1. Franklin High School January 2010
Instructional Strategies that Enhance Student Learning in Block Schedules
Franklin High School
January 2010

2. Bell-work
What components do you consciously include when designing an effective lesson plan?
List some instructional strategies that you frequently find successful.
How do you go about deciding (a) what to teach and (b) how to teach it?
Play music quietly in background as they work

3. Targets
Faculty will understand the important relationship between brain based learning and effective instructional approaches in a block setting
Faculty will be able to identify and apply a 5-step process to lesson planning to enhance student attention, engagement and learning
Agenda
Bell-work
Targets
Importance of planning
Block with the Brain in Mind
5-step lesson plan template
Why did I post the agenda and the targets? – Outcomes provide an advance organizer for the brain and enhance retention – remember the brain remembers best what it hears first and last.
Because what is ultimately our goal at the end of any lesson? – They remember and understand what we want them to remember and understand

4. Bell-work
What components do you consciously include when designing an effective lesson plan?
List some instructional strategies that you frequently find successful.
How do you go about deciding (a) what to teach and (b) how to teach it?
What purposes do bell-work or sponge activities serve?
Briefly solicit examples from teachers and then discuss the purpose of sponge activities – as an advance organizer, a tool for previewing which is a repitition strategy, and a method for activating prior knowledge.

5. “You can teach more faster, but students will simply forget more faster. In- depth (as opposed to superficial) learning requires time for organizing, integrating, and storing new information.”
Handout “The Great Ideas of Science” – as examples of big ideas we should be spending our time on. Have Gary speak a bit about what Voc Ed is doing as their focus goal. Individually look over the Great Ideas – then find a partner not sitting within arms length of you and discuss how one of these great ideas could be taught in your content area. – Whats my point? Relevancy, creativity and interdisciplinary approaches are excellent ways to engage kids in meaningful learning.
Consciously plan to teach for depth on “Big Ideas” of your subject area

6. Learning – 2 categories Explicit Learning:
Consists of what we commonly read, write, and talk about
Conveyed via such means as textbooks, lectures, pictures and videos
Implicit Learning
Consists of things we learn through life experience, habit, games, experiential learning, and other “hands-on” activities
(Jensen, E. Teaching With the Brain in Mind)
It is vitally important the we consider both kinds of learning when we plan our instructional strategies

7. Complex Learning – 7 Critical Factors
Engagement (goal oriented attention and action)
Repetition (priming, reviewing, and revising)
Input quantity (capacity, flow, chunk size)
Coherence (models, relevance, prior knowledge)
Timing (time of day, interval learning)
Error correction (mistakes, feedback, support)
Emotional states (safety, state of dependency)
(Jensen, E. Teaching With the Brain in Mind)
Can we learn without engagement? – Yes - Unconscious acquisition – 90% of learning – not deep learning however
Ask for two volunteers – quick impression of an unengaged student and then of a highly engaged student

8. Paying attention
“Attention is ‘payment’ of the brain’s precious resources. It requires that we orient, engage, and maintain each appropriate neural network. In addition, we must exclude or suppress external and internal distracters…In short, paying attention is not easy to do consciously.” -Eric Jensen
The simple point of utilizing good instructional practices it to try and win the battle for the students conscious memory – not an easy fight to win

9. Practical Suggestions
Brevity – cut the length of focused attention – the human brain is poor at nonstop attention. It needs time for processing and rest after learning.
Compelling & Relevant Tasks – meaning building tasks such as grouping & regrouping material, critiquing and analyzing it, resequencing content, using graphic organizers, summarizing
Movement – raises amine levels in the brain and elicits a state of aroused attention
Teachers who

10. Attention Spans – Guidelines for Direct Instruction of New Content
Grade Level
Appropriate Amount of Direct Instruction
K-2
5-8 minutes
Grades 3-5
8-12 minutes
Grades 6-8
12-15 minutes
Grades 9-12
Adult Learners
15-18 minutes
Does this have some implications for how we approach instruction in 86 minutes? Based on this students would learn about 25% of what you are teaching if you only use DI

11. Movement Kids need to be active and move during a block lesson.
How might you incorporate movement in a meaningful way in your lessons?

12. The Five Step Lesson Plan
Introduction
Refer to previous lessons/units
Point to what’s coming
Whet the students’ appetites
Assess students abilities/past performances
Direct Instruction
Direct the learning
Facilitate, without necessarily lecturing
Assess students
Guided Practice
Provide opportunities for students to work with new material
Guide students through the process

13. The Five Step Lesson Plan
Independent practice
Encourage student autonomy
Recognize the benefits to long-term memory development
Choose appropriate homework, a prime example of independent practice
Assess students
5. Closure
Review what has happened
Emphasize key points
Point to what will happen next

14. Getting Started
“It is critical to provide activities for students that will immediately engage them as they walk in the door. Activities that are meaningful to students provide an “emotional hook” that in turn fosters attention and learning.” -Dr. Pam Robbins, Learning Beyond Boundaries

15. Starting the lesson
“How a lesson starts goes a long way in determining how smoothly the class runs and how much the kids learn.” – Rick Smith
Strategy – Sponges or Bell-Work
Anything we normally have students do, as long as they can do it silently and without having to ask for directions or clarifications
Assign several activities to keep all engaged – start class when everyone has the first task or item complete
Eric Jensen stresses – however important you consider prior knowledge, multiply that times ten
Ask for an example or two

16. The Lesson Itself Strategy – Variety
Plan at-least 3 to 4 activities per lesson with a minimum of one in which the teacher is off the stage
Employ shifts in focus and energy at least every ten to twelve minutes
Plan in movement breaks several times in a period (transitions between activities are good opportunities)
The brain loves to talk so provide opportunities for students to work together
Ask for an example or two

17. Pacing, feedback & participation
Build in opportunities for independent practice so you can assess and provide additional help to your slower processors
Increase wait time during discussion – wait for 6 hands to be raised before calling on a student – and say “thank you” instead of “right”
Class choral recital – every once in awhile ask all students to say an answer out loud together
Practice effective chunking – don’t try and deliver too much content at one time

18. Movement breaks Strategies
Find a partner in a different part of the room
Transitions between activities
Everyone who hears my voice clap twice (when transitioning back from small group to full group)
Breathing – ask students to take a deep breath and exhale together
Stretching – can be done in seats or standing up. Schedule in a “7th inning stretch”
Give yourself a pat on the back on opposite sides – gets the blood flowing and activates both the right and left hemispheres
Action Thermometer (Four Corners) strategy – have students physically move to a place to represent a point of view
Ball or frisbee toss discussions

19. Closure What do students remember most from your lesson?
The first and last thing they hear!
The last three-minutes can be the most significant of any lesson as they can markedly increase student retention by allowing them to reflect on their learning. This enhances the potential of the material moving from the short-term to long-term memory. Whenever possible have the students actively involved during closure.
Strategies – Reciprocal Teaching (students pair off and take turns summarizing), Highlights (students come up with one or more key ideas from the lesson), Exit slips, Provide a unifying metaphor or simple analogy
Full group recitation of first and last thing they hear

20. Use the Block as it is intended!
“The major power of longer teaching periods is that such periods make the attention to brain compatible teaching practices far more feasible.” (Fitzgerald, 1996)

21. Highlights Identify some key take aways for today’s presentation
Identify some examples of instructional strategies used during this presentation
Manage pacing by focusing on big ideas and depth of learning
Always consider how the brain works when designing learning activities
Repetition, movement & pacing are important considerations in extended periods