Instructional Practices For Middle School By: Alexandra Adams

As cited by Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012): 1. Helping Students Develop Understanding 2. Helping Students Extend and Apply Knowledge

Helping Students… -Cues, questions, and advanced organizers -Nonlinguistic representations -Summarizing and notetaking -Assigning homework and providing practice -Identifying similarities and differences -Generating and testing hypotheses

-Cueing and questioning both “activate students’ prior knowledge and give them an idea of what they will learn” (Dean et al., 2012, p. 50). -Advance organizers allow students to use background knowledge to learn new concepts.

1.Focus on what is important 2.Use explicit cues 3.Ask inferential questions 4.Ask analytic questions

- Examples for middle school students -Narrative- “hook” activity -Skimming- “book walk” activity -Graphic- graphic organizer before lesson

1.Graphic organizers 2.Physical models 3.Mental pictures 4.Pictures, illustrations, pictographs 5.Kinesthetic activities

-Both linguistic and nonlinguistic -Common organizers: -Time Sequence -Process/Cause-Effect -Goal is for students to make on their own (Richard Strong, Educational Impact, n.d., Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy).

-Ask students to generate mental pictures -Enables students to “make sense” of their learning so they can retrieve it later. -Great strategy to use with ESOL.

-All strategies all the student to create their own meaning behind the material. -Great way to integrate technology into the lesson. -Another excellent strategy to use with ESOL students.

-More neural networks (Jensen) -Includes: o Role playing o Acting out vocabulary words o Using the body to illustrate concepts o Gestures -Great ESOL strategy

-Facilitate learning through: -Capturing -Organizing -Reflecting -Involves higher order thinking skills

-Better results with other cognitive strategies -Can be confusing -Taught to be descriptive -Asked to be concise -Summarize essential information -Benefit from a variety of formats -Not intuitive, must be taught explicitly

-Series of questions to point out elements in a text. -6 frames: 1. narrative 2. topic-solution 3. definition 4. argumentation 5. problem-solution 6. conversation

1.What is the basic claim or focus of the information? 2.What information is presented that leads to a claim? 3.What examples or explanations support the claim? 4.What restricts the claim? What evidence counters the claim?

-4 comprehension strategies: -Summarizing -Questioning -Clarifying -Predicting

Teacher Prepared Notes -“create notes for students as information is presented” (Dean et al., 2012, p 91). -Models how to create notes -Prepared notes can be in template form.

Webbing  “Nonlinear and uses shapes, colors, and arrows to show relationships between ideas” (Dean et al., 2012, p. 93).  Students share  deepen knowledge Informal Outlining  Students can handwrite notes, type outlines.  Can be paragraphs, bullet points, etc.

Web 2.0 Tools for Notetaking -Live Binders -Diigo -Evernote -Twitter -Edmodo -Symbaloo

Assigning Homework -Effects are not clear; mixed results -Positive- -Traditionally thought to yield positive results -Access to corrective feedback -Practice more than 1 skill at a time -Negative- -Conflicts between parents & students -Physical and mental fatigue -Limited time for leisure activities -Disrupt family time

-Develop school homework policy -Provide assignments that support academic learning -Provide feedback

-Identify and communicate purpose of practice activities -Practice sessions are short, focused, and distributed overtime -Provide feedback on practice sessions (as cited by Dean et al., 2012, pp )

-Students can focus when short. -Designed to focus on specific multistep or complex skills. -Practice sessions should be immediate and closer together. -Students build understanding before speed.

-Formative practice should not be graded -Grades do not help students shape their practice and improve performance (Dean et al., 2012, p. 114). -Multiple formative  summative practice -Grade summative after exposure to feedback on formative.

-Strategies: -Comparing/contrasting -Classifying -Allows students to compare information, sort concepts, & make connections to existing knowledge (Dean et al., 2012, p. 119)

-Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works, 2 nd ed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. -Educational Impact (n.d.). Hidden skills of academic literary: What do94% of all test items require? [Video file]. Retrieved from ivity/5pract_01a_02/ ivity/5pract_01a_02/ -Educational Impact (n.d.). Research-based strategies; compare/contrast: The four phases of thorough comparison. [Video file]. Retrieved from urces/5pract/pdf/5practices_3A_transcript.pdf urces/5pract/pdf/5practices_3A_transcript.pdf