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Educational ResearchUncategorized

Adapting Stoic Techniques to Evidence-Based Strategies, Part 1

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Like Leonardo Da Vinci, we must base our practice on sound theory. When we don’t, we fail to improve the thinking that underlies our efforts. How can educators find research shown to work in practice?

“Practice must always be founded on sound theory. Those who are in love with practice without theoretical knowledge are like the sailor who goes onto a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain wither he is going” (Source: Leonardo Da Vinci, 1510, as cited).

In the article the Da Vinci quote appears in, the author suggests five techniques to think better. Let’s explore the first in light of evidence-based, instructional strategies. This may provide some insight into why they work so well.

Technique #1 – Practice Negative Visualization

This is an approach where you imagine the effects of poor teaching. The goal is to develop more detailed plans that take into account what could go right as well as what might go wrong.

An Example of Negative Visualization

I am often reminded of when I first became aware of this technique. The principal at my elementary school in a small urban, inner-city district introduced me to it. “Let’s take a moment to write down everything that could go wrong.” At the time, we were planning on networking a computer lab with AppleTalk.

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After a few minutes of brainstorming and throwing ideas at the wall, we had a list of possible problems. We then spent some time adjusting our plans to include workarounds or solutions. I later came to see this as a list of roadblocks and detours. Over the years, I’ve often listed roadblocks to spotlight obstacles. Then, brainstormed with the team on how to solve them.

Why Thinking Is So Hard

“That’s not going to happen,” I would sometimes hear from my team. This often resulted when a team member’s enthusiasm (or mine) interfered with thinking. We anticipated desirable results with little evidence about what would happen. We had visualized success and the benefits. We had a story about how great things would be. We were counting our chickens before the eggs hatched. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson. We must also plan for the unexpected.

Planning for the Unexpected

Adopting negative visualization was hard for me as a leader because I’m a “get it done” type of person. It meant planning for the unwanted and the unexpected. I don’t want to meditate long or deal with the conflict of figuring out why things won’t work. That’s a problem, right? I end up like the sailor in Da Vinci’s quote.

A process one can follow includes:

  • Identify projects you are wanting to start or are working on.
  • List the goals for each project.
  • Write down roadblocks to achieving each project’s goals.
  • Spend time asking yourself, “What detour could I put in place to circumvent this roadblock?” Write down the answer.
  • Decide what you might do if your detour is unsuccessful. How would that change the trajectory of your project?

Implementing negative visualization can improve your project management. It’s also a technique students can adopt.

“Nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation,” he wrote to a friend. “. . . nor do all things turn out for him as he wished but as he reckoned. And, above all he reckoned that something could block his plans.” (Source: Seneca, as cited)

What’s amazing, is that I overcome roadblocks through dumb brute persistence when learning. What if I took the time to get improve my thinking when learning? Over time, by improving how I approach learning new things, I can cut the pain of learning out. Or at the very least, realize that the process I am going through is normal. This eliminates the painful suffering that results from thinking, “I am inept. I am stupid. I am an imposter.” Instead, I find that I can plan for failure during learning.

Connecting Negative Visualization to Research

One evidence-based strategy that is powerful for students is Self-Reported Grades. Why is this is such a powerful instructional strategy? It puts the power of predicting progress towards meeting set goals in students’ hands. But it also gives you, as the teacher, the ability to encourage thinking improvement.

Encouraging Thinking Improvement

For students, there’s a certain power in negative visualization. Sure, they externalize their thinking, making it open for you to tinker with. It also has them stepping back from their goal(s) to do some cogitating. If you engage in negative visualization, you do the following:

  • Think and reflect about your goal, whether it’s the right goal.
  • List out what you are going to do to achieve that goal.
  • Ask yourself how it is possible to achieve it.
  • Reflect on your steps and afterward.
  • Collect data through your own efforts and from others.
  • Draw conclusions and then apply them to your efforts to become more successful.

No doubt, the strategy of Self-Regulation (d=0.54) is also relevant here. The Visible Learning Meta X database defines it in this way:

Self-regulated learner requires motivation (for instance, to attempt to solve a math problem), cognition (to think through the problem), and metacognition (to review whether they are performing the task correctly).

Get students to engage in negative visualization about their learning goals. When you can see what students are learning, you can push their learning. As students engage in prediction about how well they are going to do, they learn to self-regulate.

Rubrics for Self-Assessment

You may already be familiar with how well checklists and rubrics work, and why. I like Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. Watch this summary for how to put checklists in place in your own life.

When students create a rubric, they are creating a checklist for success. Tools abound to make this process easier. Take the time to do the following:

  • Identify the learning goal
  • List key steps (with support from the teacher) to achieve it
  • Identify what may go wrong and
  • Write down your plan for overcoming roadblocks with detours

Find Your Way

This blog entry is the first in several applying popular techniques. These techniques come from philosophy and lend themselves to alignment with evidence-based teaching. Knowing the strategies that work in the classroom can provide a compass and help you find your way.

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4 Reading Comprehension Strategies of CSR: Preview, Click & Clunk, Get the Gist, and Wrap up. Adaptable for any grade level.
Common Core State StandardsContent AreasELAREnglish Language ArtsHistoryReadingScienceScienceSocial StudiesSocial StudiesTEKS

The Four Reading Comprehension Strategies of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR)

by Emily Horn
written by Emily Horn

What is CSR?

CSR is a cooperative learning approach that can be used in any grade level and with students of varied reading levels and abilities. It’s meant to primarily boost reading comprehension when it comes to expository and nonfiction texts, like for science and social studies. However, it can be used for narrative texts as well. CSR is an evidence-based approach where students work through the text together in small groups using four reading comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading:

  1. Preview (before reading)
  2. Click and Clunk (during reading)
  3. Get the Gist (during reading)
  4. Wrap It Up (after reading)
Explanations of 4 Reading Strategies of CSR from IRIS Center
Screenshot by the author: The Iris Center, Overview of the CSR Reading Strategies

Getting Started with CSR

It’s important to note that before students begin using the CSR process in a group, they will need to learn and practice the four strategies on their own. Using a Gradual Release of Responsibility approach, you can introduce each reading comprehension strategy in a separate mini-lesson, modeling it for the class. Then, students can practice the strategy with a partner or in a small group. Once they’ve got the strategy with guided support, they can begin to practice it on their own until they are ready to use the strategy cooperatively.

