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Berliner, David C., & Casanova, Ursula (1993).  Putting research to work in your school.  New York: Scholastic Leadership Policy Research.

 

TEACHING

Q: How appropriate are most teachers' assignments?
A: Teachers have a tendency to homogenize their classes.  They underestimate the abilities of their high achieving students and overestimate the abilities of their low achieving students.

 

Q: Are there any new teaching methods?  
A: Yes-- reciprocal teaching.

Research on Reciprocal Teaching

Children were taught four strategies:

• Questioning
• Summarizing
• Predicting
• Restating

In the beginning, teachers would prompt students, correct their answers, and model better ones. Students would practice giving the better responses.  Verbal praise for matching the model was given.  As students progressed, teachers would require students to assume the role of leader in the training session---hence, the name "reciprocal teaching".

 

Q: Are you teaching the right skills for remembering?
A: Better teachers teach metacognitive skills.  They:

1) give suggestions about what kinds of cognitive processing students could use in a particular lesson (e.g., using dictionaries, checking work for correctness, changing a novel problem into one they already know how to solve)

2) provide rationales for the use of  each strategy

 

How to make a good impression every day

There is a recognizable pattern for successfully opening a lesson without incurring behavioral problems:

1) not wasting time.  That is, teachers who experience the fewest behavioral management problems got the class started quickly, while those with more problems took twice or even four times as long.

2) establishing a routine. The more successful lessons relied on routines or scripts that were virtually automatic---call to order, quick roll call, opening remark about expectations, anticipation of confusions, call for questions.

3) visual scanning to quickly halt possible problems before they escalate.

 

Why you what you write on homework papers counts

Students who receive personal and pertinent feedback about homework errors outperform students who receive only their scores as feedback, rate their enjoyment of the subject higher, and show reduced anxiety about the topic.

 

How to increase scientific literacy:  teach it!

Few teachers "contextualize" science education---they spend roughly 98% of teaching time teaching facts.  Homework and tests are just as bad.  Students perform better if the following four factors are observed:

1) impact on society

2) knowledge about the reasoning processes used by scientists

3) knowledge about the historical development of science

4) development of positive attitudes toward science

 

Q: What do we know about well-managed classrooms?
A: Good classroom managers prevent most management problems from occurring by keeping events from escalating out of control.  They do this by:

• Sensible room arrangement
• Clear sight lines
• More clearly communicating rules to students
• Modeling procedures
• Giving rationales for procedures
• Monitoring student progress on instructional tasks more closely
• Using a variety of rewards, and using them frequently
• Maintaining accurate record keeping systems
• Giving prompt feedback about the acceptability of work
• Invoking penalties would rules were breached
• Rewarding and punishing consistently
• Knowing when to ignore bad behavior (if of short duration, unlikely to spread, correction would be more of an interruption, represented minor infraction).
• Being in the room when most students arrive
• Never leave their class alone during the first weeks

 

Managing instructional time: Time on task

In the typical class, students attend about 70% of the time.  However, time on task varies from 35-90%. In a 50 minute class period, a 90% TOT rate = 45 minutes of instruction; in the same class with a 35% TOT, there is only 17 & 1/2 minutes of instruction!

 

Teacher efficacy: How can teachers make a difference?

Teachers who feel strongly that good teachers can motivate even the most unmotivated students and that good teaching can overcome poor home environment are labeled high in efficacy.  They are:

• less likely to stratify their class by ability
• are less threatened by misbehavior
• communicated behavioral expectations more clearly
• seldom overlooked infractions
• had routine procedures for enforcing classroom rules
• were more likely to keep students and themselves on task (and monitored TOT more frequently)
• had higher standards (even for low-achieving students)
• built more positive and fewer punitive relations with students
• had more open communication with students
• appeared more supportive of student initiatives
• involved students in more decisions

 

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

Being the teacher helps students learn

Requiring students to teach segments of material helps them to achieve at higher levels (relative to receiving instruction or learning independently--but only if the material to be taught is demanding and at a high cognitive level.  However, students must do more than look up and read answers---they must rephrase, explain, and elaborate.

 

Q: When are two heads better than one?
A: When one member of a pair is high-ability and the other lower-ability.  The highest gains in learning for low ability students occurred when they were paired with high-ability students (big gain), while low-ability students working with other low-ability students had only modest gains.

 

Q: Which practice is more effective? 
A: Which of four practices reputed to increase learning had the greatest effect?

• Reduced class size: +9% math, +5% reading
• Increased instructional time: +1% math, +3% reading
• Computer-assisted instruction: +5% math, +9% reading
• Tutoring (peer and cross-age): +29% math, + 16% reading!

Source: Levin, H., Glass, G., & Meister G. (1987)

 

More on tutoring

Note: research shows that five factors are important in a successful tutoring program:

1) class preparation

2) selection of tutors

3) preparation of tutors

4) monitoring by the teacher

5) continuous assessment of student progress

 

The case for peer tutoring

A four-year study of class wide peer tutoring (CWPT) at the University of Kansas found that students who were at risk of academic failure approached or exceeded national norms by the completion of the study while students in a matched control group remained consistently below national norms.  Students in the experimental group scored on average 10% higher on standardized tests than students in the control group.

