EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS RESEARCH

Research indicates that a child’s success in school is significantly influenced by having:

GOOD, RESEARCH-BASED INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES

While the research suggests that instructional strategies are not as important to a child’s academic success as having good family support and the social interaction skills necessary for school success, the following instructional strategies have proven effective in helping to raise the achievement levels of children from high-risk environments:

Teaching students how to learn

Effective classroom teachers function more as facilitators of learning than transmitters of knowledge. They use practices that support children’s active curiosity. Students learn to direct their own learning. They learn to organize their own time, identify resources for learning, and demonstrate what they have learned. They become aware of what goes on in their own mind during learning. This is a critical first step to effective independent learning. The research shows that students who plan, organize and monitor their own learning are more successful academically.

Among the particular skills students can learn are setting clear learning goals, underlining key information, quizzing themselves about the content to be learned, organizing new material by concepts, and learning to know when to ask for assistance.

Use of direct instruction where appropriate

Children from some minority cultural groups have a learning culture which may not be aligned with that of the mainstream community in which they are being educated. For these children direct instruction may help take them through learning steps systematically and allow them see both the purpose and the result of each step. It can help to lead them through a process and teach them to use that process as a skill to master other academic tasks. In this way, they learn not only a particular lesson’s content but also a method for learning that content. The basic components of direct instruction are:

• setting clear goals for students and making sure they understand those goals
• presenting a sequence of well-organized assignments
• Giving students clear, concise explanations and illustrations of the subject matter
• asking frequent questions to see if children understand the work
• giving them frequent opportunities to practice what they have learned

Instruction adapted to students’ learning needs.

Teachers who effectively respond to students’ academic differences use many strategies to adapt instruction. They vary how new information is presented and support problem solving. They modify the amount of time they spend on review, vary the number of examples they use to explain or clarify, and tailor their use of summaries and points of emphases. They also use a variety of assessment formats that allow children with diverse talents and abilities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Classrooms which have positive peer interaction

After the family, peers are the most important source of support, providing children and adolescents with a sense of being cared for, valued, and loved.

Opportunities to interact with students who have high achievement motivation, positive attitudes towards schools, and a positive academic self-concept can be beneficial to students who find school difficult. Students whose friends value high achievement spend more time on homework, finish more of their homework assignments, attend school more regularly, and are less often tardy or absent without permission.

Cooperative learning

Students working together in small groups can support and increase each other’s learning. In whole-class instruction only one person can speak at a time and shy children may be reluctant to enter into discussion. But in small groups each member can make a contribution and, in this way, learning can be increased.

Cooperative learning is most effective when students clearly understand the teacher’s goals and when students are expected and taught to explain things to one another instead of just providing answers.

Mastery learning

Mastery learning involves careful sequencing, monitoring, and control of the learning process and the research indicates that it can be successful in raising the learning rate. Achieving mastery of the beginning steps of a learning process ensures that a student will continue to make progress as the material becomes more complex.

Frequent monitoring of a student’s progress helps a teacher to decide when additional time and corrective remedies are needed.

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What works: research about teaching and learning. 1987.