Materials Needed for CSR:

  • Learning Log: A graphic organizer where students make notes throughout the process.
  • Cue Cards: Prompts for the different roles in the groups to use.
  • Clunk Cards: Four “fix-up” strategies for students to use if they reach a roadblock.
  • Timer (optional)

Here are some great free CSR materials, complete with cue cards, clunk cards, and a learning log, available for download from IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University. Also, they provide role cards with explanations for each student’s role in the group.

IRIS Center Leader Cue Card for CSR tasks
Screenshot by the author: Example Leader Cue Cards from IRIS Center’s Free Materials for CSR

Student Roles:

Each group member is given a specific role, so all students in the group are responsible for a task. Potential student roles (depending on group sizes) are:

  • Leader
  • Gist Expert
  • Announcer
  • Timekeeper
  • Clunk Expert
  • Encourager
  • Reporter

Let’s take a more in-depth look at the four reading comprehension strategies that make up this approach!

The Four Reading Comprehension Strategies

1. Preview

Preview section of the CSR Learning Log
Example Preview section of the CSR Learning Log created by the author (provided at the end of the article).

During the text preview, students work together for a short period to look at important text features like headings, subheadings, bolded words, charts, graphs, images, etc. The purpose of the preview is to activate students’ prior knowledge and get them to ask questions, make predictions, and boost their curiosity on the topic. During this time, the teacher can walk around and ask each group about their observations, predictions, and questions regarding the text. Helpful prompts for students (that can be included in a learning log graphic organizer) might be:

  • What knowledge do you already have on this topic?
  • What do you expect or hope to learn?
  • What questions do you have on this topic?

IRIS Center suggests giving students 12 minutes for this reading comprehension strategy. Once they’ve shared with the group and completed the “Preview” section of the learning log, it’s time to share with the class.

2. Click and Clunk

CSR Clunks & Gists Strategy - Learning Log
Example Clunks and Gists section of the CSR Learning Log created by the author (provided at the end of the article).

During this part of CSR, students begin reading a section of the text and monitoring their comprehension. This means students are using metacognition (thinking about thinking) to check their understanding as they move through the text. “Clicks” are parts of the text that the readers understand. “Clunks” are aspects of the text that readers find to be roadblocks to understanding, like unknown words or concepts.

Monitoring comprehension builds confidence and independence when it comes to reading. Working on this in a group can push students who may not usually stop to explore “clunks” to do so, resulting in increased reading comprehension. After reading a pre-determined section (a paragraph, a few paragraphs, or a page, for example), the students go over clicks and clunks. After identifying the “clunks”, the Clunk Expert can guide the group in the following reading comprehension strategies:

  • Reread the sentence with the clunk and look for key ideas to help you figure out the word. Think about what makes sense.
  • Reread the sentences before and after the clunk, looking for clues.
  • Look for a prefix, root word, or suffix that might help.
  • Break the word apart and look for smaller words that you know.
“Toward a Humanistic Instruction: Collaborative Strategic Reading Approach and EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension”

3. Get the Gist

After previewing the text, identifying clicks and clunks, and working through clunks, students begin to identify the main ideas of the predetermined sections of text together to demonstrate reading comprehension. This is a summarizing activity that gets students to restate what they read in their own words (IRIS Center suggests 10 or fewer words) without getting too detailed. CALIReads suggests students follow three steps:

  1. Name the who or the what.
  2. Tell the most important thing about the who or the what.
  3. Say it in about 10 words.

Get the Gist is a great retelling reading comprehension strategy that allows students to recall important information from the text and summarize it, which solidifies their learning.

4. Wrap Up

Wrap Up section of the CSR Learning Log
Example Wrap Up section of the CSR Learning Log created by the author (provided at the end of the article).

In this final step, students work with their group to come up with questions and correlating answers about the reading. They can think about “who, what, where, when, why, and how,” and they can speculate as to what questions a teacher might ask about the text. If needed, question stems can help prompt students to form deeper questions. After noting questions in their learning logs, they share them with their group and answer the questions together, writing down and reviewing what they learned.

CSR Learning Log Editable Template
Created by the author: Access the editable template.

This cooperative learning approach to content-based reading can boost comprehension of everything from textbook chapters to nonfiction articles and more. Can you picture using CSR in your classroom? If you introduce these strategies to your students, let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear about your results.

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Blended LearningEducational ResearchGood TeachingPlanning and Preparation

How to Adapt Classroom Strategies for Online Learning

by Jason Poe
written by Jason Poe

The question of whether we should engage students has never been in doubt. We can engage students both online and in person in a variety of ways using gamification, interactives, and digital tools. But how do we adapt classroom strategies to virtual learning to boost engagement online? Back in 2022, our school decided to adapt seasoned strategies, like Kagan, to the 21st-century classroom in order to achieve virtual engagement. Let’s take a look at why we did it, and then how we did it.

Mixing Kagan Strategies with Hattie’s Research

Rewind to January 2022. At the time, my director was asking our instructors to increase their “teacher voice” in virtual classrooms, and the issue quickly became how to best do this. I had just been introduced to Dr. John Hattie’s amazing work, Visible Learning for Teachers. Dr. Hattie created a meta-study spanning thousands of studies to identify and share the effect size of educational techniques. Check out Evidence-Based Strategies compiled by TCEA’s Miguel Guhlin for more on why you should be using Hattie’s work.

Image of the METAx Website for John Hattie's visible learning research.
Visit Visible Learning MetaX

Our teachers were already carrying the district’s legacy professional training portfolio of Kagan, SDI (Specially Designed Instruction) protocols, and other strategies. The issue always returned to: how do we adapt classroom strategies for virtual learning? Due to my recent discovery of Hattie, I wanted to be able to quantify strategies we were using in class to determine which ones would most effectively achieve student engagement success; thus, our focus was synthesized. We needed to cross-reference the Kagan strategies with Hattie’s effect sizes to select the strategies with the highest impact on student success.

Image showing "Content + Strategy + Tech Tools = Virtual Engagement" as a guide for adapting classroom strategies to virtual learning

By focusing on the legacy professional development strategies, we found that the instructors were more receptive to the introduction of Hattie and his effect size numbering system. So, we took the vetted, seasoned strategies from Kagan, targeted specific strategies that reflected a high effect score from Hattie, sprinkled in a few veteran instructors versed in using our LMS, Canvas, and voila – virtual engagement training for our teachers was born!  

