The current climate in education is an intriguing one. Here in New Zealand, it seems we're on a quest for silver bullets—quick fixes to declare ourselves 'world-leading.' We have received polished maths programmes in the post, yet there's a lack of focus on the 'what' and the 'why' and a total lack of prioritising teacher knowledge.
My wish is for our government to invest in a robust, evidence-based framework for all teachers and give them time to deeply engage with this framework. This would allow programmes or approaches to be delivered in ways that benefit every child, adapting to their needs moment by moment.
Origins of This Post
This blog post has been swirling in my mind for a while. I'll be honest—I am still learning, and this post might not hit the mark for everyone. Over the past eight years, and particularly the last five, my learning journey has reshaped my teaching practice significantly. The learning curve has been steep. This learning curve is evidenced by the blog posts that I leave here, rather than deleting, even in knowing that now there are some of my older posts that I disagree with. I believe there is nothing like transparency when it comes to sharing ones learning journey.
Like many who will read this, I am a learner. If this post doesn't resonate with you, feel free to move on, knowing I have much to learn. My hope is to provide teachers that need it, some clarity on effective classroom practices because if you are anything like me, you yearn for stable ground right now. This post is intended as food for thought.
I understand the concern that 'teachers are not robots' and nor should they be. However, there are some core ingredients we should all be adding to our teaching to benefit our children. These core ingredients will not lead to a cookie cutter approach, in fact, I believe the opposite to be true. Using these core ingredients will actually lead to more effectively meeting the diverse needs of our classes and giving us much more opportunity to add our 'flair' because the core components are taken care of. In essence the cognitive load of 'how to do it' is reduced, allowing us greater freedom to make adaptations to our practice.
Do I believe you need to be recording all of these things in great detail and adding them to your planning for others to check, no certainly not, what would be the benefit of that?
Acknowledging Diversity in Learning
We all know there is no silver bullet. Almost daily, I hear the argument that every child is different, and no one size fits all. However this argument should not prevent us from exploring what the sciences offer. While I agree that no single approach that fits all and learners do have diverse needs, it would be naive to think the basis of what I do each year, could not remain the same, while allowing for adaptation based on the needs of my class, in fact, it is this adaptation that we are free to make when we have the majority of the recipe covered.
This year, I was quickly reminded of this need to adapt my practice when I jumped into teaching the scope and sequence, only to realise most of my class lacked the component skills needed. I had to step back and find the right approach for most of my students. This led to tailored catch-up sessions based on their needs. Some required more foundational interventions, which didn't take long due to prior exposure but still needed explicit instruction and practice. Others just needed increased dosage. Had I stuck rigidly to the script, frustration would have mounted—for both students and myself. I found the Instructional Hierarchy incredibly useful here to find a new starting point.
Importantly I think it is vital that we also acknowledge the unique developmental needs of the learners entering our schools right now, how we shape learning for them does need to hold these developmental needs at its core.
I've seen the scope and sequence work over the years, but without the right application, it's just a document. The same has happened in reading and writing this year. Accommodations I use now weren't part of my previous approach. The core of my approach remains, but tweaks are based on assessments and daily observations. Having the core ingredients sorted, allows me to bring the flavour to my teaching. I am sure that next year the accomodations I make will be different, but know that my children next year will benefit from what I have learned from my children this year.
It is really important to note that while learners do differ, they share more commonalities than differences in learning. So, while there's no silver bullet, I believe there is a recipe with key ingredients that is adaptable to the children's needs before us. The recipe I use this year retains core elements that I will discuss below, but is tailored to this year's students.
It is important as teachers we do not tie ourselves to one approach, but instead have a kete of strategies we can draw upon when needed. I’ll continue refining my practice (adapting the recipe) to maximise progress and meet students where they are.
Visualising the Recipe for Effective Teaching and Learning
If you’re like me, a visual representation can be helpful. I couldn't find one online that matched my vision, so I crafted my own. I'm not a visual expert, but I hope it provides a framework for this post.
Core Ingredients for Maximising Teaching and Learning
So what are the core ingredients of teaching and learning that need to be added before we tweak the flavour to meet the needs of our class at that moment of time?
Here's an attempt to break it down:
Key Ingredient #1: The Science of Learning
"The Science of Learning is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines how people learn and how teaching processes can be enhanced to improve learning" (Shank, 2016).
A quick search will yield a huge amount of information on the Science of Learning, which can be overwhelming. Here are key theories and principles we should take the time to understand and find out more about:
Forgetting Curve Theory: Understanding this guides us in practice and review strategies. The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve illustrates how quickly memory fades if not reinforced.
