What learning strategies will produce our best results?
Alhambra Team Lead Summit 2023
Effective research-Based Instructional Strategies
What do we expect our students to learn?
How will we know they are learning?
How will we respond when they don’t learn??
How will we respond if they already know it?
Focus on Learning
When a school or district functions as a PLC, educators within the organization embrace high levels of learning for all students as both the reason the organization exits and the fundamental responsibility of those who work within it. DuFour, DuFour, Many, Mattos. (2016)
Prepared especially for the
Alhambra Professional Learning Network
by Dan Mulligan, drdanmulligan@gmail.com
July 2023
Enriching the life of the whole child in collaboration with families and the greater community. We promote a social and global consciousness that encompasses a profound respect for all humanity.
Our Learning Intentions
Learning Intentions:
What am I learning today?
I am learning research-based strategies that have a high correlation with improving engagement, critical thinking, and the achievement of students.
Why am I learning it?
Teachers account for about 30% of the variance in student growth. It is what teachers know, do, and care about which is very powerful in the learning equation. (Hattie, 2003)
How will I know when I have learned it?
I know I have it when I can purposefully implement effective research-based instructional strategies.
Resources �to Share
Don’t Steal Their Thinking!
Celebrating You!
Work collaboratively (e.g., construct viable arguments, critique, agree) to describe effective strategies.
Why are they effective?
What strategies worked well this year?
Creating an Environment for Learning
Bring your documents and meet someone new. �Find two seats, sit together, and say hello!
Four Second Partner
Don’t
Steal
Their
Thinking!
“We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”
~Ron Edmonds
Checks for Understanding Along the Way�(Chunking and Checking)
page
2
Zoom-in�Thinking Routine
Purpose: This routine asks learners to observe a portion of an image, video, article, graph, or book closely and develop a hypothesis.
Ask questions such as:
How did your interpretations shift and change over time?
How did seeing more of the image influence your thinking?
What parts were particularly rich in information and had a dramatic effect?
What would the effect have been if the reveals had happened in a different order?
I will name the parts of a book.
I will identify fiction and nonfiction books.
I will recognize letter sounds and letters in the alphabet.
I will recognize rhyming words
Driving Questions:
What are the important parts of a book?
How are fiction and nonfiction books alike?
How are fiction and nonfiction books different?
Front Cover Back Cover Spine
Title Author Illustrator
Fiction Nonfiction Letter Sounds
Rhyming Words
Thinking Routine: Diamond Board
Setting the Objective
and
Providing Feedback
Visible Learning
There are two reasons why we assess:
To inform instructional decisions (targeted learning stations)
To encourage each student to try
Checks for Understanding Along the Way�(Chunking and Checking)
page
3
Alhambra 5-Year
Strategic Plan
Summarizing�
And
Note-taking
Content Neutral Structure: �BLIND SEQUENCING
Please leave the cards in the Ziplock with this side (cover) face-up.
Directions:
Don’t
Steal Their
Thinking!
The Power of Connecting Student Learning �preassessment revisited as a part of closure�
Don’t
Steal
Their
Thinking
Rectangle
Shape
Circle
Square Corner
Side
Attribute
Round
Triangle
Corner
Square
Lion
Noun
Tree
Talk
Run
Verb
Sing
House
Climb
Ashanti
Long
Fluffy
Sweet
Sharp
Adjective
Content Neutral Structure: �BLIND SEQUENCING
Please leave the cards in the Ziplock with this side (cover) face-up.
Directions:
Phases of Moon
One Has to Go!
You must remove one choice.
Which one would you choose to go?
________________________
What makes you say that?
(explain your choice)
One Has to Go!
You must remove one choice.
Which one would you choose to go?
________________________
What makes you say that?
(explain your choice)
One Has to Go!
You must remove one choice.
Which one would you choose to go?
________________________
What makes you say that?
(explain your choice)
Checks for Understanding Along the Way�(Chunking and Checking)
page
4
Advanced Organizers
Use Visuals
Advanced organizers help students organize the information and retain 5 times more of the information.
VENN DIAGRAMS
Red
Thick
Small
VENN DIAGRAMS
Plants
Animals
Resources
Resources
Good Instruction�(Keep it Simple…Keep it Real)
“We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”
~Ron Edmonds
High Expectations for Each Student
“No one rises to low expectations.”
~Carl Boyd
Kinds of Evidence – Continuum of Evidence�Informal Check for Understanding�
Name a noun. | Form a sentence. |
Name a verb. | Name an adjective |
KEY QUESTION: Why are common assessments so important?
“You can enhance or destroy students’ desire to succeed in school more quickly and permanently through your use of assessment than with any other tools you have at your disposal.” Rick Stiggins, Assessment Trainers Institute
WHY do we ASSESS:
1. INFORM INSTRUCTIONAL DECISIONS
2. ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO TRY
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Communicating
Effectively
Listening and Speaking
Follow-up Debriefing
Key Question
Did your performance on the second attempt to complete the grid exercise improve after having an opportunity to self-assess your initial strategy?
Formative Assessment
Council of Chief State School Officers, October 2006
Notes:
Process rather than a particular test….
It is not the nature of the test itself that makes it formative or summative…it is the use to which those results will be put.
ALHAMBRA ELEMENTARY SCOOL DISTRICT
A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
ORGANIZATION
Helping Students Develop Understanding
Purposefully facilitate students collaborating to create interactive notes to archive essential understandings based on unpacked standards (and PLD).
NOTE: Kindergarten notebooks are created for students by teams of teachers prior to the new school year. The right page is the teacher page (providing information and examples) and the left page is the student page (for students to practice or apply).
Summarizing and Note-taking
Asking students to identify what’s essential and then put it in their own words and/or images increases comprehension.
Unit Glossary Template
Student-Generated
Glossary
Determining
Depth of
Knowledge
Instructional Strategy:��Motor Mouth
Purpose: To build and ‘check for’ background knowledge
Resources