Virtual Engagement Training for Staff 

Skip forward to March 2022, and we planned a half day of in-person professional development for our staff. 

  • First, we assigned them to mixed-curricular groups to foster collaboration and the need to share based on experiences. 
  • Next, we gave each group Kagan strategies on 3” by 5” cards with a written explanation of how to achieve the strategy.
  • Group leaders chose three Kagan strategies to focus on out of the cards.  
  • Then, the groups dispersed into isolated areas to discuss the three strategies and brainstorm on how to transform them from face-to-face to virtual learning. 

In their isolated areas, each group had a large piece of butcher paper to write out their ideas for a post-activity a gallery walk. We also crafted a graphic organizer to align ideas across the groups. Within that graphic organizer, we further challenged our staff to adapt the Kagan face-to-face strategy to both a synchronous lesson and an asynchronous lesson since our Academy operates under the TXVSN (Texas Virtual School Network) framework.   

Graphic Organizer for Adapting Classroom Strategies to Virtual Learning
Graphic Organizer for Planning Virtual Learning

From the professional development half day, here is a sampling of the overall results. For the purpose of this sample, I pulled the three Kagan strategies Rally Coach, Round Robin, and Carousel Feedback to show. The staff had two tasks:

  1. Cross-referencing these three Kagan strategies with Hattie’s research 
  2. Determining how to apply them to both synchronous and asynchronous virtual learning 
A table of text from the article outlining the three kagan strategies Hattie alignment and plans for synchronous and asynchronous virtual learning.
Click here for the PDF.

Rally Coach 

Synchronous Virtual Implementation: 

Students are partnered and placed in breakout rooms in WebEx, allowing students to screen share and/or use the whiteboard feature for the coaching component of the strategy. 

Hattie References: 

  • Student Learning Strategy – Peer Tutoring (Effect Size: 0.51)
  • Student Learning Strategy – Rehearsal and memorization (Effect Size: 0.73)
  • Student Learning Strategy – Help Seeking (Effect Size: 0.72)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, reinforcement, and cues (Effect Size: 0.92)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, from student (Effect Size: 0.53)

Asynchronous Virtual Implementation: 

Students are grouped using Canvas’ group and grouping features and specific coaching tasks are assigned to each group. The lesson could be expanded to include Jamboard, Voicethread, or the Canvas discussion tool.  

Hattie References: 

  • All strategies listed for synchronous Rally Coach implementation
  • Student Learning Strategy – Deliberate practice (Effect Size: 0.79)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, Tasks, and Processes (Effect Size: 0.64)

Round Robin 

Synchronous Virtual Implementation: 

Students choose teams using Canvas’ group tool and can use WebEx, Jamboard, Voicethread, or Padlet for collaboration. Students can use text, audio, and/or video for their responses. 

Hattie References:

  • Student Learning Strategy – Peer tutoring (Effect Size: 0.51)
  • Teaching Strategy – Collaborative learning (Effect Size: 0.39)
  • Teaching Strategy – Cooperative learning (Effect Size: 0.45)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, from student (Effect Size: 0.53)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, reinforcement, and cues (Effect Size: 0.92) 

Asynchronous Virtual Implementation: 

Using the Jigsaw method, the instructor can assign different tasks to the students for completion and group the responses in Canvas Discussions, Voicethread, or Jamboard. 

Hattie References:

  • All strategies listed for synchronous Round Robin implementation
  • Student Learning Strategy – Differentiation (Effect Size: 0.46)
  • Teaching Strategy – Jigsaw Method (Effect Size: 1.20)

Synchronous Virtual Implementation: 

The teacher creates two sets of student groups; then, tasks and roles are dispersed. Students provide feedback using WebEx, Jamboard, Voicethread, or Padlet. 

Hattie References:

  • Student Learning Strategy – Peer tutoring (Effect Size: 0.51)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, from student (Effect Size: 0.53)
  • Teaching Strategy – Feedback, timing (Effect Size: 0.49)
  • Teaching Strategy – Peer Assessment (Effect Size: 0.44)

Asynchronous Virtual Implementation: 

The teacher assigns each student group an element of focus and then, using the Canvas Peer Review feature, students respond to each group’s submission. This can also be adapted to use Discussions, Voicethread, or Jamboard. 

Hattie References: 

  • All strategies listed for synchronous carousel feedback implementation
  • Teaching Strategy – Clear Goal Intentions (Effect Size: 0.51)

The overall effect of this process was positive and received well by our instructors. We saw, initially, anecdotal increases in student engagement because we were midway through the semester. Our current success data for the most recently completed term in 2023 is trending positively. Ultimately, this process of adapting classroom strategies for virtual learning is easily translated to any local education organization. I invite you to take and re-vision it, then share it. The more effective tools we skill our instructors with the better it is for all students!

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ClassQuiz
AssessmentChromebooksContent AreasEducational ResearchELARInstructional CoachingMathematicsReading

ClassQuiz: A Free Tool Supporting High-Effect Size Instructional Strategies

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Educators are buzzing around a new Kahoot and Quizziz-like tool available at no cost. This quiz website offers a host of features, the most important being that it doesn’t collect data. If you’ve used other quiz tools, you know data is collected about you and your students for their own use. ClassQuiz asserts that, unlike these other quiz tools, it doesn’t send information to third parties.

Let’s take a closer look at ClassQuiz to see what it can do. You will also see how it aligns with evidence-based instructional strategies as well as see new research updates about those strategies.

Screenshot by author

Git ClassQuiz

Unlike it’s commercial, closed-source competitors, ClassQuiz offers a GitHub website. That means that you could, if you chose, set up ClassQuiz internally in your own server farm. The benefit? You would have sensitive data under organizational control. This is like hosting your own WordPress or Moodle installation.

What Is ClassQuiz?

ClassQuiz works in a simple way. It allows you to take three primary actions:

  • Create a quiz that allows the insertion of pictures/images
  • Explore and find quizzes others have created
  • Import quizzes from Kahoot! that you can then edit in ClassQuiz

As you might imagine, this import option gives you access to the content in a more established tool. Once the quiz has been set up, students select responses, view results, and see a leaderboard.

Screenshot by author

What Security Safeguards Does ClassQuiz Offer?

