Instructional Practices to Increase Student Learning

1. Instructional Practices to Increase Student Learning New Teacher Series Session II November 4, 2010 Stephanie Lemmer Kalamazoo RESA Content Developed by John Vail Ed.S

2. Goals for the day • Understand factors that impact the success of any strategy. • Become familiar with instructional strategies that have proven effectiveness. • Understand that fluency with the strategy is an important prerequisite to the strategy’s effectiveness. • Plan for the use of one of the strategies in your own setting. • Develop an idea of how to assess the effectiveness in terms of student learning.

3. Major Themes for the Day • Belief • Time • Focus • Management • Teacher Behaviors • Principles of Effective Instructional Strategies • “Classroom Instruction that Works”

4. What are the major beliefs of the Catholic faith?

5. What might be the difference of the impact on people seeking Catholicism if the leadership and the members of a congregation … Were vibrant and active in their belief? … OR had the knowledge but were nonbelievers?

6. What might be the difference of the impact on students seeking learning if the administration and the teachers in a school or district … Actually believed and expected that ALL kids would learn at high levels? Believed that much of student learning was outside of their control.

7. Revisiting our educational beliefs • All Kids Can Learn … • “to the level of their abilities.” • “to the extent that they take advantage of the opportunities we create for them.” • “and it’s up to us to see that they have opportunities to grow and develop.” • “so we will establish high standards that we expect all students to achieve.” DuFour and Eaker,1999

8. But what about … ?

9. Characteristics of Diverse Learners Effective instructional strategies for diverse learners must be constructed with relevant learner characteristics in mind. • Retaining information • Strategy knowledge and use • Vocabulary knowledge • Language coding Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

10. Retaining Information • Numerous studies have documented that the memory problems associated with diverse learners are related specifically to tasks with a verbal component. • Using the right approach may significantly reduce basic memory differences between diverse learners and average achievers. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

11. Instructional Implications for Addressing Memory Skills • Explicitly instruct in effective use of rehearsal and categorization strategies. • Emphasize long-term retention of underlying meaning of important content. • Have learners actively use new information. • Emphasize connections between pieces of information. • Connect new learning to learner’s experiences. • Systematically monitor retention of information and knowledge over time. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

12. Strategy Knowledge and Use • Diverse learners and average achievers use similar strategies but differ in how efficiently they use them. • Teachers should first be prepared to address seriously the basic skill problems that frequently underlie students’ poor use of strategies to solve complex problems. • Learning effects are strongest when learning strategies are explicitly taught. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

13. Instructional Implications for Strategy Knowledge and Use • Ensure that necessary skills underlying efficient use of target strategy are firm. • Provide multiple examples of when to use and not use particular strategy. • Make each step in new strategy explicit; have learners demonstrate proficiency using each step as well as combining steps to use whole strategy. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

14. Vocabulary Knowledge • Vocabulary development must occur in multiple curricular areas and in the context of multiple instructional techniques if the gap between diverse learners and average achievers is to be substantially reduced. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

15. Instructional Implications for Vocabulary Knowledge • Address vocabulary problems early and comprehensively. • Match vocabulary goals with instruction. • Combine direct instruction in word meanings with techniques to help students become independent word learners. • Set goals for students to learn many words at basic levels, critical words at deeper levels. • Have students tie new vocabulary to their own experiences. • Ensure that a strong beginning reading program is the primary vehicle for helping students become independent word learners. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

16. Language Coding • Average achievers store information primarily in terms of its phonological codes…Diverse learners store information primarily in terms of its semantic features. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

17. Instructional Implications for Language Coding • Provide rich and varied experiences involving the meaning and sounds in words. • Provide abundant explicit experiences in connection between sounds in words and alphabetic counterparts. Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

18. All Kids Can Learn… “The first three responses are entirely acceptable in a system that believes its primary purpose is to sort and select students according to their abilities, and/or willingness to master particular curriculum challenges… In today’s Information Age society, however, … it is the purpose of schools to bring all students to their full potential and to a level of education that was once reserved for the very few… Only the fourth school … offers a viable, modern-day response to students who are not learning.” Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker (1998) “Professional Learning Communities at Work”, p. 61

