When I started my first ever teaching job as a Parateacher (which is sadly a cover teacher, rather than a teacher who comes to work via parachute) I worked with an amazing school principal. After my interview, she suggested 3 books that in her words were ‘all I needed to read’ to understand how to be a good teacher. (Although putting them into practice to be a good teacher is another matter…)
One of these books was Rosenshine’s Principles in Action, by Tom Sherrington. It delved into Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and talked about them within the context of the classroom. Naturally, being a fresh young teacher, I dived into reading and making notes on them, and as I teach I find more and more how integral they are in the classroom.
Are you ready to unravel these principles of instruction for teachers and tutors? Or, as a student, see some of the thinking behind learning, and strategies for academic success?
Then please, lend me your ears (well, technically your eyes, since you’re reading this blog post), and without further ado, let’s jump right into it:
Principle 1: Daily review
This principle is all about reviewing past content, mainly for a few minutes at the beginning of each lesson. This is helpful for 2 main reasons. Firstly, it helps relieve our cognitive load and register information into our long-term memories so that it can be recalled accurately in the future. It also helps us iron out any misconceptions students may have to ensure that future learning isn’t based on a mistake.
These reviews can not only help us to identify areas for improvement, but can show students their mistakes are not inherently bad – but are instead often opportunities to learn!
But reviews are not just for those struggling with material. For those who fully understand the content, reviews can lead to what is known as ‘overlearning’, where the information becomes second nature and students can therefore recall it with ease.
There is a fun activity that teachers can use in order for information to become second nature for students! Line up your students in two rows facing one another, and get them to ask/answer questions with their partner while playing catch (with a volleyball etc). This allows them to focus on the physical activity, while the content becomes second nature to them. (This works especially well in languages for students to practise having conversations.)
In short: if you think of your brain as a storage room/attic, reviewing is like a housekeeper who keeps everything neat and tidy. A daily review dusts off the cobwebs and keeps the learned material from being lost in the dark corners of forgetfulness.
Principle 2: Present new material using small steps
Breaking down learning into smaller, manageable chunks – or ‘chunking’, as you may be familiar with it – prevents cognitive overload and makes it easier for students to understand.
Not only does it protect our students’ cognitive load by not bombarding them with all information at once, but it also creates building blocks for us as teachers to monitor the students’ progress.
Slowly progressing through information by taking it a bit at a time allows students to feel a sense of achievement at each stage, and encourages them to not give up when they hit a barrier – (sometimes we even get extra lucky, and it encourages them to show their working for each step!!).
Think of it as a meal: serving a 7-course dinner all at once? Not the best idea, unless you want your guests (or students) to go into a food (or information) coma. Breaking down learning into digestible, bite-sized pieces keeps cognitive overload at bay and allows for more comfortable and effective learning. Always remember, the ‘morsel’ the merrier!
Principle 3: Ask questions
What’s a great way to encourage learning? Asking questions! They create an interactive lesson which is much more engaging for students.
A study was conducted with two lessons teaching the same material: one where the teacher asked many questions that involved the students recalling factual information, and one with very few questions. The students in the class with more questions performed much better when tested on the knowledge.
Personally, I like to have quick fire questions part way through the lesson to ensure students have been listening so far (these are often accompanied by house points or sweets for students who correctly answer the questions asked). If there’s one thing all teachers know – sweets work!
But it is not just the quantity of questions that is important – it is the quality. Asking very simple questions over and over will not stretch our students in their learning. We should ask targeted questions, deciding in the moment on the level of the questions based on what level of understanding a particular student is at.
Questions that build on previous questions can also be a great way of integrating principle 2 into this.
Effective questions will keep the learners engaged and connect new material to what they already know.
Principle 4: Provide models
Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean we need to start incorporating photo shoots into our lessons. Providing models, in this context, means offering examples or demonstrations. They’re like the instructional IKEA manuals, guiding students on how to assemble their newly acquired knowledge effectively.
It is very important when we provide these models to complete them exactly how we would like the students to complete similar questions. For example, in physics calculation questions, I always begin by writing the formula, stating the variables (even if they are obvious in the questions), then substitute these in. I also ensure that my working is complete, and equal signs are lined up, just as I would expect my students to complete an exam question.
