Academic Strategies to Enhance Learning

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Academic Strategies to Enhance Learning

• Michelle Fattig, Ed.S.
• Doctoral Candidate
• NorthCentral University

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Accommodating All Students 'Classic' Ideas That
Teachers Can Use to Diversify Classroom
Instruction

• Teachers are required to accommodate a wide
  range of student abilities in their classrooms.
  The following are some 'classic' ideas that
  teachers found help them to meet the unique
  learning needs of particular students within a
  busy general-education classroom.
• Retrieved January 5, 2007 from
  http//www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interve
  ntions/genAcademic/classic.php

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To communicate clearly with students

• Post a daily classroom schedule. Preview the
  schedule with students and highlight academic and
  behavioral expectations for each activity. Leave
  the schedule up through the entire day.
• Speak in a clear voice that all students can hear
  easily ('strong teacher instructional signal').
  Be sure that all students can see the board or
  projection screen without difficulty.
• Make eye contact with the student before giving
  directions. Have the student repeat directions
  back to you before beginning assignment.
• Use simple, clear language when communicating
  with the child.
• Keep instructions brief. Break multi-step
  directions into smaller subsets-and have the
  student complete one subset before advancing to
  another.
• Write assignments or complex directions on the
  board in addition to saying them.
• Retrieved January 5, 2007 from
  http//www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interve
  ntions/
• genAcademic/classic.php

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To ensure student understanding of newly
introduced academic material

• Structure lessons so that they contain no more
  than one-quarter new material. (Students are most
  successful when they can 'anchor' new concepts to
  known information.)
• Match student's level of instruction to ability
  level to guarantee him or her high rate of
  success (80 or greater).
• Use a 'think-aloud' approach Talk through the
  steps of a problem-solving strategy as you teach
  it so that students can understand and
  internalize those steps. Then have them use the
  same 'think-aloud' approach as they work through
  the strategy, so that you can observe them and
  offer feedback.
• Give the student your master notes as a guide for
  improving or expanding his or her own notes. Or
  at the end of each class period, have the student
  compare his or her notes for thoroughness and
  accuracy against those of a classmate who takes
  thorough notes.
• Retrieved January 5, 2007 from
  http//www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interve
  ntions/
• genAcademic/classic.php

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To promote student motivationin group
instruction

• Seat the student at the front of the room, so
  that you face him or her as you teach (the
  teaching 'action zone')
• Use alerting cues to get the class's attention
  before giving a directive or assignment.
• Integrate learning into game-like tasks that
  allow students to win praise, points, privileges,
  or rewards promote friendly competition between
  student teams or use puzzles, riddles, or other
  novel vehicles to kindle student interest.
• Present instructional material in short sessions
  at a brisk pace.
• Require that students engage in some type of
  active responding to teacher instruction (e.g.,
  students respond to teacher question in unison
  students write down their response and then the
  teacher calls randomly on one student to share
  his or her answer students break into small
  groups and use cooperative-learning strategies to
  solve a problem).
• Retrieved January 5, 2007 from
  http//www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interve
  ntions/
• genAcademic/classic.php

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Summarization for Reading Comprehension

• Ask students for the overall idea of the selected
  reading
• Have the students help write a general statement
  about the story
• Ask them to list the main ideas with two or three
  supporting ideas for each main idea
• Give each part of the story a heading a record
  important details that the students help to
  identify
• Identify what information is and is not important
• Ask the students to describe the parts of the
  passage
• Relate the important parts of the passage to the
  main topic and/or the title
• Have students write a summary that includes each
  of the parts
• Have students check the summary against what was
  read to see if anything important was left out
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 67.

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Who Should Learn Summarization

• Summarization is likely to benefit students low
  in comprehension, because it helps children to
  see how all of the parts are connected and to
  approach reading in a more strategic way,
  prompting them in a step-by-step manner to look
  for important details and related parts of a
  story.
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 68.

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Summarization Strategy for Reading Comprehension

• Guide students to underline or circle most
  important parts
• Encourage the students to look back in the text
  and scan (but not re-read)
• Encourage use of overall labels for information
  (e.g., ducks, geese, cows are barnyard animals)
• Instruct students to write important ideas, order
  the ideas by importance, and ignore unimportant
  information
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 68.