ClassQuiz boasts of the following features that safeguard student data:

  • No tracking
  • Self-hosting
  • Cost-free
  • Multilingual
  • Dark mode
  • Save quizzes
  • Save quiz results
  • Community-driven

Hot to Get a ClassQuiz Account

Getting an account is easy. Click on the Register button at the top left of the screen, then fill in your desired information, as shown below:

Screenshot by author

You will need to confirm your email address via an email in your inbox. Using your school district or organization email? Be sure to allow emails from classquiz@mawoka.eu.

Once you have a registered account, you can log in and get access to options that include create, import, results, settings, explore, and search.

How to Import a Kahoot!

You can import a Kahoot! by selecting Import, then pasting the link (a.k.a. URL) to a Kahoot! quiz into the box. To keep it simple, I found a Technology and Robots with Star Wars quiz on Kahoot. Note that I did not create the Kahoot! quiz, but I was still able to import it into ClassQuiz.

Screenshot by author

Here’s what the import process looks like in ClassQuiz:

Screenshot by author

And once complete, the imported quiz appears in ClassQuiz ready to be edited, if needed:

Screenshot by author

Two Strategies to Use with Digital Quiz Tools

Tools like Kahoot, Quizziz, and ClassQuiz offer educators access to digital quiz tools. Each of these tools can be useful for teachers and students. That’s because, when used in alignment with research, they can impact student achievement. How? Through the use of high-effect size instructional strategies.

Did You Know?

“When repetition leads to long-term memories, there are physical changes in the brain. Brain memories disappear very quickly unless they are repeated. Our brains are made up of billions of nerve cells or neurons, all connected together. We form memories when some of these pathways become strengthened by being repeatedly used. (Source: Mike Bell, The Fundamentals of Teaching)

Two powerful strategies can inform our use of quiz tools, like ClassQuiz. Those include:

  • Rehearsal (d=0.73). This is a high-effect size strategy that accelerates student learning. It refers to mental techniques designed to help us remember information.
    • It includes memorizing information through repetition. It can involve repeating information upon seeing a visual cue (like images or flashcards).
    • What’s more, team competition as a rehearsal strategy works. That is, the teacher asks questions requiring rehearsed information. Students answer on their own to gain points for their team. (Learn more!)
  • Retrieval Practice (d=0.46) is often referred to as Practice Testing.
    • It is a way to support long-term information retention. It also assists learners in increasing access to the “to-be-remembered” information (source).
    • This strategy can strengthen learning. It does so when the teacher or student draws out information through a variety of approaches. The information is “pulled out” of students’ brains when they are prompted to retrieve it. Example approaches include flashcards and low-stakes quizzes.

With these two strategies in mind, you can approach the use of ClassQuiz to see how effective it is.

If the rehearsal strategy relies on repetition through the viewing of visual cues, how does ClassQuiz work? You can create flashcards in ClassQuiz that feature images. Then, students can select responses to match.

Retrieval practice (or practice testing) relies on students retrieving information from their minds on cue. Low-stakes quizzes, entry/exit cards (a.k.a. bell ringers) work well in ClassQuiz.

Screenshot by author

Shocking Research Update

A new study published in “Psychological Science in the Public Interest“ provides evidence that these strategies are ineffective:

  • Re-reading
  • Highlighting
  • Mnemonics

Pretty shocking, no? If those strategies are ineffective, what strategies are MOST effective?

Whenever you see these three strategies, think of this diagram:

Created by author as adapted from a workshop presentation

Leverage ClassQuiz for Effective Learning

Don’t be afraid to leverage ClassQuiz. It can enhance student use of effective learning strategies. This includes strategies like retrieval practice and rehearsal. Teaching students to engage in distributed and interleaved practice amplifies strategies’ effect. It can ensure long-term information retention beyond re-reading and highlighting.

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Screenshot by author, ClassQuiz

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Educational ResearchGood TeachingTCEA Convention & Exposition

Three Strategies to Align Teaching and Technology

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Strategies that work. We all want and need strategies that align with research. Often as educators, we lose sight of how important that alignment is, and we may adopt practices and technologies that appear to help but, instead, distract. This diminishes the return on investment in expensive technologies that are unaligned to research.

Why Do Strategies That Work Matter?

Think about your work in the classroom as a teacher, a coach, and/or a school administrator. Go back to a time when you reflected on what worked and what didn’t. Did you brush off the disappointment of a failed digital tool or chalk it up to “It’s new?”

When implementing evidence-based instructional strategies and technology, what steps do you take? What illuminated path with marked trails and guideposts do you follow? Let’s take a look at three strategies to align instruction and technology to promote positive outcomes.

Guidepost #1: Connect with Students

Research has shown us that buzz words and phrases are sometimes grounded in what works. One such case is social-emotional learning (SEL). SEL works because it allows teachers to build relationships with students. That connection is all important. We now know that student brains will filter out the irrelevant. The catch is they decide what’s irrelevant, not you as the adult.

“When students feel as if they do not belong in a school setting, the cognitive energy that should be used on social engagement and learning is being used to scan for group barriers, discrimination and stereotypes”

Source: Myra Laldin, a researcher at the Research Schools International at Harvard Graduate School of Education via Learning Scientists Blog

SEL activities, such as temperature checks, games, and stories, connect us to students. They deepen relationships with students. When choosing and implementing a digital tool or activity, is it facilitating connection?

Did You Know?

Miguel will be facilitating Coaching: Strategies That Work, a TCEA 2023 session that focuses on coaching approaches. New to coaching? An old-hand? You’ll find something to love in this interactive session and walk away with a free app.

Guidepost #2: Track Student Progress

Empowering students to track their own progress toward learning objectives is key. You can support students’ efforts through the use of simple, tech-based formative assessment tools. These tools can both enable you to gauge students’ movement toward goals. They can also enable students to build their own self-assessments. Combine those assessments with self-reported grade tracking sheets.

Did You Know?

Looking for a round up of Formative Assessment Tools and Strategies for the Digital Classroom? Then be sure to check out Miguel’s TCEA 2023 session. You will leave with some fresh ideas, strategies, and digital tools.

When students are learning via an evidence-based instructional strategy, how do you know that students really are? Combine formative assessment digital tools into strategies and activities. For example, you can choose to Jigsaw Your Problem-Based Learning activities, while gauging student progress. Often, this can be done through tracking paper activities, classroom discussion, and products. You can even have students self-track what they are trying to accomplish. That’s true whether it’s an academic topic, or a blend of the two, such as Jigsawing Your Way Through Micro:Bits or virtual world building.