19. Belief is so important! • Individuals • The Leadership • The Organization • YOU

20. TEACHER FACTORS • “The impact of decisions made by individual teachers is far greater than the impact of decisions made at the school level.” • “More can be done to improve education by improving the effectiveness of teachers than by any other single factor.” Robert Marzano

21. The Impact of Teacher Effectiveness Percentile Ranking after two years of instruction Percentile Ranking Marzano, 2003

22. Teaching: An art or a science? “…but education, despite efforts to make it so, is not essentially mysterious.” William Bennett

23. Teaching: An art or a science? The most effective teachers use their time very well and monitor the engagement and progress of all of their students. BIG IDEA!! – The entire purpose of time management and student engagement is to increase their opportunities to respond and to receive instructional feedback.

24. Allocated Time Actual Time Engaged Time Opportunities To Respond And Receive Feedback Time as a factor on student learning

25. Use of TimeAn Example from the World of Literacy • Research Findings: • Maximizing students’ “reading engaged time” is the biggest single indicator of reading achievement. • Time spent with arts and crafts or student selection of activities during reading instruction always produced a negative correlation with reading achievement.

26. Use of Time • “In every school, from poor to affluent, we seldom caught kids reading or writing. … What we did see was staggering amounts of coloring.” • (Mike Schmoker – 100’s of classroom observations) • “…that coloring was the single most predominant activity in the schools they had observed – right up through middle school.” • Learning 24/7 Classroom Observation Study • “Doug Reeves was similarly dismayed by the amount of time students spent “coloring, cutting, and pasting.” • Making Standards Work As cited in “Results Now”, (2006), Mike Schmoker

27. Observations from 1,500 classrooms • Classrooms in which • there was evidence of clear learning objectives: 4% • high-yield strategies were being used: 0.2% • there was evidence of higher-order thinking: 3% • students were either writing or using rubrics: 0% • fewer than half of students were paying attention: 85% • students were using worksheets (a bad sign): 52% • noninstructional activities were occurring: 35% Learning 24/7 Classroom Observation Study (2005)

28. The difference between experienced and expert teachers • Expert teachers … • Can identify essential representations of their subject(s) • Can guide learning through classroom interactions • Can monitor learning and provide feedback • Can attend to affective attributes • Can influence student outcomes “Teachers Make a Difference: What is the research evidence?” Hattie, 2003

29. The difference between experienced and expert teachers “Teachers Make a Difference: What is the research evidence?” Hattie, 2003

30. Keeping a focus on learning • Be very clear about the goals for your students • Increase skill building and strategy-building activities • Increase engaged time • Increase language rich discussions about the content • Increase direct vocabulary instruction • Increase development of background knowledge related to learning goals.

31. Establishing Focus:Goals, Objectives, Priorities Goals for student achievement are clearly defined, anchored to research, prioritized in terms of importance to student learning, commonly understood by users, and consistently employed as instructional guides by teachers.

32. Establishing Focus:Goals, Objectives, and Priorities • Example Statement: • I have the same expectations for a student’s skills as my peers who teach the same grade or the same subject. • Nonexample Statement: • I am not sure what my fellow teachers are doing. I assume they do the same things that I do.

33. Example and Nonexample Statements:(Can you tell which are which?) • I know exactly what my students should be able to do at each point of the school year and can describe what that looks like to anyone who asks. • example • I believe that each student learns differently and that they will all eventually learn at their own pace. • nonexample • I know what to expect a student to be able to do when they enter my room in the fall and I know what the next year’s teacher expects them to come in with as well. • example • I understand the urgency and importance of having all students reach the goals at the right time. • example • I teach the curriculum but some students are just better than others. • nonexample

34. FocusA Set of Strategic, Research-Based, & Measurable Goals to Guide Instruction, Assessment, and Learning • Specific goals that include targeted, measurable, outcomes with a precise time frame. • Goals aligned with “critical learning standards” • Curriculum-based or standards-based 180-day pacing maps. • Clear goals and expectations for each grade and subject • Reliance on research to determine what to teach and when to teach it

35. Classroom Management It’s more than discipline.

36. Remember the Chaos Factor • Chaos: “A state or place of total confusion or disorder” Webster’s II New College Dictionary • Trainers of a well known and proven effective, supplemental reading program identify the “chaos factor” in a classroom before training the teacher. The trainer can accurately predict the success of their program in that room before training even begins.