However, there were no advantages for students from high SES groups---therefore, the advantages of peer tutoring are not "across the board."

 

Tips for peer tutoring

A successful method is called "pause prompt, and praise".

• Pause 5s before correcting errors to give time for self-correction
• Prompts rather than straightforward corrections
• Praise because research showed that many tutors did not give enough reinforcement.

A study showed that while normal tutoring raised reading accomplishment by 20%, the "3P" technique showed a gain of 50%!

 

Use what students already know to teach new things

Nineteenth century German philosopher-psychologist J.F. Herbart said that new things can be learned only as they can be related to what is already in a person's mind.  A recent study by S.N. Ross (1985) confirmed this-- students who learned probability theory with examples tailored to their disciplines performed better relative to students who received generic examples.

 

Challenging misconceptions in science

Posner, Strike, Henson, & Gertzog (1982) suggested that four conditions need to exist in order to correct misconceptions:

1) a student must be dissatisfied with his or her existing concept

2) any new concept must be comprehensible

3) the new concept must appear as plausible as the misconception

4) the new concept has to be more useful than the previously held theory

 

Q: Are your students getting the most from their writing revisions?
A: Fitzgerald & Markham (1987) assumed that students could write better if they were taught explicit revision skills.  An "osmosis" control group read good literature but received no explicit training in revision, whereas the experimental group received direct instruction and revision for thirteen days (roughly four three-day cycles of 45 minute lessons).  Results showed that the trained group scored from 28-79% higher in number or specificity of recommended changes.  Trained students made 42% more revisions overall, with an estimated 20% improvement in the quality of writing.

 

MOTIVATION

Q: Is your classroom learning oriented?
A: Research has identified three types of classrooms:

• Work avoidance classrooms: students tried to do as little as possible, the teacher was accepting of this, the teacher accepted incomplete work, and there were more disruptions.
• Work oriented classrooms: the teacher emphasized external rewards and motivated with threats.
• Learning oriented classrooms: the teacher stressed personal reward, the challenge of work, and the fun of learning.  The teacher tended to start 2/3 of lessons with motivating statements; in more than half of the teacher's statement stressed the challenge, fun, and purpose of the lesson, the personal relevance of the material, etc.  The other two teachers use these techniques only about 10% of the time, instead emphasizing upcoming tests, making threats, and making personal demands for performance. 

As far as accomplishment, the work oriented classroom achieved slightly better performance but only slightly better than the learning oriented classroom.  Both were better than the work avoidance classroom.

 

Q: Do grades undermine motivation?
A: It depends on the type of evaluation.  Ruth Butler (1988) identified two types of evaluation:

1.  Task-involving:  giving students feedback about how they are doing on a specific activity. 

2. Ego-involving: feedback through grades or other norm referenced evaluations (i.e., those that compare a student's performance with that of other students).

Task-involving feedback seems to operate through pride of accomplishment, whereas ego-involving  feedback is concerned with personal worth.

Results showed that grades, relative to comments, produced lower scores.  As time went on, most of the group receiving task involving comments still found the tasks interesting, but students receiving grades had lost interest. 

 

Motivating students through project based learning

Project based learning was a trend in the early part of the 20th century.  However, the idea never really caught on and it faded away as a teaching method. Projects were time consuming, unpredictable in outcome, required independent and unsupervised work, and could be hard to assess.

Motivational researchers use three dimensions to describe classrooms and schools:

1) mastery vs. ability oriented

2) learning vs. performance oriented

3) task involvement vs. ego involvement

Mastery, learning, or task-involved students learn for the sake of it rather than for the rewards they might gain.  What kinds of activities might produce such desirable student behavior?  Instructional projects-- provided they meet three conditions.

a) they have a question or problem that serves to organize the activities involved in a project.

b) the activities have a real world quality-- that is, not too easy and without pre determined solutions.

c) the activities associated with a project must results in artifacts, for it is in the process of producing the artifact that knowledge is constructed (the learning is in the doing).

Student motivation is highest when projects have some novel elements, are authentic, are challenging, and have some sense of closure.

However, the uncertainty of projects can be anxiety provoking, nor will all projects pan out.

 

"Fictional inducements to attention"

The term comes from John Dewey, who noted that in order to keep interest in a particular topic, authors might lace a text with novel, personally involving but irrelevant bits of information that did not really address the ideas to be learned.  Ruth Garner (1992) tested the hypothesis that these seductive details might be better remembered than the main points.  She was right-- although such details might result in higher degree of motivation, they apparently can lead to lower achievement.  Students tend to remember whatever they find most interesting rather than what is most important.