Cognitive Load Theory: This suggests our working memory can hold only a small amount of information at a time. Instruction should avoid overloading it to maximise learning (Sweller, 1988).
Biologically Primary and Secondary Knowledge: This differentiates between what we're naturally wired to learn and what requires deliberate teaching. Biologically primary knowledge is acquired unconsciously, like language and basic social skills. Biologically secondary knowledge, such as reading and mathematics, requires explicit instruction, imposing a cognitive load.
Gradual Release Model: This model supports moving learners from dependence to independence through explicit teaching, crucial for mastering new understandings.
5. The Importance of Review: Deliberately providing spaced review, interleaved practice, and retrieval practice using elaboration, concrete worked examples, and dual coding (visual and words.)The science is ever-evolving, and while these theories are well-researched, we can expect new findings to help refine and shape our practice.
Key Ingredient #2 Principles of Instruction
As a teacher, I believe it's crucial for all educators to be familiar with Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction. If you haven't yet encountered these principles, I highly recommend Tom Sherrington's concise and insightful book, which beautifully illustrates how these principles can be applied in practice. There's also a fantastic visual summary available that encapsulates these ideas effectively (see below.)
By understanding and implementing Rosenshine's principles, we can enhance our teaching strategies and improve student learning outcomes. These principles offer a clear framework to guide instruction, ensuring that we provide the most effective and engaging learning experiences for our students.
Basically there are four strands from which ten principles of instruction fall out of. The four strands being, sequencing concepts and modelling, questioning, reviewing material, stages in practice. These are broken down to:
*Daily review
*Present new material using small steps
*Ask questions
*Provide models
*Guide student practice
*Check for student understanding and provide systematic feedback and corrections
*Obtain a high success rate
*Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks
*Independent practice
*Weekly and monthly review
Broken down even further into how these may appear in our sessions:
*Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning
*Present new material in small steps with practice after each step
*Limit the amount of material students receive at one time
*Give clear and detailed instructions and explanations
*Ask a large number of questions and check for understanding
*Provide a high level of active practice
*Think aloud and model steps
*Provide models of worked examples
*Ask students to explain what they had learned
*Check the responses of all students
*Provide systematic feedback and corrections
*Use more time to provide explanations
*Provide many examples
*Re-teach material when necessary
*Prepare students for independent practice
*Monitor students when they begin independent practice
As a teacher, just looking at these provides us with ideas of where we might improve our practice, there is no way that I am getting to all these things in a quality way in every session I teach, but being aware of these principles allows me to reflect on where I could be improving my practice and that is why I think Rosenshine's principles should be a key ingredient of every classroom.
Key Ingredient #3 The Instructional Hierarchy
I have blogged (or vlogged) a bit about this before, but I see the instructional hierarchy as crucial if we are to pitch our sessions in the 'just right' zone for our children.
A quick goggle search will see you find many visuals of the instructional hierarchy. Some have four stages, but after listening to and reading a lot from Amanda VanDerheyden I prefer the representations with three stages, seeing adaptation and generalisation as happening together.
A thorough description can be found by following this link.
The instructional hierarchy allows us to ensure what we are teaching, is pitched at the instructional needs of the children in front of us. Rather than being a set of steps we need to work through, we can think of one third of our session being in acquisition (working with knowledge yet to be understood) one third of our session being working on fluency (working with knowledge children do have understanding of) and one third in generalisation (working with knowledge children have fluency with allowing them to solve new problems or work in new ways with this knowledge.).
This is a very simplistic description and there is so much out there to read on this. The instructional hierarchy alone has transformed my practice and how I pitch my sessions both whole class and through Tier 2 work with individuals and groups. That in my opinion is what makes the instructional hierarchy a key ingredient for every classroom. When children do not understand a skill, we can step back through skills to find where the disconnect happened and then work through the acquisition phase to build from there.
Let's Add the Flavour to the Recipe
If the things I have listed above are seen as core ingredients it is vital that we acknowledge the fact that what is most important is meeting our children where they are, to do that we need...
1) Excellent Teacher Knowledge
While following an approach may start to improve our practice over time, it is vital that teacher knowledge is foregrounded. Simply throwing a programme at a teacher and expecting the progress of children to be improved is like putting your dog in the bathroom and expecting it to take a shower. To improve outcomes in maths, reading, writing...any academic area in fact, the teacher needs a good level of knowledge, committing to strong PLD is vital. This PLD is best delivered in bite sized amounts over time, tailored to the needs of our staff.
We add the flavour to our learning and teaching recipe by using our knowledge to know how to best assist children in their next learning steps, enabling them to build a strong schema and to make connections between new knowledge and existing knowledge.