And, with those two important guideposts checked off your list, a third and final one is this:

Guidepost #3: Match Strategies and Tools

You may encounter a bevy of digital tools at the TCEA 2023 Convention and Exposition. Before you adopt them for your own use, take some time to explore. How do these tools fit into what you’re trying to do in the classroom? How can you implement evidence-based strategies with this tool? Do these tools support your efforts at encouraging student note-taking or outlining? How does a tool like, say Microsoft OneNote or LumaNotes, work for students?

An Example: Cave Art for Educators

In my TCEA 2023 session, Cognitive Cave Art, I ask a simple question: How do I engage students in cognitive task analysis? One way might be to create infographics for knowledge representation. There are ample tools to get the job done, so it’s important to know. In this session, like others that I lead, I will show off digital tools and their connection to a proven strategy.

Want to have authentic conversations, make connections, and find new ed tech tools? I hope you’ll join me at TCEA 2023 for my Ride the Mastodon session, an introduction to a new-to-many social media space.

You see, you know what works already. You have access to a wealth of proven strategies through the work of researchers. Those researchers include people like John Hattie, Mike Bell, Dr. Nancy Frey, Dr. Douglas Fisher, and Zaretta Hammond. When you think of infographics, you know the following:

Greater than fifty percent of learners are non-linguistic. This involves students generating a representation of new information. But that representation need NOT rely on language. “The average effect [of using non-linguistic representation] can impact student achievement,” says Marzano. Robert Marzano goes on to say, “It includes a seventeen percentile point gain.” That’s quite a bit when considering student achievement.” This happens because students are creating a model of their thinking.

Potential creations include concept maps, idea webs, and other types of nonlinguistic representation.

When you consider Guidepost #3 in this regard, you are asking yourself a powerful question:

“What digital tool makes thinking model creation possible for students?”

The rest is simply fun. Learning new tools and aligning them to what we know works as education professionals.

Question Others to Teach Ourselves

I hope you will join me at TCEA 2023 Convention and Exposition to explore these guideposts. It’s a space to ask questions of yourself and of others to enable you to teach yourself. Who knows, you may create a new model of thinking that transforms your teaching. Wouldn’t that be something?

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brain-based
Educational Research

Brain-Based Strategies That Work

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Wondering about the connection between brain-based research and high-effect size instructional strategies? I’ve always wondered at what point these two connect. In this blog entry, I’ll try to share my understanding of how they do.

Before We Start, A Quick Reminder

As I’ve mentioned before, there is a plethora of pop research. That is, brain research that is popular, yet inaccurate. Here’s a quick review of brain myths that are completely untrue in case you missed some of the latest updates.

brainy

Increasing Long-Term Retention and Performance

If you put brain-based learning in place, you will see increased knowledge retention; it’s simply a fact. What’s more, you will see improved academic performance (source). As we know, brain-based learning strategies affect more than the skills our children learn. They can also affect social and emotional development and improve motivation and attitude.

How might teachers be more deliberate about incorporating brain-based teaching approaches?

Brain-Based Teaching Approaches

Several ways you can engage students’ brain include the following:

  • Start positive and cultivate physical and emotional safety in the class.
  • Inject suspense into your lesson by adding suspenseful pauses.
  • Movement activates the brain. Incorporate movements that support learning activities relevant to content.
  • Chunk the learning into small, manageable pieces to scaffold comprehension and processing
  • The new and unusual are of high interest to the brain. Create situations or demonstrations that break students out of their learning routine.
  • Take advantage of Think-Pair-Share type activities.

Be aware that nutrition, sleep, and exercise also play a key role in brain health. Explore this Wakelet meta-collection on Improving Brain Function.

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Blending Brain-Based Approaches and Strategies That Work

As you can see from the chart above, there are a wide variety of teaching approaches. The approaches shown run the gamut from brain-based to high-effect size strategies. The high-effect size instructional strategies address items featured in Hattie’s Visible Learning. 

You can see that there are some strategies and approaches that appear on both lists. Those include some of the following. I have addressed missing strategies in other blog entries.

  • Teacher-Student Relationships (d=0.48). This strategy focuses on “the quality of the relationships in the classroom. The more safe and supported students feel, the better the academic outcomes (source).
  • Practice Testing (d=0.46). Known also as retrieval practice, this involves frequent quizzing over a period of time. It encourages students’ recall of material from memory. The more students recall material learned before, the more significant the retention (source).
  • Rehearsal (d=0.73). This refers to mental techniques for helping students remember information. It can include memorization, organizing data at random and then repeating it to a visual cue (source).

As you might imagine, this overlap of instructional strategies has a positive effect. It also signals exactly what strategies we can use to great effect.

“We do not want evidence – we want good evidence, evidence that we can interpret to make a difference in the school and class, and we want big picture thinking based on these interpretations of this evidence.”

Source: As cited: John Hattie, Author of Visible Learning

Overlapping Research and Experts on What Works

In The Fundamentals of Teaching, Mike Bell presents a compilation of strategies that work. Hattie’s endorsement of his book, quoted above, makes a powerful point. Several areas of research highlight specific strategies. Some of the strategies he sees of value include:

  • Prior knowledge
  • Presentation
  • Feedback
  • Repetition

In this blog entry, I’ve shared how brain-based learning research aligns to a few strategies. The ones highlighted in bold are also brain-based. As you might imagine, any solid instruction will incorporate these strategies. Mike Bell suggests teachers can improve learning by first focusing on what works and then second, ridding ourselves of time-consuming, low-effect size practices. You can listen to him present the key concepts in his video below.

I encourage you to continue to explore evidence-based strategies. You can find quite a bit on the topic here at TCEA, in blog entries and online, self-paced courses.

Study the Research

Here are a few reliable sources of research. This list is adapted from Bell’s list. For your convenience, find the links below:

Brain-Based Strategies

Here are two strategies I rely on. What are your favorites?

#1: Inside-Outside Circle

  1. Pair students up.
  2. Form one circle with students facing out (Inside Circle)
  3. Remaining students find and face their partners (Outside Circle)
  4. Pose a question and indicate what role each partner will play. For instance, “What are three ways to engage students’ brains?”
    Inside partner speaks; outside partner listens.”
  5. Pause for think time.
  6. Switch roles—the outside partner talks; inside partner listens.
  7. After that, the outside circle rotates clockwise, and each student ends up with a new partner.
  8. Repeat process with a new question:
    “What is one way YOU start positive with your students?”

