Effective Instruction for All

(Para 1.) Classroom behavior management or time management? Yes. The research on effectively addressing student misbehavior set the first priorities on the removal of instructional vacuums and the replacement of inappropriate behavior with student on-task behavior. Replacement of inappropriate behavior with appropriate behavior requires students to be actively engaged in a learning task that meets their needs and is generating at least 80% success. These consistent demonstrations of success dramatically reduce opportunities for misbehavior and increase student success experiences. Increases in student success experiences generates a concurrent increase in positive attitudes to school in general and the content area in particular. The research examining the academic success of students and student behavior problems in later grades has consistently reports that early effective academic instruction is an important method of preventing significant behavior problems as students move from elementary to junior high and high school. A 2006 synthesis of the research clearly concluded that systematically increasing the quality and quantity of instructional time significantly increases student academic success and significantly decreases teacher classroom management problems.

(Para 2.) The teacher as executive. For the teacher who must manage the instruction of students with a range of disabilities, the coordination of the instruction team is a major challenge. The team for each student often includes, instructional aides, volunteers, parents, therapists, and regular class teachers. The teacher has an important management responsibility ensuring that every available instructional minute is used to systematically and effectively address individual student needs. With these management responsibilities, the teacher is, indeed, an executive.

(Para 3.) Classroom time management: good and bad news. The decade, 1980 to 1990, saw a massive research investment in the role of classroom time. The findings of that decade remain unchanged in terms of conclusions and importance to this day. The researchers examined four types of time:
(1.) First, was Available Time, the amount of time available for all school activities. Available Time was approximately 6 hours per school day.
(2.) Second, was Allocated Time, the amount of time allocated for content area instruction. Allocated Time was approximately 4 hours and 45 minutes of the Available Time.
(3.) Third, was Engaged Time, the amount of time the student is actively engaged in learning tasks. Engaged Time was approximately 2 hours of Available Time.
(4.) Fourth, was Academic Learning Time ( ALT), the amount of time the student is successfully engaged in a needed learning task. ALT was approximately 48 minutes of the Available Time of 6 hours per day.
The bad news from the research was the massive variability among teachers. One group of researchers reported a range from 4 minutes to 52 minutes of ALT in reading instruction per day among teachers with similar students. The number of classrooms with very modest levels of ALT delivered bad news, because the research consistently concluded a strong, positive and predictive relationship between ALT and both student achievement, and student attitudes. The good news in this research data lies in the increased importance of the individual teacher. The teacher who chooses to manage time effectively can make major differences in the lives of students. The research also reports that the more the student is at risk of failure, the more important the teacher’s time management skills become in helping the student close the gap with peers.

(Para 4.) An executive time management tool for teachers. A review of the Time Management Teacher Self-Evaluation Checklist will show examples of the previously listed research findings in practical classroom contexts. The four types of instructional time are listed. For teachers interested in applying the research, this checklist should be used monthly until problems are identified and successfully addressed. All members of the instructional team should be aware of the areas monitored by the checklist. Even when problems have been addressed successfully, the checklist should be used quarterly. For a more detailed list of suggestions for using the Time Management Teacher Self-Evaluation Checklist, the reader is referred to a chapter on Time Management in a book, “Research Into Practice“, by Hofmeister and Lubke.
Comprehension Check – What was I thinking?

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Al :: Nov.25.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

(Para 1.) What are prerequisite skills? The research on instructional interventions such as programs for students with Autism stresses the importance of early, intensive, instructional intervention. Some highly respected university research clinics, such as the UCLA medical school, have used intensive programs for preschoolers involving at least 30 hours per week. The curriculum in these research clinics stresses prerequisite skills in social participation skills and early academic skills. The social participation skills are the skills needed to effectively participate in the instructional process and include language skills, learning from a peer model, taking turns, and attending to an instructor. The early academic skills are skills needed to master higher-level skills. For example, a student needs the skill to identify similarities and differences in letters of the alphabet before the student can attach names or sounds to specific letters of the alphabet.

(Para 2.) A program for teaching a student visual discrimination skills. The program, Matching Sizes, Shapes and Colors, is a research-based program, field tested with both teachers and parents. Two of the most important prerequisite skills needed for social and instructional participation are the concepts “same” and “different.” These concepts are specifically mentioned in the research. This matching program teaches these skills to students with limited oral-language skills. Too often, preschool programs require students to have “age appropriate,” expressive and receptive oral language skills as a prerequisite for instruction . For many students with more severe disabilities this requirement essentially denies the student meaningful access to instruction.

