Instructional Strategies that Enhance Student Learning in Block Schedules

1. Instructional Strategies that Enhance Student Learning in Block Schedules Franklin High School January 2010

2. Bell-work What components do you consciously include when designing an effective lesson plan? List some instructional strategies that you frequently find successful. How do you go about deciding (a) what to teach and (b) how to teach it?

3. Targets • Faculty will understand the important relationship between brain based learning and effective instructional approaches in a block setting • Faculty will be able to identify and apply a 5-step process to lesson planning to enhance student attention, engagement and learning Agenda Bell-work Targets Importance of planning Block with the Brain in Mind 5-step lesson plan template

4. Bell-work What components do you consciously include when designing an effective lesson plan? List some instructional strategies that you frequently find successful. How do you go about deciding (a) what to teach and (b) how to teach it? What purposes do bell-work or sponge activities serve?

5. “You can teach more faster, but students will simply forget more faster. In-depth (as opposed to superficial) learning requires time for organizing, integrating, and storing new information.” Consciously plan to teach for depth on “Big Ideas” of your subject area

6. Learning – 2 categories Explicit Learning: Consists of what we commonly read, write, and talk about Conveyed via such means as textbooks, lectures, pictures and videos Implicit Learning Consists of things we learn through life experience, habit, games, experiential learning, and other “hands-on” activities (Jensen, E. Teaching With the Brain in Mind)

7. Complex Learning – 7 Critical Factors Engagement (goal oriented attention and action) Repetition (priming, reviewing, and revising) Input quantity (capacity, flow, chunk size) Coherence (models, relevance, prior knowledge) Timing (time of day, interval learning) Error correction (mistakes, feedback, support) Emotional states (safety, state of dependency) (Jensen, E. Teaching With the Brain in Mind)

8. Paying attention “Attention is ‘payment’ of the brain’s precious resources. It requires that we orient, engage, and maintain each appropriate neural network. In addition, we must exclude or suppress external and internal distracters…In short, paying attention is not easy to do consciously.” -Eric Jensen

9. Practical Suggestions Brevity – cut the length of focused attention – the human brain is poor at nonstop attention. It needs time for processing and rest after learning. Compelling & Relevant Tasks – meaning building tasks such as grouping & regrouping material, critiquing and analyzing it, resequencing content, using graphic organizers, summarizing Movement – raises amine levels in the brain and elicits a state of aroused attention

10. Attention Spans – Guidelines for Direct Instruction of New Content

11. Movement Kids need to be active and move during a block lesson. How might you incorporate movement in a meaningful way in your lessons?

12. The Five Step Lesson Plan • Introduction • Refer to previous lessons/units • Point to what’s coming • Whet the students’ appetites • Assess students abilities/past performances • Direct Instruction • Direct the learning • Facilitate, without necessarily lecturing • Assess students • Guided Practice • Provide opportunities for students to work with new material • Guide students through the process • Assess students

13. The Five Step Lesson Plan • Independent practice • Encourage student autonomy • Recognize the benefits to long-term memory development • Choose appropriate homework, a prime example of independent practice • Assess students 5. Closure • Review what has happened • Emphasize key points • Point to what will happen next • Assess students

14. Getting Started “It is critical to provide activities for students that will immediately engage them as they walk in the door. Activities that are meaningful to students provide an “emotional hook” that in turn fosters attention and learning.” -Dr. Pam Robbins, Learning Beyond Boundaries

15. Starting the lesson “How a lesson starts goes a long way in determining how smoothly the class runs and how much the kids learn.” – Rick Smith Strategy – Sponges or Bell-Work Anything we normally have students do, as long as they can do it silently and without having to ask for directions or clarifications Assign several activities to keep all engaged – start class when everyone has the first task or item complete

16. The Lesson Itself Strategy – Variety Plan at-least 3 to 4 activities per lesson with a minimum of one in which the teacher is off the stage Employ shifts in focus and energy at least every ten to twelve minutes Plan in movement breaks several times in a period (transitions between activities are good opportunities) The brain loves to talk so provide opportunities for students to work together

17. Pacing, feedback & participation Build in opportunities for independent practice so you can assess and provide additional help to your slower processors Increase wait time during discussion – wait for 6 hands to be raised before calling on a student – and say “thank you” instead of “right” Class choral recital – every once in awhile ask all students to say an answer out loud together Practice effective chunking – don’t try and deliver too much content at one time

18. Movement breaks Strategies Find a partner in a different part of the room Transitions between activities Everyone who hears my voice clap twice (when transitioning back from small group to full group) Breathing – ask students to take a deep breath and exhale together Stretching – can be done in seats or standing up. Schedule in a “7th inning stretch” Give yourself a pat on the back on opposite sides – gets the blood flowing and activates both the right and left hemispheres Action Thermometer (Four Corners) strategy – have students physically move to a place to represent a point of view Ball or frisbee toss discussions

19. Closure • What do students remember most from your lesson? • The first and last thing they hear! • The last three-minutes can be the most significant of any lesson as they can markedly increase student retention by allowing them to reflect on their learning. This enhances the potential of the material moving from the short-term to long-term memory. Whenever possible have the students actively involved during closure. • Strategies – Reciprocal Teaching (students pair off and take turns summarizing), Highlights (students come up with one or more key ideas from the lesson), Exit slips, Provide a unifying metaphor or simple analogy

20. Use the Block as it is intended! “The major power of longer teaching periods is that such periods make the attention to brain compatible teaching practices far more feasible.” (Fitzgerald, 1996)

21. Highlights Identify some key take aways for today’s presentation Identify some examples of instructional strategies used during this presentation Manage pacing by focusing on big ideas and depth of learning Always consider how the brain works when designing learning activities Repetition, movement & pacing are important considerations in extended periods