Effective Instruction

Features that Define Effective Instruction

Heward (2013)
• Individually planned. Instruction, materials, and
setting of instruction are selected or adapted on the
basis of student needs.
• Specialized. Instruction and adaptations include
related services and assistive technology that are not
often a part of the general education curriculum.
• Intensive. Precise, targeted instruction is designed to
assist students in making efficient progress toward
gaining necessary skills and strategies.
 Features that Define Effective Instruction
Heward (2013)
• Goal-directed. Instruction focuses on individual goals
and objectives necessary for student success.
• Employ research-based methods. Selection and
application of effective teaching methods are
supported by research.
• Guided by student performance. Student response to
instruction is continually assessed for use in evaluating
the effectiveness of instruction and adjusting
instruction when necessary (Diagnostic Teaching)
 More Effective Instructional Practices
• Positive, Frequent, Corrective Feedback
• Scaffolding of Instruction
• Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies
(CSI)
• Generalizing skills
• Direct, Explicit Instruction
• Multiple opportunities for student practice
• Grouping Processes and Levels
 Diagnostic Teaching:
• Continuous informal and formal
diagnostic surveys/assessments
administered to document/monitor a
student’s progress and plan targeted,
appropriate, and individualized learning
opportunities according to students’
pattern of response
 Diagnostic Teaching

2. Use data to
1. Assess and Set
plan appropriate
Goals
instruction

3. Provide
4. Monitor and
Instruction (with
chart progress
opportunities for
and adjust
practice and
instruction as
constant
needed
feedback)
 Diagnostic Teaching

• Continuous/daily assessment to document/monitor a student’s progress

and set/adjust goals.
• As needed, adapt the following according to students’ pattern of response:
– Pace
– Format
– Content
– Strategy/Emphasis on instruction
• Use data to plan and implement targeted, appropriate, and individualized
learning opportunities
• Provide students with multiple and frequent opportunities for practice to
build automaticity
• Provide frequent and corrective feedback
• Use structured informal/formal assessments to determine “bigger picture”
appropriate progress and growth
 Intensifying and Adjusting Instruction
• Use Diagnostic Teaching to determine the degree to
which the following instructional elements need to
be adjusted:
• Strength- how intense the instruction should be
• Dosage- how much instruction the student should receive
• Frequency- how often the student receives instruction
• Duration- how long the student receives instruction (both
daily and throughout the school year)
• Delivery method (Group size; smaller groups for more
intensive instruction:
• Aligning skills to individual need
 Intensifying Instruction

• Provide students with:

• opportunities to transfer skills to academic content areas
(Generalizing)
• comprehensive instruction
• necessary academic support (accommodations,
modifications, AT)
• multiple opportunities for practice frequent and corrective
feedback
Positive, Frequent, Immediate, Corrective
Feedback
– Provides information on task performance
– Occurs in a timely fashion
• feedback provided long after learner has
completed the task is not beneficial
– Happens frequently
– Provides learner with opportunity to
• reflect on feedback
• make timely adjustments
• revise information/try the task again
Scaffolding Instruction
– break up the learning into
chunks
– provide support
– remove them as needed
ASSIGNMENT: Read the science article, write a
detailed essay on the topics it explores, and turn it
in by Wednesday.”

Scaffold Ideas:
• Provide students with a cloze notes
document
• Allow for previewing of the text before
assigning the essay
• Preview important vocabulary
• Provide explicit topic to write on
 Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies: Cognitive
Strategy Instruction (CSI)
• Explicitly teach (think aloud and guided
practice/feedback)how, when, where, and why to
use a specific reading strategy
• Makes students active participants/responsible for
their learning
• Supports improvement of executive functioning
• Designed to
– develop thinking skills
– enhance metacognitive skills (thinking about your own
thinking)
– increase motivation and engagement
Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies
• Self talk
– statements to ones self for specific purposes (i.e
completing a task, regulating behavior)
– I don’t understand what I just read. I best reread the
last couple of sentences.
• Goal setting
– Allows for monitoring progress
– Increases attention to task
– Promotes/increases engagement and motivation
• Self Reinforcement
– learner selects a reward when goal is attained
Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies
• Self-Monitoring/regulating-students
ask themselves questions while
completing an academic task
– Do I understand what I just read?
– What do I know about rounding
numbers greater than 5?
• Mnemonics are an effective tool
(memory aide using acronyms, acrostics,
visual cues, rhymes, songs etc.)
Increase Engagement and Motivation

• CSI
– actively engages the learner in
metacognitive processes (thinking and
monitoring)
• Promotes:
– self-regulating,
– goal setting,
– evaluating personal progress
Generalizing Skills

Strategy
Instruction
Helps generalize
enable students Increases Increases Increases
skills across the
to use strategies success motivation Engagement
curriculum.
across various
content areas
Increase Engagement and Motivation
• Concrete, hands-on activities
• Build in opportunities for success (success
rates are correlated positively with student
learning outcomes)
• Materials, resources, and texts are relevant
and suitable
• Meaningful, challenging, relevant, real
world experiences and activities
• Multiple modes to demonstrate learning:
thinking, listening, speaking, reading, and
writing
Increase Engagement and Motivation

• ALL of which enables

students to be self
determined learners
• More agency= more
motivation
DIRECT EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

– Deliberate, organized, structured, and

carefully designed lessons in which skills are
taught explicitly.
– The skill has been explained, demonstrated,
and practiced with guidance from the teacher
to ensure the skill is being mastered.
– Imperative to use common language and
routines across classrooms and grade levels.
Make the unknown known
Direct, explicit instruction vs
muddy reading instruction
“Try to sound out the
letters and read the
word.”
 Listen as I segment
each sound in the word
“pass” and then blend
the letters back
together again:
/p/ /a/ /s/
“pass”
Student Practice

• Provide multiple exposures and

opportunities to learn, revisit, relate, and
generalize
• A single exposure usually proves
insufficient.
• Students need to opportunities to practice
across lessons and in different contexts.
 Student Practice
Rehearsal-Student rehearses and reviews new
information
• Immediately
• Distributed across time
• Varying time length of work sessions
Overlearning-student practices even after a skill has
been mastered (becomes easier and easier to use)
Elaboration- requires student to engage in deeper
thinking and learning
• Make connections to prior knowledge
 GROUPING PROCESSES AND LEVELS

• Differentiated Instruction Offers:

• flexible approach to teaching and learning
• multiple options and opportunities for learning
• Grouping Levels
• assessment data used to identify appropriate groups and levels
• students are grouped according to skill base/ability, level, and/or
need
• allows for individualized instruction within a group setting
• Grouping Processes
• Students are grouped according to the skill they need to work on