?), argumentation frame (what is the basic claim or focus of the
information? What is presented that leads to a claim? What examples support the
claim? What restricts the claim?), problem-solution frame (what is the problem,
what is a solution? What is another? What solution has the best chance to
succeed?), and finally, conversation frame (how did members of the conversation
greet one another? How did the conversation progress? How did the conversation
conclude?). The last classroom
recommendation for using summary is to engage students in reciprocal
teaching. This is successful when the
teacher models the four comprehension strategies for reciprocal teaching
(summarizing, questioning, clarifying and predicting). To begin, the teacher can take on all the
roles but then eventually pass each role off to the students. The process will sound similar to the
following example. The summarizer reads
a passage and sums it up for the group. This
is followed by questions to be answered by all.
The clarifier helps clarify vocabulary, pronunciation and terms. Then the predictor asks the group what they
think happens next. The next part of
this section is note taking as mentioned above.
Reminder that this is a form of reviewing information as it is put into
the students own words for understanding in a condensed form. There are three classroom recommendations for
note taking. The first is to give
students teacher prepared notes as this models how to create well organized
notes. Second, teach students a variety
of note taking formats. Students have
many different learning preferences and teachers should be prepared for all of
them and allow students to choose their note taking preference that works best
for them. There are three note taking
formats. Webbing is the first. It is non-linear, uses shapes, colours and
arrows to show relationships among different concepts (example shown on figure
6.3). Another format is outlining, where
information is hand written of typed.
The third format is a combination of linguistic and non-linguistic
representations. On a sheet, use one
side of the paper to write key points and draw on the other side of the page
(example provided on figure 6.4). The
final recommendation for note taking in the classroom is for the teacher to
provide opportunities for students to revise their notes and use them for
review. The process of revising and
review allows a student to recognize the purpose of note taking. In review, the teacher can correct
misconceptions and provide corrective feedback.
The process of revising notes comes with the suggestion of teachers
encouraging students to double space their notes so additions can be made as
students elaborate on what they have learned.
The
final section in part two, helping students develop understanding, is on
assigning homework and providing practice.
Homework is opportunities to learn and review outside of school. The effects of homework is not totally clear
to researchers as there are a variety of factors that are in play. These factors include parental involvement,
students learning preference and homework quality. Evidence suggest homework is more beneficial
for older students. However, regardless
of age, homework can have a negative effect on family time, physical and
emotional fatigue, lack of community and leisure activities and student-parent
conflicts. Therefore, teachers should
ensure that assignments make the best use of out of school time. There are three recommendations when using
homework as a classroom routine. First,
develop and communicate a district or school homework policy where a clear set
of guidelines based on age, expectations and relationship between homework and
grades are in place. At the early year’s
level, homework should be administered sparingly as it can create friction
between a teacher and parent related to the role a parent has to play in their
child’s schooling. A study in 2010
suggests parents involved interaction can improve the child’s performance. Second, design homework assignment that
support academic learning and communicate the purpose. The teacher should be clear with the student
and parents the purpose of the homework given out in the classroom. The third recommendation is to provide
feedback on assigned homework. The
feedback benefits the child and can be in the form of written responses or
grades. However, if a teacher is
providing grades, it should count towards the student’s non-academic
performance (as in the student’s participation level). Therefore, the more beneficial route would be
to supply the students with written feedback as it encourages students to take
risks and show conceptual understanding that wouldn’t be found in graded
work. The next part of this section
refers to practice which is an act of repeating a skill so it is immediately
accessible for cognitive use. The
practice should be overt where students are actively involved in recalling
information through quizzes, rehearsal or self-assessment. It is suggested that practice should
incorporate more than one aspect of a skill at a time so relationships can be
formed. There are three recommendations
for providing students with practice.
First, clearly identify and communicate the purpose of the practice
activity. The purpose of any practice
activity should be for students to become faster and more proficient at a skill
aligned with the learning objective.