2) Assessment of and for Progress
Using quality assessment, on the spot during the learning, through examples of work, by listening to explanations and responses gives us insight into if our teaching is hitting the mark. It guides us to ensure the extra ingredients we add are just right for the next steps of our children. Utilising quick check in assessments allows us to quickly find and fill any gaps. Using useful more formal assessments along the way allows us to inform the effectiveness of our practice, allowing us to be responsive to need and to what may or may not be working. Involving children in this process is a vital ingredient, a child understanding and articulating their next step goals is a simple, but very powerful tool.
3) Understanding the Unique Needs of Every Class We Teach
We must be prepared to meet children where they are at. Every class has a different make up, different needs, as well as academic, these needs are also developmental along with social and emotional. Incorporating approaches to meet these into our recipe is vital if we want to maximise progress. It is vital here we understand the role of executive functions, that we take time to understand relational neuroscience and take the time to ensure positive learning talk is activated for all children, basically taking the time to make the invisible process of learning, visible to children.
Notice/Recognise/Respond
The gift working through play over the last ten years has given me, is a deepening of my ability to notice, recognise and respond. Rather than ploughing on through sessions, we of course will notice when things are not hitting the mark. What we may have intended to be fluency building, instead might cause a high level of frustration for most of our learners. If we are noticing this, we will recognise this frustration and respond by moving back to acquisition. Having a good understanding of the principles of instruction, allows us to do this seamlessly. Tuning into the theories within the Science of Learning, also allows us to shape our sessions based on these, to think about cognitive load, breaking skills down to their component parts, being explicit and ensuring enough practice blocked and then spaced over time to ensure learning is stored eventually in long term memory.
When I posted about writing in my group earlier this year, one thing that came up was the question about the value of copying for writing. However, if we see this through the lens of the instructional hierarchy, we recognise that this was an acquisition tool, that for the majority of the class, this was where they were working and the copying, while not the sole focus of the session, was entirely valid for that moment in time. For those that did not need to copy, they moved into more of a fluency building task by writing their own sentence with some support. As teachers we must always retain this ability to be flexible. In my opinion, there is no value to a novice learner, who is yet unable to combine sounds to spell, to be sent off to write independently, all I will cause is frustration. If success is our goal, then this tactic of allowing children to flounder would not be of beneficial use.
Using the instructional hierarchy allows us to pick the appropriate tactic for the children in front of us at the time. Would copying be an appropriate tactic for children who had already developed a high degree of fluency with writing? No, but it is an appropriate tactic for the acquisition phase and some would even say copying a sentence the child has dictated is indeed a tactic to encourage fluency. It is all about understanding the how and the why, not about looking at the end product.
It all comes down to knowing where your class is with their learning at this point in time, what works for one class, may not work for another, unless it is pitched just right.
In Conclusion - The Same But Different
Understanding and taking the time to learn about the Science of Learning, Principles of Teaching and the Instructional Hierarchy, along with prioritising our own teacher knowledge allows us to create a learning and teaching recipe that maximises the progress of our class, academically, developmentally, socially and emotionally.
In this way we have a core set of ingredients we can call upon and rely upon, while still bringing the flair and absolute brilliance of every teacher to the fore and doing what is right for our class such as employing relational neuroscience and focusing on the development of executive functions through areas like play.
In this way, we can ensure any programme is useful to us, but not driving us or our learners. We can use it as guidance, but not as gospel and have enough teacher knowledge to know what tool is just right at the time.
Instead of teaching like robots, we will be teaching like magicians and the experience of all our children will be one where all of their needs are met in a responsive and informed environment.
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Some Examples
Below is a table that I have quickly created based on where my year 2 class is right now. It is very likely I have missed bits and pieces out, but I wanted to give you an idea. Earlier I said that you may do 1/3 of the session in acquisition, 1/3 of the session in fluency and 1/3 of the session in generalisation. Of course there may be times this happens neatly, I know that my literacy sessions usually flow like this (but are not taught in one big go, instead in bite sized amounts) however, there may be times that you spend 100% of your time on acquisition, other times where the focus of your session is simply fluency building.
The tables below are simply to show how, when making decisions about teaching and learning in my classroom, I can use the instructional hierarchy to help me. Knowing this, I can then use the strands from the Principles of Learning that best fit within each phase, to deliver this piece of learning. I do not plan like this, this table is just to show you what is in my head when I am making decisions, it would not be my intention that you should do something like this, however, it could be a useful activity for reflection.
Useful Information
As I said at the outset, I am simply a learner, trying to pull this all together and there are many places you can go to listen, read or watch information from experts that know much more than I. This is by no means an exhaustive set of links, but it is a good start.
SPP 168: Dr. Amanda VanDerHeyden and the Science of Learning
Recommended Books (I am sure there are many many more)
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