In this post we zoom in on two of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction and highlight their importance in assessment for learning and for understanding how well pupils are learning.
Research findings
Students need to practice new material. The teacher’s questions and student discussion are a major way of providing this necessary practice. The most successful teachers in these studies spent more than half of the class time lecturing, demonstrating, and asking questions. Questions allow a teacher to determine how well the material has been learned and whether there is a need for additional instruction. The most effective teachers also ask students to explain the process they used to answer the question, to explain how the answer was found. Less successful teachers ask fewer questions and almost no process questions.
In the classroom
In one classroom-based experimental study, one group of teachers was taught to follow the presentation of new material with lots of questions.11 They were taught to increase the number of factual questions and process questions they asked during this guided practice. Test results showed that their students achieved higher scores than did students whose teachers did not receive the training. Imaginative teachers have found ways to involve all students in answering questions. Examples include having all students:
Across the classrooms that researchers observed, the purpose of all these procedures was to provide active participation for the students and also to allow the teacher to see how many students were correct and confident. The teacher may then reteach some material when it was considered necessary. An alternative was for students to write their answers and then trade papers with each other.
Other teachers used choral responses to provide sufficient practice when teaching new vocabulary or lists of items. This made the practice seem more like a game. To be effective, however, all students needed to start together, on a signal. When students did not start together, only the faster students answered. In addition to asking questions, the more effective teachers facilitated their students’ rehearsal by providing explanations, giving more examples, and supervising students as they practiced the new material.
Following is a series of stems of 12 for questions that teachers might ask when teaching literature, social science content, or science content to their students. Sometimes, students may also develop questions from these stems to ask questions of each other
How are and alike? What is the main idea of ?
What are the strengths and weaknesses 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 ?
Research findings
The more effective teachers frequently checked to see if all the students were learning the new material. These checks provided some of the processing needed to move new learning into long- term memory. These checks also let teachers know if students were developing misconceptions.
In the classroom
Effective teachers also stopped to check for student understanding. They checked for understanding by asking questions, by asking students to summarize the presentation up to that point or to repeat directions or procedures, or by asking students whether they agreed or disagreed with other students’ answers. This checking has two purposes: (a) answering the questions might cause the students to elaborate on the material they have learned and augment connections to other learning in their long-term memory, and (b) alerting the teacher to when parts of the material need to be retaught.
In contrast, the less effective teachers simply asked, “Are there any questions?” and, if there were no questions, they assumed the students had learned the material and proceeded to pass out worksheets for students to complete on their own.
Another way to check for understanding is to ask students to think aloud as they work to solve mathematical problems, plan an essay, or identify the main idea in a paragraph. Yet another check is to ask students to explain or defend their position to others. Having to explain a position may help students integrate and elaborate their knowledge in new ways, or may help identify gaps in their understanding.
Another reason for the importance of teaching in small steps, guiding practice, and checking for understanding (as well as obtaining a high success rate, which we’ll explore in principle 7) comes from the fact that we all construct and reconstruct knowledge as we learn and use what we have learned. We cannot simply repeat what we hear word for word. Rather, we connect our under- standing of the new information to our existing concepts or “schema,” and we then construct a mental summary (i.e., the gist of what we have heard). However, when left on their own, many students make errors in the process of constructing this mental summary. These errors occur, particularly, when the information is new and the student does not have adequate or well-formed background knowledge. These constructions are not errors so much as attempts by the students to be logical in an area where their background knowledge is weak. These errors are so common that there is a research literature on the development and correction of student misconceptions in science. Providing guided practice after teaching small amounts of new material, and checking for student understanding, can help limit the development of misconceptions.