37. Teacher BehaviorsScanning, Movement, Attitude, and Relations • Teacher scans environment frequently • Teacher moves through environment in unpredictable patterns • Teacher varies instructional position • Teacher exhibits enthusiasm for the subject matter • Teacher makes positive contact with students regularly

38. Active Participation • READ it • WRITE it • SAY it • DO it • ALL MEANS ALL! EVERY STUDENT! EVERY TIME

39. 1: Structure Active Learning in the Classroom 1

40. 1: Structure Active Learning in the Classroom 2

41. Video Segment 1: Structure Active learning in the classroom Focus… As you watch this video, http://www.scoe.org/pub/htdocs/rla-media.html • Note the active participation procedures that are directly taught to students. • Identify other good instructional practices.

42. Principles of Effective Instructional Strategies Information developed primarily from “Effective Teaching Strategies that Accommodate Diverse Learners – Third Edition” Coyne, Kame’enui, & Carnine, 2007

43. Six Major Principles of Effective Instructional Tools • Big Ideas • The most important things students should know or be able to use or do • Conspicuous Strategies (Explicit and Systematic Procedures) • Clear and obvious methods of learning • Mediated Scaffolding (Differentiation) • Differentiation to increase skills for all • Strategic Integration (Working with the concept of sameness) • Putting learning into the context of what they have learned before and what they will need to learn in the future • Primed Background Knowledge (Ensuring preskills) • Ensuring the essential base in order to profit from instruction • Judicious Review (Practice, Practice, Practice) • Providing adequate practice to make thought automatic and adaptable

44. Big Ideas • Highly selected concepts, principles, strategies, or heuristics that facilitate the most efficient and broadest acquisition of knowledge. The proliferation of objectives has tended to affect instruction in one of two ways: 1. instruction aspires to cover so much material that teachers are forced to teach for exposure. 2. objectives or other forms of specific learning outcomes are abandoned in favor of an approach that assumes a rich learning environment will result in learning …

45. Big Ideas - Examples • Writing • The writing process • Text structure • Peer interaction • Mechanics • Morphology • Math • Place value • Expanded notation • Commutative property • Associative Property • Distributive property • Equivalence

46. Big Ideas - Examples • Science • Scientific Inquiry • Pattern of observations • Convection • Social Studies • Problem-Solution-Effect • Multiple perspectives • Factors of Group Success • Reading • Phonological Awareness • Alphabetic Principle • Fluency • Vocabulary • Comprehension

47. Conspicuous Strategies(explicit and systematic procedures) • Sequence of teaching events and teacher actions that make explicit the steps in learning. They are made conspicuous by the use of visual maps or models, verbal directions, full and clear explanations, examples and nonexamples, etc. Extensive empirical evidence suggests strongly that all students in general, and diverse learners in particular, benefit from having good strategies made conspicuous for them, as long as great care is taken to ensure that the strategies are designed to result in widely transferable knowledge of their application.

48. Conspicuous Strategies • The purpose of conspicuous strategies is to take what proficient people do and make their process transparent. • Be careful not to make the strategy too general as this leaves much room for error and unreliability • Be careful not to make the strategy too narrow as this will lead to rote learning and little transference.

49. Conspicuous Strategies Example Paragraph Shrinking

50. Five Components of Explicit Teaching of Comprehension Strategies An explicit description of the strategy and when and how it should be used. Teacher and/or student modeling of the strategy in action Collaborative use of the strategy in action Guided practice using the strategy with gradual release of responsibility Independent use of the strategy