Effective Strategies for Instructional Planning

2. Chapter 12 Instructional Strategies

3. General Principles That Can Guide Instruction

4. General Principles • Determine what you ultimately want students to know and be able to do. • backward design • Use a variety of instructional strategies. • Promote productive cognitive processing of subject matter. • Focus on knowledge/skills most likely to enhance students’ long-term success. • Provide some structure and scaffolding for activities and assignments.

5. General Principles • Capitalize on technological innovations to enhance students’ learning and performance. • Take student diversity into account when planning and carrying out instruction. • differentiated instruction • Regularly assess and provide feedback about students’ progress. • formative assessment

6. Planning for Instruction

7. Planning and carrying out instruction is part of an interdependent network.

8. Identifying Goals of Instruction • Instructional goal = desired long-term outcome of instruction • Instructional objective = desired outcome of lesson or unit. • objectives help teachers and students reach the goal

9. Aligning Goals with Standards • Content area standards • general statements regarding knowledge and skills that students should acquire at various grade levels • characteristics their accomplishments should reflect • National, international, state standards • Common Core standards • useful, but have limitations

10. Writing Goals & Objectives • Consult standards, but don’t rely on them exclusively. • Identify short-term objectives, long-term goals. • Identify goals related to specific topics and content areas. • Identify goals related to long-term academic success.

11. Writing Goals & Objectives • Include goals and objectives with varying levels of complexity and sophistication. • Consider physical, social, motivational, affective, and cognitive outcomes. • Describe what students should be able to do at the end of instruction.

12. Writing Goals & Objectives • Identify behaviors that reflect accomplishment of objectives. • List abstract outcomes for long-term goals, & give examples of specific behaviors. • Provide opportunities for students to identify goals and objectives of their own.

13. Writing Goals & Objectives • Bloom’s taxonomy (cognitive processes) • remember • understand • apply • analyze • evaluate • create

14. Writing Goals & Objectives • Wiggins and McTighe—Understanding By Design • Explanation • Interpretation • Application • Perspective • Empathy • Self-knowledge

15. Communicating Goals & Objectives • Traditional means—printed syllabus • Class website • Dependent on students’ access to and comfort with technology

16. Examples of Useful Objectives • “The student will identify the main thesis or argument in a scholarly paper.” • “The students will demonstrate effective ways of kicking, dribbling, and passing the ball.” • "Given a sentence written in the future tense, the student will be able to rewrite the sentence in the past tense with no errors.”

17. Task Analysis • Identifying specific knowledge and behaviors necessary to master subject matter • behavioral analysis • subject matter analysis • information processing analysis

18. Developing a Lesson Plan • Lesson plans include • goal(s) or objective(s) • instructional materials, equipment • instructional strategies • assessment method(s) • Guide, not recipe

19. Teacher- vs. Student-Directed • Teacher-directed instruction • teacher is in control of content and course of lesson • Learner-directed instruction • students have considerable control regarding the issues they address and the ways they address them

20. Teacher-Directed Instructional Strategies

21. Expository Instruction • Information is presented in the form in which students are expected to learn it • Lectures and textbooks • students must be cognitively active

22. Teacher Questions • Lower-level questions • students retrieve information • focus attention, allow for comprehension monitoring • Higher-level questions • students go beyond information they have learned • encourage elaboration, transfer, problem solving, critical thinking • Give students feedback about their responses.

23. In-Class Assignments • Can focus on “remember,”“understand” (Bloom) • Authentic activities address higher-level goals

24. Homework • Use assignments for instructional or diagnostic purposes. • Provide information, structure for students to complete assignments with little or no assistance. • Mix required and voluntary assignments. • Discuss assignments in class as soon as possible. • If necessary, establish supervised after-school homework programs.

25. Direct Instruction • Review • Statement of objectives • Presentation of new material • Guided student practice, assessment • Independent practice • Follow-up reviews

26. Promoting Mastery • Small, discrete units. • A logical sequence. • Demonstration of mastery at the end of each unit. • Additional activities for students needing extra help or practice to attain mastery.

27. Instructional Websites • Types of websites—search engines, Wikipedia, etc. • Considerations: • students’ self-regulation skills and technological literacy • little to no quality control of internet • unproductive searches • the need for scaffolding

28. Computer Based Instruction • Benefits: • often effective in learning subject matter • can be highly motivating • includes multimedia • records and maintain data for every student • provides instruction when teachers aren’t available • Drawback • few opportunities for face-to-face social interaction

29. Learner-Directed Instructional Strategies

30. Class Discussions • Focus on topics that lend themselves to multiple perspectives. • Make sure students have prior knowledge about a topic. • Create a classroom atmosphere conducive to open debate. • Use small-group discussions to encourage all students to participate. • Provide a structure to guide the discussion. • Provide closure at the end.

31. Reciprocal Teaching • Discussion format • Teacher and students model effective reading and learning strategies • Focused on metacognitive strategies • summarizing • questioning • clarifying • predicting

32. Discovery & Inquiry Learning • Discovery • students interact with environment • derive information for themselves • useful for fostering transfer, problem solving, creativity, self-regulated learning • promotes positive attitude • Inquiry • promotes effective reasoning processes

33. Computer Simulations & Applications • Simulations • game-like or authentic tasks • Applications • concept mapping, brainstorming software • word processing programs • database programs • spreadsheets • music editors • geographic mapping software

34. Cooperative Learning • Small group with common goal • For effective groups: • form groups of students who are likely to work together productively • provide clear goals toward which groups should work • provide clear guidelines for behavior • structure tasks so that group members must depend on one another for success

35. Peer Tutoring • Can lead to considerable gains in academic achievement • Benefits tutors as well as those being tutored

36. Peer Tutoring • Make sure tutors have mastered the material and use sound instructional techniques. • Provide a structure for students’ interactions. • Do not rely on higher-achieving students to tutor lower-achieving students excessively. • Make sure that all students have opportunities to tutor.

37. Technology-Based Collaborative Learning • Can enhance student interaction and knowledge construction • electronic mail (e-mail) • web-based chat rooms • discussion boards • electronic bulletin boards • web logs (blogs)

38. Taking Student Diversity into Account

39. Diversity • Attend to students’ ages, developmental level, prior knowledge and skills. • Attend to students’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds. • Accommodate students with special needs. • differentiated instruction

40. The Big Picture

41. The Big Picture • The choice of instructional strategies must depend to some degree on the goals of instruction. • The choice of instructional strategies must also depend on students’ characteristics and needs. • Effective teachers regularly use a variety of instructional strategies.