Brain-Based Strategy #2: Sage and Scribe

Develop students’ ability to explain concepts in a clear manner. Taking notes or detailing the process in writing also is a surface learning activity, great for introducing new ideas, skills. 

  1. Students work in pairs. Designate one student as the sage (speaker), the other as the scribe (silent writer).
  2. Ask a question and allow a few moments for sages to think. For example: “Explain how concept mapping works.”
  3. When the teacher says “Begin,” the sage explains the process to the scribe.
  4. The scribe writes down the sage’s spoken version of the process on paper (or types it).
  5. Once time has expired, sage and scribe switch places to respond to a new question. For example: “What is one way you can use bell ringers, or entry/exit tickets, in the classroom?
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podsie
Educational ResearchGood Teaching

Evidence-Based Learning: Introducing Podsie

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Putting evidence-based research into practice can be tough. One of the challenges I encountered was shedding my own flawed beliefs. For example, I had a vague idea of specific strategies that would work in the classroom, which made classroom implementation an ongoing experiment of what worked and what didn’t. In this blog entry, let’s connect an evidence-based research strategy with a digital tool to accelerate student growth.

Strategies

Of course, you already know the value of formative assessment in the classroom. As I mentioned in this blog entry, formative assessment provides feedback that teachers can use to adjust ongoing teaching and learning with one goal: to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.

As a K-12 student, I hated quizzes. I came to see them as a poor means of formative assessment. Pop quizzes did review the material, but made me live in fear of the words, “Pop quiz!” Of course, the underlying evidence-based strategy is one you may well be familiar with. But entry and exit tickets, for example, take advantage of Rehearsal Strategy as well as Retrieval Practice (d=0.46):

Also known as “practice testing,” this involves frequent testing. The research is in and it’s positive about “the testing effect.” Flashcards, practice problems, and writing prompts can improve learning. Learn more here.

Here’s a quick video that introduces you to Retrieval Practice:

You can see how I’ve explored this strategy in other blog entries. Different strategies are often introduced along with Retrieval Practice, and these other strategies include spaced vs. mass practice and interleaving:

  • Spaced vs Mass Practice (d=0.65) involves spacing out the intervals of study over a longer period of time.
  • Interleaved Practice (d=0.44) includes a schedule of practice or study where many subjects or topics are mixed to improve learning. Contrast it with “blocked practice,” which has students studying one topic in depth, mastering this topic before moving on to another (source).

Here’s a quick video on Interleaved Practice:

Strategy: Retrieval Practice

Have questions about retrieval practice? Read these frequently asked questions (FAQ). Setting up students to answer questions improves learning. Now that you know that, you’re ready to adapt technologies to match the strategy.

We could choose a wide variety of technologies to match up to retrieval practice. But you’re better off if you pick one digital tool to match one evidence-based strategy. In that way, both you and your students can become proficient at each.

Digital Tool: Introducing Podsie

With increased digital access, teachers can now use a wide variety of strategies and tools to create fresh learning experiences. To add to your toolbox, consider giving Podsie, a free tool for both middle and high school students and teachers, a try. It offers great features at no cost to individual teachers (see school/district pricing).

Podsie combines several research-backed learning strategies. These include retrieval practice, spacing vs massed practice, and interleaving. It relies on customized mastery data of each individual student to enhance learning (source).

As a teacher, create your no-cost Podsie account with a Google or Microsoft account. That’s great because you won’t have to remember another username and password. Once you create your login, you will identify your school from a drop-down list.

podsie

Benefits of Podsie

Podsie automates some of the tasks, and I’ve included several embedded links to explanatory videos that appear in the feature list below.

Podsie:

  • Creates automated, personalized reviews of content aligned to evidence-based practices
  • Relies on a Personal Deck that offers students an ongoing, differentiated review experience
  • Produces realtime data on how students are doing as they review content
  • Details student progress in a Progress Dashboard
  • Assists you in crafting questions about content which will reoccur for students
  • Enables you to share assignments and ask questions through teacher collaboration

Another step the Podsie developers have taken is to provide a lesson plan that will help you in explaining to students:

  • Evidence-based practices like “spacing” and “retrieval”
  • How Podsie helps students retain information they learn throughout the year
  • The science behind remembering

You can see the lesson plan as a Google Slides deck below or get a copy for yourself.

Learn more about Podsie via their Essentials, How-To, and Keys to Success web pages, and find them on social media (Twitter, Facebook) as well.

Connecting Strategy and Tool

As Weston Kieschnick suggests, make every effort to map out what you will be doing in a lesson. Also, make sure you know exactly how students will be relying on technology to learn. Follow his five action steps to master the art of successfully blending strategies with technology.

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Educational Research

Five Sources of Evidence-Based Research

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Working as a classroom teacher or instructional leader? Then you’ll love this easy reference collection of evidence-based strategies. Finding evidence-based research you can trust is hard. In this blog entry, you will see some resources that expand your knowledge of what works in the classroom.

Before we jump into that list of five sources, let’s review what “evidence-based” means.

What Is Evidence-Based?

Since you’ve no doubt seen the term “evidence-based” around, let’s dig into it a bit. Does objective evidence inform your selection of a specific method or strategy? If so, then it is evidence-based. Some may describe it as data-based, research-based, and/or scientifically-based (source). When used in a consistent manner, evidence-based strategies support greater student learning and achievement.

Explore the importance of identifying and selecting evidence-based practices in this online module, one of three you can work through. The list of modules includes:

Give these a whirl. Speaking of these modules, this brings us to the first resource I wanted to share with you.

IRIS Center

The IRIS Center includes a wide variety of resources. Besides the evidence-based practices series of the three modules, it offers much more.

evidence-based

Here you can find a wealth of research summaries on a variety of strategies and interventions. The IRIS Center connects the level of effectiveness, as well as age groups, with each strategy. This makes their list of research summaries an invaluable aid for instructional leaders. Topics covered include:

  • Assessments
  • Behavior and Classroom Management
  • Content Instruction
  • Diversity
  • Early Intervention/Early Childhood
  • Learning Strategies
  • Mathematics
  • MTSS/RTI
  • Reading, Literacy, and Language Arts
  • School Improvement/Leadership
  • Transition

Whether you are an administrator or coach, this site offers you a repository of amazing content that you can share with teachers who may be unsure about a strategy. And you can get FREE certification on various topics relevant to classroom instruction.

