Rosenshine's Principles in Action

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findings from studies that taught learning strategies to students – specifically, research from cognitive science on ‘cognitive supports and scaffolds that helped students learn complex tasks’ (59). (‘Scaffolds’ are temporary instructional supports that are used to assist learners, which should be gradually withdrawn as students gain competency at the respective task or with the respective material to be learned (p. 18)). Our blog last week offered a brief introduction to Barak Rosenshine’s influential ‘Principles of Instruction’ and Tom Sherrington’s division of Rosenshine’s principles into four ‘strands’, in his book, Rosenshine’s Principles in Action. Sherrington uses the strands to explain Rosenshine’s principles, by connecting the principles with those to which they bear the closest relations, illustrating how the principles complement and support one another, and offering practical advice for their implementation, in addition to that offered by Rosenshine. This week’s blog post explores Sherrington’s strands and Rosenshine’s principles in more detail. Rosenshine’s article and Sherrington’s book are the subject matter for this term’s CIRL Reading Group. This blog post provides a brief introduction to Rosenshine’s principles and Sherrington’s four strands. We’ll publish further blog posts this term on Rosenshine’s principles and Sherrington’s interpretation of them, going into more specific detail on the principles and the strands into which Sherrington places them. Rosenshine’s ‘Principles of Instruction’

Rosenshine writes that more effective teachers incorporate modelling and scaffolding into the process of offering explanations. By so doing, Rosenshine suggests that master teachers provide well-structured support for students as they build their schemata for new concepts (Sherrington, p. 15). ‘Schemata’ Thanks for framing your response – even though I’ve followed your blog for a while and have a fair idea of your views on certain topics it’s still useful to work out where you’re coming from! Sherrington adds some detail to the strand summaries in the poster above in a blog post where he argues that Rosenshine’s ‘Principles of Instruction’ is ‘THE must-read for all teachers’. Rosenshine suggests that a success rate of around 70% is too low. In the only issue he raises with Rosenshine’s principles, Sherrington suggests that we shouldn’t worry too much about the precision here; we might find that a lower success rate is in fact optimum.Mastery requires a great deal of practice; so, there needs to be sufficient practice at each step. Where possible, complex concepts, theories, procedures, methods and pieces of knowledge need to be broken down into simpler ones, each of which can be practised as a student develops their understanding of the more complex area to be learned. Rosenshine calls this ‘mastery learning’: ‘a form of instruction where lessons are organized into short units and all students are required to master one set of lessons before they proceed to the next set’ (p. 17). He reports that more effective teachers ‘presented only small amounts of material at a time’ (p. 16) and taught in small steps with sufficient practice given to each step before proceeding (p. 17). First published in 2010 by the International Academy of Education; republished in 2012 as‘Principles of Instruction: Research-based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know’, in American Educator. References are to the latter.

In a book published last year, Rosenshine’s Principles in Action, educator and writer Tom Sherrington divides Rosenshine’s ten principles into four ‘strands’. He uses the strands to explain each of Rosenshine’s principles by connecting the principles with those to which they bear the closest relations, illustrating how the principles complement and support one another, and offering additional practical advice for their implementation. Objective: to get students to work effectively in pairs as a means of involving all students and generating more material to be explored in subsequent discussions. Rosenshine also writes that the most effective teachers taught material ‘in small steps followed by practice’, indicating the connection Sherrington observes between this principle and the fifth principle. Here we can also see a connection with the second principle, ‘present new material using small steps’. Anyway, Sherrington’s practical suggestions are insightful and his style highly personable. His coverage of each principle reads a bit as a blog post. It wouldn’t surprise me if they originally were – not a criticism in any way as the author’s voice really comes through. Provide models: Providing students with models and worked examples can help them learn to solve problems faster.’ (Rosenshine, p. 15.) Worked examplesSherrington offers six questioning strategies based on Rosenshine’s principles. Sherrington outlines the objective of each and how it should be undertaken in practice. He recommends that teachers work on one or two of these strategies with students, accompanied by students engaging in ‘deliberate practice’ until these strategies ‘form a set of … default modes for engaging in responsive teaching’ (Sherrington, p. 28). ‘Deliberate practice’ is a systematic method of effortful, highly focused, goal-oriented practice which aims at improving performance. [3] It is sometimes described as ‘intentional engagement in skill-based learning’. [4] (On deliberate practice, see our recent blog post.) Sherrington writes that ‘ideally [this strategy] needs to be the default mode for most questions – absolutely routine’. He also writes: In relation to the above learning model, Rosenshine suggests that more effective teachers recognise the need to deal with the limitations of working memory by breaking down concepts and procedures into small steps, and ensure that students have the opportunity to practise each step (Sherrington, p. 15).

There is a danger that by suggesting this is a ‘basic flow of many learning experiences’, the author (as an experienced teacher) is suggesting it is preferable, and it is very much taken out of subject context. A ‘worked example’ is a form of modelling where a teacher provides ‘a step-by-step demonstration of how to perform a task or how to solve a problem’ (Rosenshine, p. 15). Rosenshine suggests that ‘more effective teachers’ often ‘provide students with many worked examples so that the general patterns are clear, providing a strong basis from which to learn’ (Sherrington, p. 21). By contrast, Rosenshine argues that ‘less effective teachers’ often do not ‘provide enough worked examples’, which adds to cognitive load, leaves students unsure of procedures and how to apply them (Sherrington, p. 21).Objective: to ask each student multiple responsive questions, to explore their level of knowledge and understanding.