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More guidelines for summarization

• Use direct explanation
• Teach why, when, and where to apply summarization
• Model skills. Talk through examples and show how
  the skill is applied
• Break down into simple steps
• Summarize short paragraphs before proceeding to
  harder/longer
• Phase out teacher directives as students
  demonstrate successful, self-directed
  implementation of the techniques
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 68.

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Understanding Text

• Good reading skills require understanding the
  meaning of what is written even if not explicitly
  stated.
• Extended Questioning and Self Questioning help
  students to think more deeply about what the are
  reading and encourage the necessary connections
  between the known and what they are reading by
  producing elaborations on the to-be-learned facts
  and connections to what they already know.
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 69.

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Teaching Extended Questioning and Self-Questioning

• Assign to groups
• Have students read the text
• Have students ask questions, such as
• Why are you studying in this passage
• What are the main points? Underline
• Can you think of some questions about the main
  idea you have underlined?
• What do you already know about the topic?
• What do you want to learn about the topic?
• How does this relate to what you know?
• Tell students how to learn the answers by looking
  at the question and answers to see how each
  provides them with information.
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003).
  Helping children learn Intervention handouts
  for use in school and at home.
  Baltimore, MA Brookes Publishing, p. 68.

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Teaching Extended Questioning and
Self-Questioning cont.

• Ask the class these questions as a group, list
  answers to the questions, and note elaborations.
• An excellent resource can be found at
• www.mindtools.com/memory.html
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003).
  Helping children learn Intervention handouts
  for use in school and at home. Baltimore, MA
  Brookes Publishing, p. 69.

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Chunking for reading decoding and spelling

• PLAN
• Look at the word.
• Find the chunk.
• Sound out the chunk.
• Sound out the beginning.
• Sound out the chunk.
• Sound out the ending.
• Say the word.

• Action
• I see the word beginning.
• I see the chunk ginn.
• I say, ginn.
• I say, be.
• I say, ginn.
• I say, ing.
• I say, beginning.
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 73.

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Plans for Basic Math

• Helps learners to remember by thinking, rather
  than rote memory
• Doubles plus one rather than 78
• 22 is a car with four wheels
• 33 is the legs of an ant
• 44 is an octopus with four legs on each side
• 55 is fingers on both hands
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 113.

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Plans for Math

• Cuisenaire Rods and Math
• TouchMath
• Part-Whole Strategy
• Addition parts, Doubling, Doubles plus 1, Doubles
  plus 2, Reconstruction, etc.
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, pp. 115-119.

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Chunking for Multiplication

• Read the problem 2x8
• Point to a number you know how to count by twos
• Make the number of slash marks indicated by the
  other number
• Count by twos as you touch each mark, 2, 4, 6,
  8..
• Stop counting at the last mark ..10, 12, 14, 16
• The number you stopped on is the answer 16
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003). Helping
  children learn Intervention handouts for use in
  school and at home. Baltimore, MA Brookes
  Publishing, p. 123.

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Math Word Problems

• Read the problem slowly and carefully.
• Cross out information that is not relevant.
• Draw a diagram of the problem.
• State the facts in your own words.
• Estimate what the answer should be.
• Calculate the answer and check against the
  estimate.
• Check your work.
• Remember you have to know basic facts to get the
  answer (or allow calculator use).
• Be persistent.
• Be sure you read the problem correctly.
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003).
  Helping children learn Intervention handouts
  for use in school and at home. Baltimore, MA
  Brookes Publishing, p. 127.

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Arithmetic Word Problems Teach how to classify
into four types

• Change problems involving values that are
  changed as the result of some action by the
  student (e.g. Jack has two pencils, Mary gave him
  three more, how many does Jack have now?).
• Combine requires a more general view of the
  mathematical situation by computing a total based
  on a new way of organizing the problem (e.g.,
  Jack has two pencils and Mary has three. How
  many pencils to they have altogether?). The new
  concept of children as a group is required.
• Compare the quantity of the sets does not
  change, but the operations demand that a relative
  relationship be determined (e.g., How many more
  pencils does Mary have than Jack?).
• Equalize these problems require that the values
  be equalized. (Jack has two pencils and Mary has
  four. How many more pencils does Jack need to
  equal Mary?).
• Naglieri, J.A. Pickering, E.B. (2003).
  Helping children learn Intervention handouts
  for use in school and at home. Baltimore, MA
  Brookes Publishing, p. 127.