(Para 3.) A case study with students with severe disabilities. In a recent dissertion report students with severe disabilities received intensive instruction in receptive language. Specifically, the students were being taught to relate an oral instruction to a set of pictures, e.g., “Which one is crying?” The students had to have the receptive language sklls to pick the picture showing a person crying. The instruction failed because the students lacked prerequisite concepts. The researchers concluded: “Neither Allen or Dino reached criterion….The study was terminated…..Upon review of assessment data none of the students were reported to have mastered the difference between ’same’ and ‘different’.” The above listed Matching Program serves to teach these important prerequisite concepts.

(Para 4.) What is a scripted program? A review of the above-listed “Matching Sizes, Shapes and Colors Program,” which can be downloaded at no charge, will reveal a number of characteristics of many research-based instructional programs. One important characteristic is scripting. This scripting, like a movie or theater script, details the language and actions of participating instructors and students. The scripting allows the program to be used as designed and field tested. The scripting also allows all members of the instructional team, including aides, volunteers and parents, meaningful and effective participation roles. A program that is not implemented as the program designers and researchers required, may not generate the student outcomes the researchers reported. One of the most common errors made by program users is a failure to do the reteaching or correction procedures required by the program script.

(Para 5.) What are general and specific correction procedures? One of the most important practices in a quality program for at-risk learners is the systematic use of “Correction Procedures.” In the above-listed program the owl graphic is used to denote the presence of a correction procedure. If the student makes an error, the general correction procedure is : “Tell, Show, Help.” “Tell” requires a repeat of the command without any aversive tone in the instructor’s voice. “Show” requires the instructor to model e.g., “watch me do it.” “Help” requires the instructor to help the child complete the task with a physical or verbal prompting. As the child learns, the instructor “fades” the prompting help until the student can do it without instructor help. See page 4 of the program for this general correction procedure. Very often, a program will have specific as well as general correction procedures. In the above-listed program the owl graphic denotes a specific correction procedure. The specific correction procedure is more specific for the context. See page 7 for an example of a specific correction procedure next to the owl at the bottom of the page. Remember, correction is a normal part of learning for all students, and corrections should be made without negative or condescending tones. Also, please, no condescending facial or body gestures, and certainly no hands on hips. A successful repetition of a previous error should be immediately recognized by specific praise. See page 4 for praise suggestions.

(Para 6.) Giving clear commands. The research on effective interventions for many students at-risk of school failure places an increased emphasis on the correction procedures listed above. For students with Autism the findings of researchers stresses the use of very clear instructions. Effective correction procedures require very clear instructions at a very important time. Namely, the teacher response to a student error. The research on effective instruction for students with ADHD arrives at a similar conclusion. The Precision Command Checklist is an excellent classroom tool for prompting all members of the instructional team, including parents and siblings. Teachers of students with severe disabilities will find the checklist invaluable. The checklist provides examples and non-examples of giving appropriate instructions to students.
(Para 7.) Monitoring progress using curriculum-embedded assessment. Effective instructional programs provide support for curriculum-embedded assessment. In this matching program the curriculum-embedded assessment instrument can be found on page 5. Typically, an instructional program is taught in small steps and the instructor moves on to each new step after the student has mastered the previous step. The series of small steps, the task analysis of the larger task, makes learning easier for the student and provides the consistent demonstrations of success the student needs for a growing positive attitude to the curriculum area. In the progress recording chart on page 5, the most important information will be the record of mastery of each small step. The presence of these assessment records allows all members of the instructional team to work cooperatively in the student’s long-term interest.

Comrehension Check – What was I thinking?

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Al :: Nov.18.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

(Para 1.) The school or the community? In the 1960s educators went through a depressing time as social scientists suggested that even in very effective schools, local community variables, such as poverty, were more important than education variables. This finding countered the vision of public education and the neighborhood public school as a vehicle for equality of opportunity for all children. The Coleman Report, released in July 1966, delivered this bad news with congressional authority. What mattered more in determining children’s academic success, concluded authors of the Coleman Report, was their family background. This assumption was later refuted. Recent research findings document the nature of quality education that allows students to crash though the ceilings set by poverty-related variables. Effective instructional practices use highly aligned systems of instruction. Ongoing student assessment, the curriculum, and instruction work together to systematically and progressively improve outcomes for all students.
(Para 2.) Research and the role of prerequisite skills. When we examine educational interventions that allow low-performing students to close the gap with peers, we encounter a very important variable: the diagnosis and explicit teaching of critical prerequisite skills. This important variable was exemplified by the role of phonemic awareness as the gateway skill to reading. During the past 10 years many failing students from kindergarten to 12th grade have learned to read because caring, competent teachers tested for a students mastery of phonemic awareness, and, where necessary, provided immediate and intensive instruction in phonemic awareness before providing beginning reading instruction. The research demonstrated, rather dramatically, that virtually no one becomes a fluent, competent reader without mastering phonemic awareness.