This modelling is also a form of scaffolding, which we will discuss more when we reach principle 8.
Principle 5: Guide student practice
Rosenshine recommends that we give students plenty of time to practice, but with our guidance, so that they may develop their own learning and ask us questions if they become stuck. We can direct our students to certain questions that build on their prior knowledge, and encourage them to try different methods if they reach a section they are unsure of.
Think of yourself as guide dog – it is your job to guide your students down the right path and help them avoid bumping into errors or falling into pits of misunderstanding.
Principle 6: Check for student understanding
This principle emphasises the importance of regularly checking students’ understanding to avoid them developing, and then building upon, misconceptions.
As stated above, questions are a great way to achieve this. As is regularly grading short tasks and providing feedback on these. Asking your students to partake in a rating system where they rate their own understating of a topic can also be helpful here.
One of my favourite ways of gauging student understanding is to ask a student to explain a topic to me and the other students – this forces them to put it into words and helps their brain select which parts of the information are most important. This is the engineering side of teaching – running diagnostics on your students’ brains to identify any potential problems before they develop.
Principle 7: Obtain a high success rate
If I’m honest, this is my least favourite of the principles.
As teachers, of course we want to see our students succeed, and we are very much judged on the overall performance of our classes.
I am not saying that we should not be aiming for a high success rate – of course we should. But not at the cost of understanding.
Personally, I think it is much more important for a student to understand a formula, where it comes from and how to apply it to different scenarios, rather than just completing the same style of questions over and over to memorise how to answer that specific question.
If we focus on helping our students to understand well, then the high success rate should follow. We sometimes forget the importance of their overall understanding when we are forced to prepare them to do well in exams over and over again.
That being said, high success rates increase student motivation and confidence. It’s like making pancakes – the first one might be a disaster, but practice (and a decent recipe) makes perfect. Rosenshine suggests we aim for an 80% success rate, so students are being challenged, but not without learning anything.
Principle 8: Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks
Here, Rosenshine isn’t encouraging construction work in the classroom, but the use of aids or tools that assist students to complete tasks beyond their current abilities.
Using scaffolds can be as simple as annotating questions/models, showing what information they already know is needed for each step. We can break down problems and ask questions at each step – starting from the simpler steps at the beginning (which helps to boost confidence), and gradually building up to the newer content later in the questions. This guides students through a problem and helps to show them that a problem is often not as scary as it may look.
It’s like using a ladder to reach the top shelf – and yes, you’re allowed to feel like King Kong when you finally reach the top!
The goal is to gradually remove these scaffolds until students are confident to go at it alone.
Principle 9: Independent practice
Independent practice allows students to reinforce and consolidate their understanding, leading to better long-term retention of information.
This brings us back to the concept of ‘overlearning’ – knowing a topic so well that it is consolidated in your long-term memory, thereby freeing up space in your working memory for new concepts.
Independent practice (especially when students are instructed to use their own notes if they get stuck before asking the teacher for help) will encourage our students to become independent learners.
Independent practice is like basketball training to prepare your student for the big game (the exam)!
Principle 10: Weekly and monthly reviews
And we’ve come full circle! Regular reviews are the ‘maintenance visits’ to the knowledge attic we talked about earlier. They help to ensure that not only is the new knowledge well-seated, but it’s also nicely integrated with the old. After all, nobody likes a messy attic!
These reviews can come in many forms: from homework, or full or partial lessons dedicated to reviews, to end of topic/end of term exams. Take any opportunity you can to get your students to recall previous information – the more often they recall it, the easier the recalls will get.
By now, you’re probably seeing why Rosenshine’s principles are all the rage in effective teaching. Like a skilled juggler keeping all balls in the air, an educator employing these principles ensures all facets of learning are tended to. The beauty lies not only in the balanced approach but also in the adaptability, flexibility, and depth that these principles allow. They lie on the basis of well-established theories such as retrieval practice, growth mindset and cognitive load theory.
So, the next time you’re in your classroom, remember: be the juggler. Keep all the learning balls in the air and the circus of education exciting and engaging.
In the end, isn’t that what we’re all here for?
Our math teacher incorporates all of these methods; so this is where she got it from!