 

The roots of Asian students' school achievement

According to Stevenson, Lee, & Stigler (1986), the superior performance of Asian schoolchildren was not due to special tutoring, superior ability, or higher IQs.  Rather, they identified three key factors:

1) more class time devoted to academics and to direct instruction

2) more support of children's academic activities from parents

3) more student effort encouraged by teachers and parents

Let's look at number three.  American teachers used 21% class time for direct instruction, compared to 50% for Chinese teachers and 30% for Japanese teachers. In fact, United States teachers spend more time giving directions (26%) than presenting instruction!  Regarding homework, Japanese students do much more homework than American students, and Chinese students do much more than Japanese. While only 63% of American students work at a desk at home, in Japan the rate was 98%.  Chinese parents provide assistance with homework over 90% more often than did American parents.

 

Changing minds to change behavior

Called behavior modification (CBM) was utilized with students who had mild but annoying behavior problems.  The experimental group received CBM twice a week for fifteen minutes at a time for four weeks.  The trainer used modeling, cueing and reinforcement.  The control group received lectures about behaving better.  Teachers did not know the group to which their students had been assigned. Results showed that time on task was 42% higher for the experimental group at the end of training, 99% higher after one month, an 84% higher at the end of three months.

 

SCHOOL AND SOCIETY

Q: Does culture effect reading comprehension?
A: American and East Indian adults read passages about either an American or Indian wedding and then answered questions about the passages.  Results showed that readers took more time to read a passage about the wedding that was not from their culture, recalled less from it, and were more likely to distort (as opposed to elaborate) the passage.

 

Big gains in reading overnight:  creating the right context for learning.

Diaz, Moll, & Mehan (1986) found reading gains of three years after children's instruction was changed.  Children in a bilingual program were performing at much higher levels and Spanish language instruction than in English language instruction-- not because of poor language skills, but rather because their capabilities were being underestimated by the teacher.  Performance in the English language classroom shot up after instruction was changed to a mixture of Spanish and English and more was demanded of them

 

Creating better school citizens

Five factors taught by instructors seem to have a large impact on prosocial behaviors:

1) use of cooperative learning where fairness, responsibility, helpfulness, and mutual respect were emphasized.

2) a discipline program based on self-control and personal commitment to the rules, where rules are developed through class discussion and teacher-student negotiations.

3) promotion of social understanding through both spontaneous events and formal means.

4) fostering helping activities through "Buddy" programs, helping others students, etc.

5) highlighting pro social values, such as recognizing students who share, cleanup, tutor, or take responsibility for helping someone else.

 

Effective schools: teachers make the difference

Researchers compared effective vs. ineffective schools.  Ten observable characteristics distinguished between the teacher's in the more and less affected schools.

1) Time on task higher

2) Number of interruptions lower

3) Higher teacher expectations

4) More positive reinforcement

5) Presented new material more frequently

6) Provided more frequent opportunities for independent practice

7) Friendlier classrooms

8) Rooms were more pleasant in appearance, with more student work displayed

9) Teachers spend less time sequestered away from students in the teacher's lounge

 

TESTING

Getting the best estimate of learning potential

Delcos, Burns, & Kulewisc (1987) compared static (traditional) assessment with dynamic assessment.  Dynamic assessment involves presented a novel problem, carefully explaining rules, strategies, and principles, and then providing feedback about solutions. the form his speech-test-give feedback-teach, as opposed to the traditional form test-test-test.  Teachers who saw videos of dynamic assessment read the potential of a given channel 61% higher compared to teachers who viewed videos of static assessments, suggesting that traditional assessments may underestimate potential and ability.

 

Student anxiety and test achievement

Andreas Helmke (1987) found that the higher the average levels of testing site in a class, the lower the achievement.  Several factors were found to increase anxiety:

1) Strict time management.  When time management was less strict, the debilitating effects of anxiety on achievement were not seen.  However, there is a tradeoff-- the higher the instructional density, the greater the achievement. 

2) Fewer opportunities for preview and review.

3) Less time informing students of what will happen next, where they should be, what they should be studying, etc.

4) Higher importance placed upon academic success.

 

Should students be made test wise?

Should we coach students in test taking skills?  Literature reviews find that in the majority studies, students who receive test test-wiseness training acted wiser on their tests---that is, they scored  higher on those tests than did students of equal ability who did not have test-wiseness training.  The more contact hours that were devoted to learning test-taking skills, the higher the test scores. However, note that data show diminishing returns as training time is increased above 20 to 30 hours.

 

Performance testing and education:  an increase in authenticity.

In many areas, performance tests are natural:  athletics, the arts, recitals, plays and debates.  However, these kinds of performance tests are "transparent"-- that is, test takers know what is coming, they know how to prepare for it so there are few surprises, standards for performance are known in advance, and those preparing for performance tests are coached.  

Grant Wiggins (1989) argues for the use of more performance tests in traditional academic areas.  Richard Shavelson (1991) found that students who score high on traditional tests many times were low on performance tests, and vice versa.