A major element of teaching with examples is being clear about what something is and what it isn’t so they learn a “general case” rather than isolated facts. Here are five principles from Direct Instruction:
1. Wording Principle: use the same wording whenever possible.
2. Set Up Principle: During initial teaching of a concept, pair examples with non examples that
differ in a single feature, so only
one interpretation is possible. In later lessons, use additional examples to further expand the range of the concept.
3. The Difference Principle: To illustrate the boundaries of a concept, juxtapose examples with non-examples that are just slightly different except in the one critical feature and indicate that they are different.
4. The Sameness Principle: To show the range of the concept, we should juxtapose examples of the concept that differ from one another as much as possible and yet still illustrate the concept and indicate that they are the same. This sequence is intended to foster generalization.
5. The Testing Principle: Finally, to test if students understand the new concept, we should juxtapose new, untaught examples and nonexamples in a non-predictable order. This helps us rule out that students are just guessing.
Come learn about explicit and direct instruction - and DI - in this YouTube live stream next week. Click the link for when it streams for your time zone!
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Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction summarizes the actions of the teachers with the most achievement gains. It's unknown in the USA despite Rosenshine being American. The following are forms of pushback and important considerations to take when implementing it in schools. 🧵1/
2/ "This is wrong since it conflicts with my beliefs."
Though rare, I have encountered people who would dismiss this research on the basis that students should lead their learning. Rosenshine's describes a model in which the teacher is very active. He called it di, after all.
3/ "This is too technical a description of teaching."
In some schools of thought, the quest to codify teaching techniques is frowned upon or seen as a fool's errand. But teachers are technicians as well as professionals. We all need to master the fundamentals.
I just went to my first conference that didn’t have any icebreakers or kumbaya circles. All we did was talked research and effective teaching. Weird, I know.
Here were the highlights of @EducationFestUS, the best conference I’ve ever been to.
🧵 1/
2/ Instead of a poet or an inspirational speaker, we had a keynote by an expert cognitive scientist, @DTWillingham. He kindly emailed me to apologize for having to miss my session, which was later in the day.
3/ Instead of propagating a bunch of feel good stuff that is mostly irrelevant to day to day operations in schools, I got to listen to @effortfuleduktr talk about attention, working memory, and practical strategies for getting material to stick.
Sometimes I think instructional coaching is one of those things in education with a strong, strong justification that is very, very challenging to do well. For example:
1. Teachers often don’t appreciate getting feedback from a peer. Friendship and performance improvement 1/
Don’t always mix well.
2. Union contracts often entitle teachers with the right to refuse coaching. Some people will refuse help on the principle that they don’t need to accept it, contractually.
3. There is a subbing shortage in many districts here. Instructional coaching 2/
Depends on teachers being able to meet during planning hours. They often can’t because they’re subbing. When they get their planning, they want to use it to, well, plan. IC gets in the way, or so it feels.
It’s possible to turn around a school in a relatively short amount of time. I’ve seen this recipe work, in more or less this order:
1. Ban phones 2. Concentrate admin efforts on behavior 3. Standardize routines and procedures 4. Build a culture of academics 5. Teach bell to bell
1. Ban phones
If a teacher sees one, they call an admin to pick it up. No warnings. The phones are organized in the office and can be picked up at the end of the day. Repeat offenders must have their parents come pick it up. The number of phones collected will decrease quickly 2/
2. Concentrate admin efforts on behavior
Hire admin who agree that their job is to solve behavior, and everything else is secondary. Hold them accountable to being in the hallways at all times - they should rarely be in their offices. Trade weak admin for skilled ones 3/
Teaching is so weird because nobody seems to want to talk about how to explain things... which seems like it'd be something we'd talk a whole lot about. There are a few things I've learned from research into clarity of explanations that I wish I'd been taught earlier 1/
Vagueness. Using unclear sets of words or words that are uncertain will clutter an explanation. Researchers have manipulated vagueness and consistently find that it interferes with learning 2/
Mazes. Mazes are false starts and the use of redundant words. They also include utterances such as "uh" and "um". They're probably called mazes because it feels like navigating a maze of incoherence from the learner's perspective 3/