Access the IRIS Center.

The What Works Clearinghouse

If you need to learn more about literacy, math, or emergent bilinguals, then the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and their research is for you.

evidence-based

WWC reviews the existing research on different programs, products, and practices. It also reviews policies in education. Their goal is to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions. They seek to answer the question “What works in education?” through a focus on high-quality research results (source).

Access the What Works Clearinghouse.

Learning Policy Institute

The Learning Policy Institute takes a slightly different approach to providing innovative content through their collection of videos. Some of their topics include:

  • Aligning School Practices with the Science of Learning
  • Creating Safe and Inclusive Schools
  • How Learning Happens
  • Project-Based Learning
  • Strategies and Practices to Advance Deeper Learning

These are powerful, well-researched videos that will get you leading and teaching in innovative ways.

Access the Learning Policy Institute Videos.

Rand Corporation

If you are interested in what the research says about early childhood, assessment, accountability, school leadership, teacher effectiveness, and how technology and real life impact student outcomes, then you need to take a good look at the Rand Corporation. They offer a series of blogs that focus on education and literacy.

evidence-based

Here are just a few of their blogs that are especially relevant for instructional leaders:

  • Effects of Executive Development Program and Aligned Coaching for School Principals
  • Pathways to Instructional Leadership: Implementation and Outcomes from from a Job-Embedded School Leader Training Program
  • School Leaders’ Role in Selecting and Supporting Teachers’ use of Instructional Materials
  • Supporting Principals to Lead on the Selection and Use of Instructional Materials in the Classroom

The Rand Corporation also offers a wealth of research on current topics such as COVID-19 and the Academic Achievement Gap.

Access the Rand Corporation Research archives.

Corwin’s Visible Learning Meta X

Oft-mentioned, Corwin’s amazing Visible Learning Meta X database is incredible. Not only can you see all the “influences” at once, you can also see the underlying research studies and a detailed glossary.

evidence-based

You can also see influences by domain:

  • Student: Factors relating to background, beliefs, and physical influences.
  • Home: Factors relating to family resources, structure, and environment.
  • School: Factors relating to school type, pre-school, school composition, and leadership.

Access the Visible Learning Meta X database.

Being able to carefully examine what the research says about the best instructional strategies to use when teaching a particular activity, content area, or skill is critical for all teachers and leaders today. These five resources will provide you all the background information you need to make the best decisions for your students.

If you’d like more information about research-based education, be sure to check out our online, self-paced courses focused around instructional strategies and higher student achievement.

Get a PDF version of the flyer below.

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Good Teaching

Blending High-Effect Instructional Strategies with the 5E Model

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Challenging circumstances aside, many educators continue to develop engaging lessons today. But how those lessons get delivered, facilitated, and assessed has changed for some. As I’ve shared before, the 5E Model remains a popular model to guide these instructional efforts. In this blog entry, let’s see how the model works with those teaching strategies that result in the highest achievement.

How does the 5E Model and high-effect size instructional strategies fit together?

Before answering that question, it is worth reflecting on the language of the 5E Model. It is also worth considering another question, “How do we use what we know of evidence-based strategies and when to use them to enhance the 5E Model?”

The Right Strategy and Learning Phase

Before looking at strategies, we first have to figure out when is it appropriate to use a particular strategy. Consider this point adapted for readability from Hattie, Fisher, and Frey:

What and when are important when it comes to instruction that has an impact on learning. Approaches that aid surface-level learning do not work as well for deep learning….

Match the right approach with the correct phase of learning.”  Adapted from Source: Hattie, Fisher, and Frey (Visible Learning for Mathematics, 2017)

These phases of learning include surface, deep, and transfer learning. Here’s one way of understanding these strategies:

  • Surface learning strategies: Content focused
  • Deep learning strategies: Relationship in and among contents
  • Transfer learning strategies: Transfer of newly acquired skills to new situations or tasks

If you’re not already familiar with learning strategies, you might want to take one of our online, self-paced courses on them. The Strategies That Work, Part 2: Surface Learning Strategies course is based on Hattie’s work and designed to help you select the best instructional strategies for each lesson. You can learn more about it (and Part 1) at TCEA.org’s Courses page.

5E Model

Juxtaposing Strategies with 5E

The 5E Model often presents as an inquiry-based model. Inquiry-based teaching, according to the Visible Learning Meta X database, has an effect size of 0.46 and is described thusly:

Inquiry-based teaching is an educational practice where students assume a role. That role involves behaving as scientists or philosophers. They generate questions and seek to develop answers through the accumulation of evidence. This could include asking questions and solving problems. It often includes procedures such as small-scale investigations and practical projects (adapted from VisibleLearningMetaX).

I marvel that the 5E Model, as an inquiry-based teaching and learning strategy, has an effect size of 0.46. I have to ask myself, “How could we use the 5E Model to better effect?” One approach might involve relying on surface learning strategies (SLSs) that would introduce students to concepts. The use of Direct Instruction (d=0.59) and flipped learning could serve as two other strategies. Or we could rely on the jigsaw method (d=1.20). But what if I wanted the whole of student learning to fit inside of the 5E model?

Is it possible to align the right instructional strategy with the learning phase in the 5E model? That is, what strategy would work best with ENGAGE? Would it be a surface learning strategy or deep learning? To figure this out, let’s look at the 5E Model a bit more.

The 5E Model with the Right Strategy

One of the challenges is figuring out how to blend the right learning phase, strategy, and 5E stage. In this Google Slides document, I try to explain it better.

5E Model

View in Google Slides | Get a copy | Learn How to Make a Copy

As you consider embracing the 5E Model, rely on strategies that match the phase of learning. A great follow-up blog entry you may want to review is The 5E Model vs Explicit Instruction. And you can also learn more about surface, deep, and transfer learning strategies in the Coaching for Results series.

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Good Teaching

High-Effect-Size Instructional Strategies and Digital Tools

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Did you see School Library Journals blog entry from February 11, 2020? Titled, 18 Tech Tools for Content Creation, Coding, VR, Audio, and Video, it offers a list of digital tools. While this is, no doubt, a fantastic list, it may send the message that all we’re doing in ed tech is gathering tools. Imagine that neighbor, who when you walk into their garage, has every tool imaginable. Each is shiny, pretty, and seldom used. That sends a message, right?

The message is that collecting digital tools, a dime a dozen now, is our sole purpose in educational technology. We all have digital tools in search of instructional activities. The question is, How could we do this better?

high-effect-size

Did You Know?

