Best-Practice Instruction in Birdville ISD

Crysten CavinessCurriculum Management Specialist

Birdville ISD

Best-Practice Instruction

Objectives

Explore BISD’s Learning Platform

Identify, analyze, and apply Marzano’s 9 best-practice strategies

Make connections between the work we have been doing in BISD and the next steps we

need to take

Brainstorm classroom applications for the strategies we apply to our own learning today

Explanation Game

BISD Alignment Model

BISD Learning Platform

BISD Learning Platform

STUDENT-CENTERED

INTERACTIVE

COGNITIVE

Standards

Student-Centered

The focus is on what STUDENTS do, not what the teacher is doing. It is about the LEARNING.

Students will be involved in more authentic tasks that are challenging and provide experiences that lead to holistic learning.

CognitiveThis is about the RIGOR - higher-order, conceptual learning.

This represents the THINKING required by the standards. Learning causes students to construct their thinking according to their developmental stage.

When they can reflect upon and express this, their thinking is made visible and teachers can better assess their levels of cognition to determine necessary scaffolding.

Interactive

This is about the dynamics and structures of the class, as well as the locus of control.

Teachers empower students to be more accountable for their own learning and provide opportunities for sociable collaboration that allows students to interact not only with each other, but with their own learning.

Learning expectations for students

Teachers deeply understand the content, context, and cognitive requirements of the

standards

Teachers explicitly communicate learning expectations so students clearly understand

and can take ownership over their own learning

Teachers design learning tasks that closely align to the content, context, and cognitive

requirements of the standards

Teachers and students monitor learning toward achievement of standards

Feedback based on student performance

Mostly formative and reflective

Triangulation of data: numerical, descriptive, observational feedback

Timing and efficiency of assessments

Feedback from teacher, peers, and self-reflection throughout the learning cycle

Authentic Student Tasks and Products

The focus is on what students are actually doing each day

The work students do causes them to engage in the content, context, and

cognitive rigor of the standards

Students are able to demonstrate understanding of the connection between

the standards and their work tasks and products

Robert Marzano and John Hattie have both done extensive work in determining what effect certain teaching strategies and structures have on learning.

How much do we know about these best-practice strategies and structures?

Best-practice strategies and structures

Best Practices

Average Percentile

Point Gains on Student

Achievement Tests

Advance Organizer

How did this strategy push my thinking?

What processes did I go through in my brain throughout the activity?

How could I use this to advance student learning in my classroom?

5 Out of 9

Used analogies to find similarities

between concepts and practices

Set objectives Generated and tested hypotheses

Incorporated Cooperative

Learning

Begun an advance organizer that also serves as a guide for note-taking

We have already. . .

Setting Objectives& Providing Feedback

Research:• Students learn

more efficiently when they know the goals and objectives of a specific lesson or learning activity.

Cooperative Learning

Research:• Organizing

students into cooperative groups yields a positive effect on overall learning if approach is systematic and consistent.

Generating & Testing Hypotheses

Research:• Generating and

testing hypotheses involves the application of knowledge, which enhances learning.

Generating & Testing Hypotheses

Examples of Strategies

Problem Solving Investigation

Invention Experimental Inquiry

Decision-Making

Questions, Cues &Advance Organizers

Questions • Help students analyze what they already

know

Cues• Provide explicit reminders about what a

student is about to experience

Advance Organizers• Help students retrieve what they know about a topic

and focus on the new information

Questions, Cues &Advance Organizers

Recommendations:

Introduce new vocabulary

Provide links to prior knowledge or experiences

Begin with student predictions

Tell students the topic of an article they are about to

read

Provide ways for students to

organize new content

Identifying Similarities and Differences

Research:The ability to break a concept into its similar and dissimilar characteristics allows students to understand and solve complex problems by analyzing them in a more simple way.

Identifying Similarities and Differences

-Comparing • similarities

and differences

-Classifying • grouping

things that are alike

-Metaphors• comparing

two unlike things

-Analogies• identifying

relationships between pairs of

Identifying Similarities and Differences

Recommendations:

Give students a model for the

process.

Use familiar content to teach steps.

Give students graphic organizers.

Guide students as needed.

Identifying Similarities and Differences

• Where does each Marzano category fit on the learning platform?

• WHY?Step 1

• What parts of the learning platform remain?

• How does it meet and go beyond Marzano?

Step 2

• How are these qualities SIMILAR and/or DIFFERENT from what you already do in your classroom?Step 3

How did this strategy push my thinking?

What processes did I go through in my brain throughout the activity?

How could I use this to advance student learning in my classroom?

Valuable Homework and Practice

Research:• Both homework

and practice give students opportunities to deepen their understanding and proficiency with content they are learning.

Increasing Value in Homework and Practice

Let’s Discuss!

Non-Linguistic Representations

Research:• Engaging students

in the creation of nonlinguistic representations actually stimulates and increases activity in the brain

Non Linguistic Representations

Recommendations:

Generating mental images

Drawing pictures or pictographs

Constructing graphic organizers Acting out content

Making physical models

Making revisions to physical models, mental images, pictures, graphic

organizers

Non-Linguistic Representations

Non Linguistic Representations

Make thinking visible

Activate current

knowledge

Present information Take notes

Summarize information

Assess student learning

Non-Linguistic Representations

Use Graphic Organizers to:

Using Non-Linguistic Representations

Setting objectives and providing feedback

Incorporating cooperative learning effectively

Summarizing and note-taking

Reinforcing effort and providing recognition

Increasing value in homework and practice

Generating and testing hypotheses

Identifying similarities and differences

Using non-linguistic representations

Questions, cues and advance organizers

How did this strategy push my thinking?

What processes did I go through in my brain throughout the activity?

How could I use this to advance student learning in my classroom?

Rewards do not necessarily have a negative effect on

intrinsic motivation.

Reward is most effective when it is contingent on the attainment of some

standard of performance.

Symbolic recognition is more effective than

tangible rewards. (charts)

Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition

Recognize effort & progress

throughout unitSpecific praise Intermittent

celebrations

Students chart effort and

achievement

Students record progress toward

goals

Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition

Recommendations:

Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition

Summarizing and Note Taking

- encourages powerful learning

- leads to deeper understanding

- facilitates long-term recall

Verbatim note taking is the least effective way to take notes.

Summarizing

Verbal summaries Written summaries

Graphic organizers

Have students paraphrase key

points

Revise and interact with

notes during and after learning

Recommendations

Note Taking

Research• Note taking and

summarizing are closely related. Both require students to identify what is most important about the knowledge they are learning and then state that knowledge in their own words.

Note Taking

Explicitly teach students a variety

of note-taking formats

Provide an organizer for taking notes

Have students revise and review

their notes

Provide an activity for students to use

their notes

Recommendations

Headlines

Think Write

DiscussShare

Advance Organizer

How did this strategy push my thinking?

What processes did I go through in my brain throughout the activity?

How could I use this to advance student learning in my classroom?

Best-Practice Teaching

Involves incorporating all

pedagogical categories

All strategies will not work all of

the time

Categories help us select strategies based upon their

purposes

Accounts for the art and science of

teaching

Critical for the shift to a learning

platform

Critical to ensuring that all students learn

Best Practices

We hit them all!

Website

Professional Development

One step at a time toward a platform of learning in BISD

http://schools.birdvilleschools.net/surveys