(Para 3,) A research-based approach with broad applications. With the increasing recognition of the role of prerequisite, skills instruction, came increased recognition of the role of educators guided by the research. One of the best analogies from medicine would be the discovery of penicillin. The investment in timely, targeted, and intensive, phonemic awareness instruction is a comparatively modest one. Approximately 15 hours of phonemic awareness instruction gives the student access, with success, to beginning reading instruction and the positive lifelong consequences literacy brings to the individual. Given that instruction in critical prerequisites is one of the major tools used in closing the gap with peers, the research concludes that the importance of instruction in prerequisite skills increases with a student’s increased risk of school failure. The penicillin analogy has two major implications. In medicine, penicillin addressed the major concern of death from infection, and it emphasized new variables to address in the problem-solving processes in medicine. In education, the prerequisite role of phonemic awareness addresses a major problem in education: the failure of reading instruction. Educational Researchers have suggested this finding is the most important finding of the past 20 years. Also, we have changed our problem-solving focus in many curricula, including literacy and math instruction. Additionally, and importantly, we have have brought more hope and instructional competency to those students once considered “non-educable” by some educational observers.

(Para 4.) Bumps in the road. The increased recognition of the importance of effective instruction did not come without some bumps in the road. Too often, student failure was attributed to the student alone. Twenty years ago it was not uncommon for teachers and their teacher educators to attribute student failure to a “development lag” or a lack of readiness in the student’s cognitive and physiological maturational processes. There certainly are student problems that will increase the instructional challenges. Explaining instructional failure as a “developmental lag” in the student suggests a lack of instructional accountability and the lack of a need to progressively improve instruction. The research of the past 10 years strongly indicates that most academic failure is best explained by a lack of specific prerequisite skills, a skill deficit, rather than a “developmental lag” in the student. A skill deficit presents an opportunity for instruction. A “development lag” suggests a physiological or neurological cause that may not be addressed by instruction. For educators the presence of a medical basis for a problem only increases the need for instructional interventions. Regardless of the success of the medical treatment, a student who is three years below grade level will require an extensive instructional intervention to close the gap, because peers continue to move ahead. Recent neurological research findings on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) only increases the need for educational and medical interventions to work concurrently.
Comprehension Check- What was I thinking?

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Al :: Nov.12.2007 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

(Para 1.) A pediatrician posed the question: In medicine we have specific medical treatments for specific medical problems; educator’s interventions or treatments seem to vary, even when the student and the problem are similar; why is there so much variability for among teachers for the same problem? This frustration is shared by many, including educators and parents. The research documents massive variability in the effectiveness of educational interventions. The research recommends that educators use the same rules all scientists use in defining and implementing treatments or interventions. The research has stressed that the teacher is, by far, the most important element in the instructional enterprise. The research is very clear. It is the specific interventions the individual teacher uses that makes the difference in determining student outcomes. An effective instructional intervention must address the following questions positively. These three questions follow scientific practices and define the essence of an effective instructional intervention.

Question 1. Is the intervention replicable and exportable? Is the intervention supported by tools that allow different instructors to consistently and effectively implement the intervention or instructional program? This requirement increases in importance with the severity of the student’s disability. The more severe and complex the student’s needs, the more the instructional interventions must be delivered across the different school and home settings, seven days a week. The instructional tools must allow all members of the instructional team, including aides, siblings, and parents, to be informed, effective, and cooperative members of the instructional team.

Question 2. What scientific evidence exists to support claims of effectiveness? Does the evidence involve objective measures of student outcomes? Are the student outcomes aligned with district and state-mandated curriculum outcomes and the associated testing and measurement instruments? Student outcomes can include academic outcomes, affective and attitudinal outcomes, and physical skills. While some would suggest hat an emphasis on academic skills comes at the expense of attitudinal outcomes, the research suggests otherwise.

Question 3. Is an accountability process built into the instructional intervention? In medicine, a specific treatment has a monitoring process allowing for ongoing decisions that support changes in the treatment based on patient reactions. The monitoring should also allow for decisions to replace the treatment. Most federal and state legislative mandates require education programs to have “curriculum-embedded” assessments that would support daily and weekly monitoring of the impact of the intervention on the student. Decisions on the effectiveness of educational treatments should not be left to annual standardized tests, alone. These accountability practices should provide ongoing information on both the effectiveness of the intervention, and the quality of local implementation. An intervention can fail because of the original design of the intervention or because of the failure to implement the intervention as designed. The latter will require changes in staff development as well as changes in the technical assistance provided to teachers and aides.

Comprehension Check – What was I thinking?

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Al :: Nov.02.2007 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »