Teaching Methods

1
Teaching Methods

• Chapters 12 and 13
• Lab 11

2
Classroom Organization

• Ability (homogeneous) grouping or
• Mixed-ability (multi-level or heterogeneous)
  grouping
• Pros/Cons of ability grouping

3
Mixed Ability Grouping

• More difficult for teachers to manage
• Different skill levels together
• Works well for some skills in which peers support
  learning
• Remember Lev Vygotsky

4
1st-3rd Grade

• Whole class-becomes common.
• Small group-often used for reading or math.
• Independent work-students work on their own at
  their seats or centers.

5
4th-6th grades

• Whole class-can sustain attention much better.
  Can take notes.
• Small groups-more effective now.
• Independent work-students have learned to be
  students.

6
Direct Instruction or Explicit Teaching
7
Direct instruction

• Teacher structures sequences learning
• Students respond to the teachers actions,
  activities questions.

8
Advantages

• Works best when material is
• -well structured
• -can be broken into sub-components
• -can be taught in a step by step manner

9
Advantages, continued

• Declarative conceptual knowledge
• Skills that are being automatized
• Application of known-skill to a new situation

10
Disadvantages

• Does not work well when material taught
• --doesnt follow explicit steps
• --cannot be broken down into steps
• --is complex, detailed or abstract

11
Disadvantages continued

• Learner participation is essential
• Objectives are not just acquisition of facts but
  include problem solving, discussion of issues, or
  fluency in reading and writing

12
Different Models

• Ausubel Rosenshine

13
Ausubels Expository Teaching

• Teacher presents material in an explicit manner
• Depends on deductive reasoning-learn principles
  first and specific instances later
• Move from general to examples
• Advanced organizers

14
Rosenshines Model

• Characteristics of direct instruction
• Review of lesson
• Goal of lesson
• Present new material in small steps
• Clear instructions and explanations
• Practice time

15
Phases of Direct Instruction
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Phases of D.I.

• Introduction and review
• Explanation or presentation
• Guided practice or recitation
• Independent practice

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Introduction Review

• Topic sentence of what will be covered
• Advanced Organizers
• Prompt awareness of relevant knowledge
• Review previous ideas

18
Explanation or Presentation

• Purpose present the content you are going to
  cover
• Keep explanation organized.
• Maintain attention
• Help students take notes
• Check for understanding

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Keep Explanation Organized

• Stay on-target.
• Organize the information
• part-whole
• sequential
• central unifying idea w/ examples.
• Use good physical examples, blackboard, overhead

20
Maintain Attention

• Vary stimuli
• Use humor
• Use physical models
• Ask questions
• Limit distractions
• Use the action zone
• Use lesson momentum

21
Help Students Take Notes

• Use good blackboard technique.
• Tell children when to take notes.

22
Check for Understanding

• Taking the temperature of the group
• --Choral response
• --select children on different levels
• --random calling on, but not as disciplinary
  technique
• --use volunteers (least effective)

23
Phases of Direct Instruction

• Guided practice or Recitation

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Guided Practice

• Purpose to allow children to practice skill so
  they can do it alone
• To assess if each child can perform w/ minimal
  support (little scaffolding)
• To clear up misunderstandings following the
  explanation.

25
How to conduct a guided practice session

• Signal the beginning
• Have a number of questions planned before you
  start
• Make sure all the students answer in some way
• Increase the cognitive level of questions

26
Wait-Times

• Wait-time I
• Interval before students respond
• Wait-time II
• Amount of time between the childs response and
  the teachers answer

27
Directing Questioning

• Dont use volunteers more than 10-15 of the time
• Call on students in a patterned order
• Random call-ons create anxiety
• Call name first, then ask question

28
Handling incorrect responses

• First, confirm if part was correct
• Probing means breaking the question down (provide
  scaffolding)
• Dont praise wrong answersmaybe the effort (nice
  try, but )
• Repeat correct answer when you get it

29
Phases of Direct Instruction

• Independent Practice

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Independent Practice
31
Overlearning

• Utilization-put skills together
• Automaticity-no longer have to think through each
  step

32
Independent Practice

• Research shows that this is when children are
• least engaged
• most prone to errors
• likely to become confused.

33
Independent Practice

• 2 types of Independent practice
• Seatwork Homework

34
Seatwork

• Children work on papers or worksheets on their
  own
• Texts, workbooks, silent reading

35
Seatwork

• Purposes
• Provide practice time with teacher available for
  scaffolding
• Provide something for the children to do while
  the teacher is engaged elsewhere

36
Seatwork

• Children spend between 50-75 of the day in
  seatwork
• May automatize undetected errors
• Least engaged time

37
Effective Seatwork

• effective teachers
• Spend more time in demonstrations, guided
  practice prior to
• Demonstrates a few problems
• Seatwork directly follows instruction

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Seatwork Management

• Have list of seatwork items as EXTERNAL MEDIATOR
• Circulate among students during the lst part of
  seatwork
• Aim for contacts of lt30 seconds
• Remember the importance of room arrangement

39
Management continued

• Have established routines for
• when you are finished where to put your
  work
• what to do if you finish early
• when you have questions about directions
• May use external mediation peers

40
Homework

• Assignments to be done at home.
• Required in most districts starting in
  kindergarten.
• Suffers from more errors and poor engagement
  rates than seatwork.

41
Research on Hmwk

• Not correlated w/ achievement until about JHS
• Probably no benefit for el ed
• Often more correlated with parental skills than
  child skills

42
El Ed Effective Homework

• Should hone childs study skills
• Have the children practice things you know they
  can do.
• Focus on creativity.
• Plan what parents should do.

43
Middle School Hmwk

• Text says 1-2 hours a night optimal!
• Pleezeno wonder no one exercises!!!
• Consider less per LLM

44
Effective Homework

• Have children practice study skills
• --highlighting
• --taking notes
• --outlining chapters
• --summarizing information

45
Effective Homework

• Never give a new assignment
• Break a large assignment into pieces (such as a
  book report)

46
Teaching Learning Strategies
47
Info Processing Approaches to Lrn Strategies

• Teach children specific memory strategies
• Teach children metacognitive skills
• when they are/arent paying attention
• which memory strategies work best for what
  information

48
Child-centered instruction

• Follows the childs lead

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Child Centered Instruction

• Individualized instruction
• Discussion groups
• Cooperative learning
• Discovery learning

50
Individualized instruction

• Goals, objectives, pace of instruction,
  assessment all determined by student
• Works well for highly motivated students, in
  tutoring type interactions in computerized AI

51
Individualized Instruction

• Not superior to direct instruction
• Elements can be incorporated into regular
  classrooms
• Depends heavily on student motivation

52
Discussion Groups

• Purpose open-ended, the process of discussion is
  the outcome (not the same as teacher led).
• Called whole-group instructions in the text when
  they are teacher led.

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Advantages

• Advantages
• students are active
• fosters increase in higher-level thinking
  

54
Disadvantages

• Unpredictable
• Many disagreements
• Dominant personalities-hear too much from some,
  not enough from others

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Improving Discussion Groups

• Establish common ground
• Arrange the setting
• Plan the groups (size, composition)
• Monitor the interaction
• Teach how to handle disagreements

56
Cooperative Learning Groups

• Purpose
• Children work in groups to create a product.
• Usually mixed ability grouping
• Children learn to work together scaffold each
  other.

57
Advantages

• Children are active
• Promotes shared learning and other regulation.

58
Disadvantages

• Dominant personalities can dominate the work
• Not all children are able work at an equal level
• Difficult to grade fairly

59
Improving Cooperative Learning

• Choose the topic carefully
• Choose the size and composition of the group
• Assign roles that are equal in importance but
  take into consideration different student skills
• Dont grade

60
Child Centered Instructions

• child-centered instruction still has a place.
• can be used at specific points in the learning
  cycle
• Esp. where student activity and practice are most
  important to solidify skills.