Only one of the SLJ’s tools, Microsoft Immersive Reader, has earned a research-based design product certification. The certification is new from ISTE’s EdSurge’s Digital Promise program. How are the digital tools you select for use in the classroom aligned to research?

Lesson Construction

Ready to drop a few digital tools and apps into your lesson and spice things up a bit? Before you do, however, consider whether “sprinkling” tools into popular lessons will actually add value to the learning or distract from our ultimate goal.

How Can You Tell If Digital Tools Add Value?

Does the technology we add to a lesson add value or subtract from it?  One way to focus curriculum and instruction teams as they are planning lessons is to ask some questions:

  1. Are the lesson plan components reflecting high-effect-size (HES)  instructional strategies?
  2. Are you focused on activities that are cool or evidence-based strategies that work?
  3. Do all lesson plans incorporate the teacher clarity goals strategy? How are those communicated to students?
  4. Which specific digital tool is proven to work best with a specific HES instructional strategy?

In my Coaching for Results series, I explore how to better answer these questions using high-effect-size instructional strategies.

Lesson Plan Components

Need an example? Let’s take a look at what is typically found in a lesson plan:

  • Grade
  • Subject
  • Topic
  • Description
  • TEKS
  • Technology TEKS
  • 4Cs
  • Resources (linked in G Suite EDU Drive document)
  • Device Type (e.g. Laptop, Chromebook)
  • Suggested Apps

As you can see from the list, there’s something missing, right? Let’s explore this in the context of a web-based lesson plan example.

high-effect-size

Sample Lesson Plan

Grade Level: 3rd grade

Subject: Language Arts

Topic: Understanding and Analyzing Text

Description: Students will use Google Drawing to create a book snap. Teachers can ask students various questions or use analysis tools in the snap. iPad users can use Book Creator or the simple drawing tool on iPad. They will do that after taking a picture of their book selection.

LA TEK: Figure 19: (A)  establish purposes for reading selected texts based upon own or others’ desired outcome to enhance comprehension; (B)  ask literal, interpretive, and evaluative questions of text; (C)  monitor and adjust comprehension (e.g., using background knowledge, creating sensory images, re-reading a portion aloud, generating questions); (D)  make inferences about text and use textual evidence to support understanding; (E)  summarize information  in text, maintaining meaning and logical order; (F)  make connections (e.g. thematic links, author analysis) between literary and informational texts with similar ideas and provide textual evidence

Technology TEK: (1)Creativity and innovation (A)  create original products using a variety of resources; (B)  analyze trends and forecast possibilities, developing steps for the creation of an innovative process or product; and (C)  use virtual environments to explore systems and issues. (2) Communication and collaboration (A)  draft, edit, and publish products in different media individually and collaboratively; (B)  use font attributes, color, white space, and graphics to ensure that products are appropriate for multiple communication media, including monitor display, web, and print; (C)  collaborate effectively through personal learning communities and social environments; (D)  select and use appropriate collaboration tools; (E)  evaluate the product for relevance to the assignment or task; and (F)  perform basic software application functions, including opening applications and creating, modifying, printing, and saving files.

4Cs: Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity

Resources: How to make booksnaps,  Book Creator

Device Type: Laptop, Chromebook, IPAD

Let’s review this lesson in light of the questions asked earlier.

Focus on High-Effect-Size Instructional Strategies

1. Are the lesson plan components reflecting high-effect-size instructional strategies?

In the example, there is no high-effect-size instructional strategy recommended or evident. The purpose of the LA TEKS reference is to enhance comprehension. The suggested activity is a book snap. A book snap allows for a digital representation of text excerpted from a book or text. In other words, it is a way for students to summarize (0.74 effect size) a book. Visible Learning Meta X defines summarizing as relevant to reading comprehension.

Summarization can include any of the following behaviors:

  • Deleting unnecessary material
  • Getting rid of material that is repetitive
  • Substituting a subordinate term for a list of items or actions
  • Selecting a topic sentence
  • Constructing a topic if one is only suggested by the text

In a book snap, you focus on selecting sentences, then you bring the characters alive or share an opinion. Depending on the type of book snap, you can also engage in metacognition (0.58 effect size):

Meta-cognition is thinking about thinking. It includes methods used to help students understand the way they learn.

As you can see, having students make a book snap with Google Drawings implies a lot. But we miss the boat if we don’t address the high-effect-size strategy. Worse, this TA:TEKS connection could be more specific. Reference the TA:TEKS connection, but list the specific actions. That is, inserting images, cropping, using digital camera, font choice, and selecting text.

How could we change the description of this lesson? Change it in a way that better reflects the high-effect size instructional strategies.

A video tutorial of how to create a book snap:

Are you focused on activities that are cool or evidence-based strategies that work?

“Book snaps are cool because they are a way to express creativity through a book. You can share how you think about a character or part of a story,” says one student in this video. (That’s a great video to watch to learn how to make book snaps, by the way.)

How long does it take to make a book snap? Would the Reciprocal Teaching (0.84) strategy work better than summarization with book snaps? If yes, why not use that approach, even if there is no technology involved?

Teacher Clarity and Digital Tools

Do all lesson plans incorporate the teacher clarity goals strategy? How are those communicated to students?

How would you craft the Teacher Clarity learning outcomes? One way is shown below:

  • Today we will select sentences that best summarize a key concept in the text
  • So we can learn to identify important parts of the text and get rid of parts that are extra or repetitive
  • We will know we have it when we are able to briefly explain a text in a few sentences.

You may need to ask whether this lesson is surface, deep, or transfer learning oriented. Summarization and metacognition are surface learning. When you’re putting together a lesson, how could you specify the learning goal? That is, the intended goal of surface, deep, and/or transfer learning?

Which specific digital tool is proven to work best with a HES instructional strategy?

Although the HES instructional strategy is absent, the digital tool is Google Drawing. Google Slides would also work. There are many digital tools possible, but focusing on one is best practice.

The message isn’t to avoid book snaps. It’s to be intentional and up front about strategies that work. That is, explain which high-effect-size instructional strategy you are using and how that digital tool fits in. Otherwise, you may fall into the trap of chasing activities that are fun, cool, and use technology for technology’s sake. Avoid quoting entire swaths of TEKS and TA:TEKS. Instead, explain in brief what you are teaching and students are learning.

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