“Principles of Instruction & A

Framework for Professional

Learning”
BISHOP ANSTEY HIGH SCHOOL
BEGINNING TEACHERS
WEDNESDAY 18TH OCTOBER 2023
FACILITATOR: PATSY-ANN RUDDER
Research-based Principles of Instruction
These principles come from three sources:
(a) Research in cognitive science - research on how our brain acquires
and uses new information;
(b) Research on the classroom practices of master teachers - research
on the classroom practices of those teachers whose students show
the highest gains; and
(c) Research on cognitive support to help students learn complex
tasks - findings from studies that taught learning strategies to
students.
What are the Principles of Instruction?
GROUP ACTIVITY
• Brainstorm
• List them
• Think/Group/Share
The Principles of Instruction
1. Daily review,
2. Present new material using small steps,
3. Ask questions,
4. Provide models,
5. Guide student practice,
6. Check for student understanding,
7. Obtain a high success rate,
8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks,
9. Independent practice,
10. Weekly and monthly review,
ACTIVITY – Comment on each of these principles
ACTIVITY- Complete table in groups and Share
PRINCIPLE DETAILS/COMMENTS
Daily Review
Present new material using
small steps
Ask questions
Provide models
Guide Student Practice
Check for student
understanding
Obtain a high success rate
Provide scaffolds for difficult
tasks
Independent practice
Weekly and monthly review
Daily Review
• Daily review can strengthen previous learning and can lead to fluent recall.
• Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning
• Invest 5-8 minutes to review previous learning.
• Questioning to check understanding and to uncover and challenge
misconceptions, peer or self-marking work and correcting mistakes.
• Teachers might consider doing the following during their daily review:
Correction of homework;
 Review of the concepts and skills that were practiced as part of the
homework;
Asking students about points where they had difficulties or made errors
Review of material where errors were made;
Review of material that needs overlearning
Present new material using small steps
• Only present small amounts of new material at any time, and then
assist students as they practice this material.
• Presenting new information in small, bite-sized chunks increases the
progress made by the students.
• Introducing too much at once will see progress rates fall as they can
only process so much at one time.
• This reduction in cognitive load allows metacognition to take place
• Metacognition - it allows them to think about how they are thinking
about the task.
Ask questions
Questions help students practice new information and connect new material to
their prior learning
• Imaginative teachers have found ways to involve all students in answering
questions.
• Examples include having each student:
1. Tell the answer to a neighbour.
2. Summarize the main idea in one or two sentences, writing the summary on a
piece of paper and sharing this with a neighbour, or repeating the procedures to
a neighbour.
3. Write the answer on a card that he or she then holds up.
4. Raise their hand if they know the answer (thereby allowing the teacher to
check the entire class).
5. Raise their hand if they agree with the answer that someone else has given.
Examples of stems for questions
• How are __________ and __________ alike?
• What is the main idea of __________?
• What are the strengths and weakness of __________?
• In what way is __________ related to __________?
• Compare __________ and __________ with regard to
__________.
• What do you think causes __________?
• How does __________ tie in with what we have learned before?
• Which one is the best __________ and why?
• What are some possible solutions for the problem of __________?
• Do you agree or disagree with this statement: __________?
• What do you still not understand about __________?
Ask a large number of questions and to all
students
• Questions are a teacher’s most powerful tool, they can highlight
misconceptions, keep a lesson flowing and challenge students to think
deeper into a subject.
• The greatest value of questioning though is that they force students
to practice retrieval, this strengthens and deepens memory.
Provide models
• Providing students with models and worked examples can help
students learn to solve problems faster
• Delivering new information to students by linking it to something or
some process they are familiar with allows students to gain an
understanding quicker, it also gives them deeper retention.
Guide student practice
• Successful teachers spend more time guiding the students’ practice of
the new material
• Practice makes perfect right?
• This is true of physical, vocal and mental practice.
• Successful teachers allow more time for guidance, questioning and
repetition of processes.
• Actually, in teaching, we prefer to use the phrase “Practice makes
Progress”.
Check for student understanding
• Checking for student understanding at each point can help students
learn the material with fewer errors
• Regular asking of direct questions (rather than “does anyone have any
questions?”) allows teachers to check a classes/student’s
understanding and catching misconceptions,
• Therefore informing the teacher whether any parts of the topic need
re-teaching.
Obtain a high success rate
• It is important for students to achieve a high success rate during
classroom instruction
• Teaching for mastery ensures all students in a class are ready to move
on to the next stage in the topic, thus preventing students from taking
misunderstanding into their future learning.
Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks
• The teacher provides students with temporary supports and scaffolds
to assist them when they learn difficult tasks
• Vygotskian scaffolding
• The scaffolds can then be gradually removed as their competency
grows.
• Examples of scaffolds can include; checklists, cue cards or writing
frames.
• Teachers can also anticipate commonly made errors and build tools
into the scaffold tasks that reduce the chances of students making the
same mistakes.
Scaffolding
Vygotskian Scaffolding
Independent practice
• Provide for successful independent practice
• Following scaffolded tasks, students should be competent in the task
and therefore can practice the task independently.
• This repetition of the task will promote a deeper fluency,
• This is called “overlearning”.
Weekly and monthly review
• Students need to be involved in extensive practice in order to develop
well-connected and automatic knowledge
• An extension of the first principle, monthly and weekly reviews of
previous learning aids recall of information and processes.
Lesson Design
ACTIVITY
• In groups, design a lesson that exemplifies all the principles of
instruction
• This activity is open ended
• Think/Group/Share
• Present your lesson designs
• Respectfully critique each other’s lesson designs
A Framework for Professional Learning
• What makes great teaching?
• Think/Pair/Share
Six components of great teaching
• Pedagogical/content knowledge
• Quality of Instruction
• Classroom Climate
• Classroom Management
• Teacher beliefs
• Professional behaviours
 Great Teaching
ACTIVITY
COMPONENT DETAILS/COMENTS

Pedagogical/Content knowledge

Quality of Instruction

Classroom Climate

Classroom Management

Teacher beliefs

Professional Behaviours
What kinds of frameworks/tools could help
us capture great teaching?
ACTIVITY
• Think/Pair/Share
 How can these capture great teaching?
COMMENT
• Classroom observations by peers, principals or external evaluators
• Value added models; assessing gains in student achievement
• Student ratings
• Principal judgement
• Teacher self-reports
• Analysis of classroom artefacts and teacher portfolios
How could these promote better learning?

PARAMETER DETAILS/COMMENTS

Focus on improving student outcomes

Attention is on learning

Teachers are encouraged to be continual independent

learners
Feedback is mediated by a mentor in an environment
of trust and support
An environment of professional learning and support is
promoted by the school’s leadership
 Thank You
EXIT CARD
• 3 things I learned today
• 2 things I will do differently in future
• 1 question I need to ask