Classroom instruction

Antwuan Stinson, Ed. D.
Assistant Professor of Secondary Education
Curriculum & Instruction
Alabama State University
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Planning, Pedagogy, Reflection

To be prepared for the future, our students
need a more advanced set of skills.
Employers are seeking college graduates with
the capacity to think about problems in new
ways, design their own solutions, and
collaborate and communicate in multicultural
settings. By 2018, 63 percent of all U.S. job
openings will require at least some college
coursework.

Moreover, today’s students will become the
next generation of leaders and citizens.
They’ll face complex environmental and
social problems, like climate change and
global poverty. To meet those challenges,
they’ll need to be able to work together and
think analytically. As Albert Einstein said, “We
can’t solve problems by using the same kind
of thinking we used when we created them.”

 Impact schools are demonstrating that
students who are engaged in deeper learning
are more motivated and take ownership of
their education
 Impact schools are teaching students
knowledge and to recall facts, but also how to
apply what they know to real-world
situations.

 Stronger students work
well in teams,
communicate
effectively, solve
problems, manage
their own priorities and
goals, and believe in
hard work.

 In the early 1990s, a team of researchers
decided to follow about 40 volunteer families
— some poor, some middle class, some rich
— during the first three years of their new
children's lives. Every month, the researchers
recorded an hour of sound from the families'
homes. Later in the lab, the team listened
back and painstakingly tallied up the total
number of words spoken in each household.

 What they found came to be known as the
"word gap."
 It turned out, by the age of 3, children born
into low-income families heard roughly 30
million fewer words than their more affluent
peers.
 Research since then has revealed that the
"word gap" factors into a compounding
achievement gap between the poor and the
better-off in school and life.

Identifying
Similarities &
Differences
Summarizing
& Note Taking
Reinforcing Effort
& Providing
Recognition
Homework and
Practice
Nonlinguistic
Representations
Cooperative
Learning
Setting
Objectives &
Providing
Feedback
Generating &
Testing
Hypotheses
Questions,
Cues, & Adv.
Organizers

Course Objective
 This survey course introduces students to
major topics in modern American history,
with special attention on subjects such as
Reconstruction, the closing of the frontier,
immigration, suffrage, industrialization,
twentieth-century world wars and global
depressions, the Cold War, civil rights,
ecology, Vietnam, and the Watergate era and
the rise of modern American partisanship.

1. Discuss objective for lesson
2. Set standard
3. Anticipatory set-get students’ interest
4. Teaching – input, modeling, check for
understanding
5. Guided practice
6. Closure – questions – cues to wrap up
7. Independent practice

22
Low Expectations
Poor Test
Results
Low Level
Assignments/
Instruction
Less Challenging
Courses

23
Higher Expectations
Improve
Test Results
Relevant
Assignments/
Instructions
Student
driven
Instruction
Improved Planning
/ Preparation
Clear
Objectives
Immediate
Feedback
Mentoring
Reflection
Discussion
Strategic
Teaching
Reflection
Assessment
Strategies

 One or more daily outcome(s) based on state
standards
 Two everyday instructional practice: chunking
(breaking text, lectures, video, etc. into small,
manageable pieces) and student discussion of
concepts
 Three parts to a purposeful lesson structure:
using connected Before, During, and After
literacy strategies

 Four steps to explicit instruction: “I Do”, “We
Do”, Y’all Do”, and “You Do”
 Five component of active literacy: talk, write,
investigate, read, and listen (T.W.I.R.L.)

 Lower level questions are those at the level
remembering, understanding and lower
level application levels of the taxonomy
 Usually questions at the lower levels are
appropriate for:
◦ Evaluating students’ preparation and
comprehension
◦ Diagnosing students’ strengths and weaknesses
◦ Reviewing and/or summarizing content

 Higher level questions are those requiring
complex application, analysis, evaluation or
creation skills
 Questions at higher levels of the taxonomy
are usually most appropriate for:
◦ Encouraging students to think more deeply and
critically
◦ Problem solving
◦ Encouraging discussions
◦ Stimulating students to seek information on their
own

 Visual/spatial – Students possess the ability to accurately
perceive the visual/spatial world.
 Verbal/Linguistics – Students possess the ability to use
words whether in written or spoken form. They think and
express themselves in words. The most widely used form of
intelligence.
 Musical/rhythmic – Students possess the ability to
produce rhythm, pitch, melody, and timbre, and appreciate
musical expression. They think via sounds, melodies, and
rhythms.

 Logical/mathematical – Students possess the ability
to discern logical patterns and relationships. They think
by reasoning.
 Bodily/Kinesthetics - Students possess the ability to
control their body movements and express ideas and
feelings through movement. They also have a good sense
of timing. Students think and feel through bodily
movement.
 Interpersonal/social – Students possess the ability to
perceive and discern moods, intentions, motivations,
temperaments in people; they are sensitive to both
verbal and nonverbal communication. They think by
sharing ideas with one another.

Student Personalities
Howard Gardner
 Intrapersonal/introspective – Students possess self-knowledge
and self-awareness, and the ability to express
themselves. They understand their own emotive states.
They think inside themselves.
 Naturalist/physical world – Students possess the
ability to observe, categorize, and analyze nature and
their environment. They think through organization
themes.

 10 Hands: After you ask a question in class,
wait for at least 10 students to raise their
hands before you call on someone to share
their answer. Too often, we call on the
students who raise their hands first. Tell your
students you want to give everyone time to
think and process the question, therefore
you’re going to wait until at least 10 hands
are raised.

 Collaborative Real Time Writing Prompt: If you
have access to Google Docs or another shared
writing platform, give students a writing prompt
or a question to think about. Post it on the
Google Doc and give all students real-time
access to the document. During class, allow
students time to think and write together. Watch
the document come to life. You can also
consider projecting their document on the screen
so everyone can see how ideas transform and
grow with more time to think.

 Read, Record, Reflect, & Review: During class, assign
a reading. The reading could be a section of a
chapter, an excerpt from a journal article, a chart or
diagram to analyze, or a creative piece of work. Any
type of reading task will work. Ask students to read
it and record any interesting points, relevant quotes,
or confusing information. They may record it in their
notes, on a worksheet, on a computer screen, on the
board, etc. It doesn’t matter how they record it as
long as they document what they see, think, or
feel. This process makes learning visible, and that’s
what we want to encourage them to do. Give them
time to go back and review the reading and make
additional notes.

 You could end this activity by asking them to
choose only one or two notes to discuss as a
class, or you could do a follow up activity
with their notes that allows everyone to share
their ideas. The point of this reflective
activity is to guide students through reading
for critical analysis, not just for
comprehension. Slowing down and giving
them time to do all four parts of reading,
recording, reflecting, and reviewing
encourages them to re-read and to think.

We can support students’ information processing by
supplementing auditory information with visual clues.
When we can provide students with multi-sensory
experiences observing and communicating, it helps all
students, especially emerging readers and English
language learners. Instructions should be given using a
variety of visual or aural support materials:
 drawings, diagrams, and pictures to support the spoken
word
 written instructions on word cards or SmartBoard along
with verbal instructions
 set-up examples to supplement written lab instructions
 audiotaped instructions alongside written directions
 pictures with words in stages of lab procedures that
students can sequence
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/7079?style=print

 Limit traditional vocabulary
instruction. Traditional science vocabulary
instruction, in which words are taught in
isolation, is not conducive to conceptual
development.
 Pair students with peers during reading.
 Use active voice when introducing or
discussing concepts. Students understand
active voice better than passive voice.
“Animals use oxygen,” for example, rather
than “Oxygen is used by animals.”

Encourage “instruction talk” brainstorming. Provide
students with opportunities to brainstorm ideas
about science and encourage them to wonder
and talk about the natural world. For example,
teachers can help students learn about the
process of science classification. Provide
students with sets of objects with varying
features like buttons or dried beans and ask
students to work in small groups and discuss
properties for grouping the objects. When groups
share their categories with each other, students
have an opportunity to experience conversations.

 Integrate technology into your instruction. It
is helpful to engage students — particularly
ELLs — with a variety of visual and aural
alternatives. The use of technology can help
to reinforce instruction and provide students
with multi-sensory connections.
Minor class
assignments
Immediate
feedback
Reteaching

 Engage students in instructional
conversations. In instructional conversations,
students have discussions with other
students and the teacher on topics that are
relevant and have meaning to them. The goal
of this student-centered technique is not to
get correct answers to test questions, but
instead to explore ideas.
Minor class
assignments
Immediate
feedback
Reteaching

 Work with students to identify the different
meanings and applications of words with
multiple meanings.
 Words with multiple meanings can be
confusing for students
 Provide experiences that show abstract
concepts are drawn from and applied to the
everyday world
http://www.tolerance.org/supplement/five-standards-
effective-pedagogy

 Use direct instruction of word learning
strategies, including structural analysis. In
structural analysis, students examine the
component parts of a word — e.g. the root
word, suffix, and prefix — to determine the
word’s meaning. Teaching students this
strategy can empower them to decode
unfamiliar words.

 Begins activities with what students already
know from home, community, and school.
 Designs instructional activities that are
meaningful to students in terms of local
community norms and knowledge.
 Acquires knowledge of local norms and
knowledge by talking to students, parents or
family members, community members, and by
reading pertinent documents.
 Assists students to connect and apply their
learning to home and community.

 Plans jointly with students to design community-based
learning activities
 Provides opportunities for parents or families to
participate in classroom instructional activities.
 Varies activities to include students’ preferences,
from collective and cooperative to individual and
competitive.
 Varies styles of conversation and participation to
include students’ cultural preferences, such as
co-narration, call-and-response, and choral,
among others.

 Arrange the classroom to accommodate
conversation between the teacher and a small
group of students on a regular and frequent
basis.
 Set clear academic goal that guides conversation
with students.
 Ensure that student talk occurs at higher rates
than teacher talk.
 Guide conversation to include students’ views,
judgments, and rationales using text evidence
and other substantive support.

 Ensure that all students are included in the
conversation according to their preferences
 Listen carefully to assess levels of students’
understanding.
 Assist students’ learning throughout the
conversation by questioning, restating,
praising, encouraging, etc.

 An effective teacher chooses a strategy to fit
a particular situation. By remaining flexible
and observant, we can determine which
strategy may be most effective.
 http://www.naeyc.org/dap/10-effective-dap-
teaching-strategies

 Acknowledge what children do or say. Let
children know that we have noticed by giving
positive attention, sometimes through
comments, sometimes through just sitting
nearby and observing.
 Encourage persistence and effort rather than
just praising and evaluating what the child
has done.
 Give specific feedback rather than general
comments.

 Demonstrate the correct way to do
something.
 Ask questions that provoke higher order
thinking.
 Provide information, directly giving children
facts, verbal labels, and other information.
20 Instructional Strategies for Success
http://www.oswego.org/files/5/20is.pdf

Classroom instruction

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