Without knowing the purpose, the students become distracted. It is a good idea to keep parents involved in
what is going on in the classroom. The
notifications can come in the form of newsletters, blogs, shared calendars and
websites. Second, design practice
sessions that are short, focused and distributed over time. A short sessions encourages students to make
the full use of their time. Teachers
should focus the practice so students can target the difficult aspects of a
skill. And the skill should be practiced
over a long period of time rather than all at once because it is estimated that
a skill should be practiced 24 times in order to reach 80% competency. Also, the sessions at first should be massed
(close together) and overtime, the practice sessions should be spread out or
distributed. The third recommendation is
to provide feedback on a practice session.
When a skill is first being practiced, the feedback should be formative
so the student can learn what they are doing correctly and what they need to
adjust. Following plenty of formative
practice sessions, the teacher can provide a summative practice session
focusing on speed and accuracy.
The
final part that will be discussed is part three, helping students extend and
apply knowledge. The one section analyzed
is on identifying similarities and differences.
There are three classroom recommendation for identifying similarities
and differences. First, teach students a
variety of ways to identify similarities and differences. Students benefit from explicit instruction
with steps and modeling for identifying similarities and differences. So it is important to model and provide
several opportunities to practice each strategy. There are four strategies outlined in the
text. The first is comparing, where the
students have to identify between or among items or ideas. The steps involved begin with selecting the
items to compare, identify the characteristics of the items being compared and
then explain how the items are similar and different. Another strategy is classifying, which
organizes things into groups according to similarities. The step by step process for classifying
starts with identifying items to classify.
Then select an item, describe its attributes and identify others with
the same attributes. Once complete,
create a category by specifying attributes the items need to become a
member. Continue this process by
selecting another item and identifying its attributes and items similar. If necessary, create a new category or split
previously made category into smaller groups requiring more specific requirements
to be a member. The next strategy is
creating metaphors which is a good technique for learning new material when it
is abstract or difficult to understand as it connects what students do not know
to what students do know. Begin by
identifying the basic elements of the new information being worked on. Then write basic information as a more
general pattern by replacing words to more general terms and summarize where
possible. Now, find new situations where
the pattern applies. The final strategy
is creating analogies that can help students see similarities in things that
are dissimilar. Step one is identify how
two items in the first pair are related.
Then state the relationship in a general way before moving to step
three, identify another pair with similar relationships. The second recommendation is to guide
students as they engage in the process of identifying similarities and
differences. The direct approach has the
teacher simply state the similarities and differences among items which is effective
when students are actively engaged in a discussion on similarities and
differences. Another approach is to
apply structure tasks where items to be compared are supplied by the teacher. The third and final recommendation for
identifying similarities and differences is to provide cues to help students
identify similarities and differences. Cues
can be in the form of posters of important problem features, a labeled diagram
or prompts for students to reflect on what is learned. Cues can also be done with pointing out
patterns in the information, providing guiding questions or using objects as
analogs.
The
text confirmed many of the theories that were outline in the course. For example, the information provided on
feedback informed us that feedback has to be provided at the right time for the
best understanding and can also assist a teacher in what will be done next when
referring to formative feedback. Another
big topic discussed in class was reinforcing effort which was a discussed in
the text. By reinforcing effort, a
student can recognize the relationship between effort and achievement. One difference that was noticed from the
class readings and the text for the teacher toolbox was on praising
children. Alfie in one of our readings
suggested never praise a child as it will negatively impact the children’s
future learning. The text suggests when
praise is done correctly it can increase a child’s socio-emotional indicators
and result in a positive effect on learning.
The text even suggested using concrete awards such as stickers, tokens
or coupons to build self-efficacy. An
idea that was not recommended in class readings. But in the end, the text would be a great
addition to any first year teacher’s toolbox as it has many strategies and many
connections to what the class had discussed.
References
Dean, C.
Hubbell, E. Pitler, H. Stone, B. (2012). Classroom
Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Students
Achievement. Denver, Colorado: Mid-Continent Research for Education and
Learning.
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