Classroom Instruction That Works

1. Classroom Instruction That Works April 7, 2010 CASH Presented by: Dr. Rina Vassallo, Dara Kline, Patty Gieschen Division of Teaching & Learning, CCIU

2. Objectives • Recognize the predictive power of the research behind McREL’s 9 categories of instructional strategies • Understand- and plan for application of- 3 of the categories in the context of your own classroom procedures and practices

3. Opening Activity Sentence Stems • One way I am incorporating visual or physical models into my practice… • My experience with homework and/or practice activities … • I know the feedback I provide is effective because …

4. Based on the work of: The M c R E L Group Mid- continent Research for Education and Learning Robert Marzano and Associates

5. 9 Categories • Identifying similarity and differences • Summarizing and note taking • Reinforcing effort & providing recognition • Homework & practice • Nonlinguistic Representation • Cooperative Learning • Setting objectives and providing feedback • Generating and testing hypotheses • Cues, questions, and advance organizers

6. Where Did These Strategies Come From? • Analysis of 30 years of research on instruction using a research technique known as meta-analysis. • Experience with thousands of educators

7. Meta-analysis • Combined results from a number of studies to determine the average effect of a given technique. • These results are translated into a unit of measurement referred to as an effect size.

8. Effect Size • The increase or decrease in achievement of the experimental group in standard deviation units. • This effect size can then be translated into a percentile gain.

9. Significance of “effect size”: • Generally speaking: < .5 -is considered small .5 -is considered medium .85 and above -considered LARGE

10. This is the really exciting part- where educators find data and research that we can use with confidence to increase student achievement!!

11. What can you deduce from this table?? * percentile gain reflects the maximum gains possible for students currently at the 50th percentile

12. Non-Linguistic Representation Enhances students ability to represent and elaborate on knowledge using mental images.

13. Generalizations from the Research on Nonlinguistic Representation • A variety of activities produce nonlinguistic representations. • Nonlinguistic representations should elaborate on knowledge.

14. Recommendations for Classroom Practice: Nonlinguistic Representations • Use graphic organizers to represent knowledge. • Have students generate physical modelsof the knowledge. • Have students generate mental pictures of the knowledge they are learning. • Use pictures or pictographs to represent knowledge. • Have students engage in kinesthetic activitiesrepresenting the knowledge.

15. Vocabulary Cartoons • Works on the principle of mnemonics. A mnemonic is a device helps you remember something by associating new information with something you already know • Links together an auditory (word) association and a visual association in the form of a humorous cartoon. • Depending on level of student can vary in complexity (originated for assistance in SAT prep)

16. www.vocabularycartoons.com/ • Word • Pronunciation • Definition • Association word link • Cartoon • Caption • Sample sentences

17. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback Provides students a direction for learning and information regarding how well they are performing relative to a particular learning goal so that they can improve their performance.

18. Generalizations From the Research on Setting Objectives: • Setting instructional goals narrows what students focus on. • Teachers should encourage students to personalize the learning goals the teacher has identified for them. • Instructional goals should not be to specific.

19. Setting Objectives When students know what they are learning, their performance on average has been shown to be 23 percentile points higher than students who do not know what they are learning.

20. Video Example • Setting Objectives

21. Encourage students to personalize learning goals: Our learning goal for this unit is Students will understand the basic purposes of government in the United States. I already know ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ I want to know ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________

22. Generalizations From the Research on Providing Feedback: • Feedback should be corrective in nature • Feedback should be timely • Feedback should be specific to a criterion • Students can effectively provide some of their own feedback.

23. Research Results for Corrective Feedback Simply telling students that their answer on the test is right or wrong has a negative effect on achievement. Feedback is more effective when it provides students with an explanation of what they are doing that is correct and what they are doing that is not correct. Asking students to keep working on a task until they succeed also enhances student achievement. X

25. Effective or Ineffective? • “Your efforts during the research phase of this project really paid off. What you’ve learned about elements is really going to help you during the next chemistry unit.” • Miss Smith circulates as students are working in small groups. She stops at one table and comments, “Nice work on your calculations.” At the next table she says, “Nice work on your graphs.” At the third table she says, “Nice work on your calculations.”

26. Effective or Ineffective? 3. “Good job, John. Keep it up.” 4. Mr. Jones stops at Kyle’s desk. Kyle says, “ I just don’t get this stuff.” Mr. Jones responded, “ Look, you’ve already done a good job of grouping these elements. Try to think about the process you used with those elements and apply it to the remaining ones. When Kyle finished classifying the elements, Mr. Jones praised him for sticking with the task and thinking through the process he had used.

27. Engage students in peer feedback~

28. Ask students to self-assess ~ The purpose of asking students to self-assess is to help them gauge their own progress. To do this, they need to know what they are supposed to be learning and what the expected level of performance will be. They can then determine if they are moving toward, meeting, or exceeding that level of performance.

29. A rubric is a scoring guide that describes several levels of understanding or competency for a particular skill or concept.

30. Driving Rubric - Three Different Traits

31. Helping students self-assess~ Mr. Smith’s Bulletin Board 3 4 Learning Goals… Rubric 4 3 2 1 1 2

33. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback Working toward clearly defined objectives that focus on essential knowledge Able to explain what they are learning Able to tell how well they are progressing Showing personal interest in the objectives If teachers are…Then students probably…

34. No idea is worth anything unless it is acted on. Sidney Parnes

35. Homework & Practice

36. Homework and PracticeGeneralizations from the Research • Need for parental involvement should be kept to a minimum. • The purpose of homework should be identified and articulated. • If homework is assigned, it should be commented on. • Mastering a skill or process requires a fair amount of focused practice.

37. Recommendations for Classroom Practice: Homework • Establish and communicate a homework policy. • Design homework assignments that clearly articulate the purpose and outcome.

38. Recommendations for Classroom Practice: Practice • Ask students to chart their speed and accuracy - and- • Design practice that focuses on specific elements of a complex skill or process -and- • Plan time for students to increase their conceptual understanding of skills or processes

39. LEARNING LINE Students probably need about 20-24 practice sessions before you can be reasonably sure they grasp the new skill enough to use it effectively on their own (80% competency). The increments of learning gradually get smaller and smaller as students fine tune their knowledge and skills.

40. Increase in Learning between Practice Sessions

41. Research and Theory on: Skills Students must adapt or “shape” skills as they are learning them. During the shaping phase, learners attend to their conceptual understanding of the skill or process; when students lack conceptual understanding of skills and processes, they are likely to use them in shallow and ineffective ways. Deal with only a few examples during the shaping phase; this is not the time to press for speed.

42. Schedule massed and distributed practice. At first, practice sessions should be very close together (massed). When students are first learning a skill, they should practice it immediately and often. Over time, practice sessions can be spaced apart (distributed).

43. TRY IT WITH ME Let’s work together NOW YOU- Practice on your own GUIDED PRACTICE MODEL I’LL MODEL You watch and listen

44. TRY IT WITH ME Let’s work together NOW YOU- Provide independent practice GUIDED PRACTICE MODEL I’LL MODEL You watch and listen

45. Homework and PracticeApplication What changes might you make in your classroom related to practice opportunities? What changes might you make in your practice related to homework? What support might you need to make these changes?

46. No idea is worth anything unless it is acted on. Sidney Parnes